Chapter 6 - The Soft Men in Expensive Suits
Damon read the sentence again until the letters stopped looking like language.
SHE IS NOT MY DAUGHTER.
Sophie watched his face.
"Is it bad?"
Damon folded the page back down.
"It is information."
"Mom says that's what people say when it's bad."
He almost laughed.
Almost.
Instead he handed the ledger to Diego.
"We are changing the plan."
Diego glanced at the timer.
11:36.
"We don't have much plan left to change."
"Call Anton. Tell him to prep the helicopter."
"Airspace to Newark in this weather?"
"Tell him to prep it."
Damon looked at Sophie.
"You're coming with me."
Teresa swore in Italian.
"Absolutely not."
"Victor already knows where she is. Leaving her here means trusting a compromised house."
"Taking a child to a hostage exchange means you have lost your mind."
"I'm not taking her to an exchange."
Sophie raised her hand.
No one acknowledged it.
She kept it up.
Damon sighed. "What?"
"I get carsick in helicopters."
Diego looked at her. "That's impressively specific."
"Mom took me once. I threw up in a man's hat."
"Whose hat?"
"He got mad, so Mom said his name wasn't important."
Damon stared at the child who might be his daughter.
There were biological questions, dates, blood types, photographs.
But none of that mattered in the next ten minutes.
What mattered was Mara was alive.
Victor wanted Sophie.
And someone inside Damon's organization had moved people through his companies under his signature.
"Car," Damon said. "Tunnel SUV. Diego drives."
They moved.
As they climbed into the vehicle beneath the carriage house, Damon sent one message through a secure satellite handset to his chief counsel, Adrian Bell.
EMERGENCY BOARD SESSION. 30 MINUTES. VIDEO. ALL PRINCIPALS.
Adrian replied within nine seconds.
Understood.
That was the problem.
Adrian always understood.
For twelve years he had been the person Damon never needed to question.
Mara's message returned to him.
The person selling you out is the person who never needs to lie to you because you never ask him questions.
Damon watched rain streak the SUV window.
"Diego."
"Yeah?"
"How often does Adrian review port insurance riders?"
"No idea."
"You should."
"I do bullets. He does paper."
"Paper moves more bodies than bullets."
Diego met Damon's eyes in the mirror.
"You think Bell is in it?"
"I think certainty is expensive."
Sophie sat between them in the second row with Warden's old leather training pouch on her lap. Diego had found it discarded in the tunnel garage, placed there for them to find.
Inside were the whistle and rubber balls Damon remembered.
And one object he did not.
A brass metronome key.
Sophie turned it between her fingers.
"Mom used to wind something with this."
"What?"
"A little wooden box. It clicked."
"Three and two?"
"No. Just click, click, click. She hated it."
Damon looked at the route ahead.
They were not driving toward Port Newark.
He had sent Diego south toward one of Castellano Capital's corporate conference centers in Jersey City.
"We're not going to my mom," Sophie said.
It was not a question.
"Not yet."
"You said yes when I asked if she was coming."
"She is."
"That's not the same thing."
Damon turned.
"Your mother is being held by a man who wants me emotional and fast. So I'm going to be boring and slow."
"The clock is fast."
"The clock is theater."
Sophie's eyes filled but she did not cry.
"What if you're wrong?"
Damon had sent men to die based on thinner assumptions.
He had never hated a question more.
"Then I will live with it."
Sophie looked down.
"Mom says that's what powerful men say when other people have to live with it too."
Damon turned back to the rain.
He had no answer.
At 9:00 on the countdown, they entered the underground garage beneath the conference center.
Anton Moretti, Damon's operations chief, waited beside the private elevator with four guards.
He saw Sophie and Warden and frowned.
"We hosting a school trip?"
"Conference room four. Phones outside."
"Victor called me."
Damon stopped.
"When?"
"Twenty minutes ago. Said you were unstable. Said Mara Quinn resurfaced and was blackmailing you."
"What did you tell him?"
Anton smiled faintly. "I told him you were always unstable."
Diego's hand drifted toward his jacket.
Anton noticed.
"Relax. If I wanted him, he'd be dead in the garage."
Damon watched him.
Anton had served his father before serving Damon.
Another man with access to old routes.
Another obvious suspect.
Mara's warning again.
Not the obvious traitor.
They rode upstairs.
Adrian Bell joined the emergency board call from Manhattan, immaculate in a charcoal suit, silver tie, and expression of patient concern.
Three other executives appeared from remote offices.
Damon sat at the head of the table.
Sophie colored on hotel stationery at the far end while Warden lay at her feet.
The countdown showed 6:42.
"Gentlemen," Damon said. "Someone has been using Castellano logistics to move trafficked people."
Silence.
Not shock.
Calculation.
He watched every face.
Adrian removed his glasses.
"That is an extraordinary allegation."
"No. It's a ledger. Allegation is what lawyers call evidence before billing for it."
One executive swallowed.
Another looked off-screen.
Adrian remained still.
"Where is this ledger?"
There.
Not Who did this?
Not Are you certain?
Where is it?
Damon leaned back.
"Safe."
Adrian nodded.
"Then we should immediately transfer it to counsel for privileged review."
"No."
A pause.
"Damon, exposure here could be catastrophic."
"For whom?"
Adrian's expression changed by less than a millimeter.
"The organization."
Sophie tapped her red clip on the table.
Three. Pause. Two.
Adrian's eyes flicked toward the sound.
Damon saw it.
Sophie saw him see it.
The child stopped tapping.
Damon said, "Adrian, do you know Mara Quinn?"
"The trainer who disappeared? I've heard the name."
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Pause.
Tap.
Tap.
Adrian's right hand curled beneath the table.
Damon smiled without warmth.
"You heard more than the name."
Adrian stood.
His camera shook.
Behind him, a door opened.
Victor Castellano walked into frame.
The countdown on Damon's phone hit 5:00.
Victor rested both hands on Adrian's shoulders.
"Nephew," he said. "You always did love board meetings."
Then Mara appeared behind them, wrists bound, a gun pressed to the base of her skull.
Not in a hotel room.
May you like
In Adrian Bell's Manhattan office.
The Mafia Boss's Dog Showed No Mercy - 15-Chapter Full Edition
