Chapter 4 - The Rat in the FoundationThe sweet, dizzying euphoria of the rooftop kiss didn't survive the sunrise.
By 6:00 a.m., the private secure phone on the mahogany desk in Damian’s study was buzzing with a harsh, staccato rhythm that could wake the dead.
I was sitting in an armchair by the floor-to-ceiling windows, wearing one of Damian’s crisp white dress shirts that fell past my knees, sipping black coffee while watching the early morning fog roll over the harbor.
Damian picked up the receiver after the first ring. His face was carved from granite, all trace of the man who had kissed me hours earlier completely vanished.
“Cross,” he barked.
I watched his eyes narrow as Renzo Moretti’s voice crackled through the encrypted speakerphone.
“Boss, we got a problem down at the South Boston container yard,” Renzo reported, sounding unusually shaken. “The shipment from Rotterdam that came in on the midnight freighter? It’s not electronics, and it’s not construction steel.”
Damian stood up so fast his leather chair screeched against the floor. “What is it?”
“C4 explosives,” Renzo said grimly. “Enough to level half the North End docks. And worse... the manifest was signed off with your master security override code.”
The room dropped ten degrees.
I set my coffee cup down on the glass table with a sharp clink, standing up from the armchair.
“My override code?” Damian demanded, his voice dropping into a lethal whisper. “Only three people in this organization have that code: me, you Renzo, and head of IT Marcus Vance.”
“Marcus hasn't answered his phone since three a.m.,” Renzo replied. “His apartment is empty. Looks like he packed a bag and skipped town toward the airport an hour ago.”
Marcus Vance. A distant cousin of Liam Vance, whom Damian had mercifully kept on the payroll after acquiring the tech security firm three years ago out of professional respect.
“He sold us out,” Damian snarled, slamming his fist down on the mahogany desk hard enough to crack the wood. “He’s been feeding Liam our security architecture for months.”
“Where is Marcus now?” I asked, stepping closer to the desk, my medical training instantly pivoting to tactical crisis management.
Renzo paused on the line. “We tracked his burner phone signal, Miss Clara. It’s pinging from an abandoned sugar refinery warehouse down in Charlestown. Liam Vance’s people are meeting him there at seven o’clock to hand over the master encryption keys for the entire Crosswell corporate network.”
Damian grabbed his custom shoulder holster from the back of his chair, sliding it over his broad shoulders with terrifying mechanical efficiency. He checked the magazine of his Sig Sauer, racking a round into the chamber with a sharp, echoing clack.
“Get the tactical teams ready, Renzo,” Damian ordered. “I want that refinery surrounded by six-thirty. Nobody leaves alive.”
“Wait,” I said, stepping right into his path before he could reach the door.
Damian stopped, his green eyes flashing with irritation. “Clara, move. This isn’t a clinic. Charlestown is a war zone right now.”
“Which is exactly why you need me,” I fired back, crossing my arms over the oversized white shirt. “If Marcus Vance has encrypted master keys, he’s carrying them on a hardware drive or his personal laptop. If your men storm the refinery like a pack of wild animals, Marcus is going to panic and smash that drive with a hammer before you can cross the threshold. Then Liam Vance will have permanent backdoor access to every hospital, bank, and shipping terminal you own.”
Damian stared at me, his jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth might fracture.
“No,” he said flatly. “Too dangerous.”
“I’m coming with you,” I insisted, my voice brooking zero argument. “I’m the only one here who knows Marcus’s medical history—he has severe acute asthma and panic disorder under high stress. If he hyperventilates during an ambush, he’ll pass out before he can wipe the server. I can talk him down, get the drive, and patch up whoever gets stupid.”
For five agonizing seconds, the fate of the entire Castalano-Cross empire hung in the balance as Damian stared me down.
Then, with a low, defeated curse, Damian grabbed a spare bulletproof vest from the armoire, hauled me forward, and strapped it tightly over my chest, adjusting the straps until it fit my frame.
May you like
“If you leave my side for even one second down there,” Damian growled, his face inches from mine, “I will burn Charlestown to the ground with Vance inside it.”
“Noted,” I said, slipping a concealed scalpel into the inside pocket of my boots. “Let’s go catch a traitor.”
Related Stories
