Chapter 13 - I Made Brendan Believe I Was Still His Weakest Point

The plan was mine.

That mattered.

Jared objected to almost every part of it, but he did not forbid it. Naomi improved the technical details. Elena handled security. Federal investigators approved only after three hours of argument and enough safeguards to make Brendan believe I was alone without ever truly leaving me unprotected.

I sent him one message.

I READ THE FILE. YOU WIN. TELL ME WHERE TO GO.

He answered in forty seconds.

A laundromat in Queens. Midnight. No Jared. No police.

I wore a transmitter stitched into my coat seam and a panic switch inside my glove. Elena placed teams two blocks away. Jared stayed in an unmarked van with Naomi because if Brendan saw him, the meeting would end before it began.

At 12:07 a.m., Brendan walked into the laundromat.

He looked almost exactly as he had the last time I saw him.

That was the first shock.

Same dark hair. Same careful coat. Same face that could look gentle while he described the consequences of disobedience.

"You look tired," he said.

For years, that sentence had meant he was about to explain what was wrong with me.

Now it just sounded rehearsed.

"You had people follow me."

"I protected you."

There it was.

The old vocabulary.

"By writing reports about me?"

His expression barely changed. "Victor asked questions. I answered enough to keep him from becoming curious in person."

"You sold me."

"I kept you alive."

"You always have a noble name for control."

His jaw tightened.

Good.

Anger made him less polished.

"Where's Victor?"

"Not your problem."

"Bellandi?"

He smiled. "Definitely not your problem."

"Then why did you threaten Sophie?"

"Because Jared Kensington does not move for money. He moves for people he thinks are his responsibility."

"And me?"

Brendan looked at me the way he used to when he wanted me to remember that he knew more than I did.

"You still move for guilt."

I let my eyes drop.

He mistook it for surrender.

"Come with me," he said. "I have evidence that can put Victor away. You give it to Jared. Jared gives me safe passage and five million. Then everyone walks away."

"And Bellandi?"

"Someone else can worry about Bellandi."

I looked up. "You're afraid of him."

The insult landed.

Brendan stepped closer.

"You have no idea what men like Bellandi do."

"I know what men like you do. You call fear strategy."

His hand snapped around my wrist.

Old terror flashed through me so hard my knees nearly failed.

But I had chosen the glove.

I pressed the panic switch.

Nothing happened immediately.

That was deliberate.

I needed him talking.

"Let go," I said.

He tightened his grip.

"You think Kensington changed you?"

"No. I changed me."

That startled him more than shouting would have.

I pulled my wrist free using the same turn Elena had taught me hours earlier.

Brendan stepped back.

"Victor has Lena's original phone," he said suddenly. "You want something useful? There. He kept it because it contains Bellandi's voice."

My pulse jumped.

"Where?"

"He moves it with him."

"Where is he now?"

Brendan laughed. "You still think this is an interview."

The laundromat lights went out.

A car engine roared outside.

Brendan's expression changed from confidence to panic.

"No."

A shot cracked through the front window.

We dropped.

Elena's teams moved instantly.

Brendan crawled behind a washing machine.

"Victor," he gasped.

Another shot shattered a dryer door.

Whoever was outside was not trying to scare him.

They were trying to erase him.

Police converged from both ends of the street.

The attack stopped as quickly as it began.

Brendan lay on the tile, bleeding from a cut across his temple caused by flying glass.

He grabbed my coat.

"Listen to me. Victor keeps the phone in a church safe. St. Orson's. Brooklyn Heights. Old sacristy. Code is Caesar's birthday."

I stared at him.

"Why tell me?"

His face twisted.

"Because if Bellandi is killing me, I want him buried first."

Then federal agents dragged him away.

He shouted one final thing across the laundromat.

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"Ask Jared why his father paid Bellandi before any of us did!"

During the ride back from Queens, Elena asked whether I regretted meeting Brendan. I thought about it for several blocks. I regretted that he had touched my wrist. I regretted the old panic that flashed through me. But I did not regret hearing him admit fear. He had spent years presenting himself as the person who understood every danger before I did. At the laundromat, he had finally been the frightened one, improvising for survival. That did not make me powerful over him. It simply made the illusion disappear. Jared did not ask me for details when I returned. He handed me tea, sat across the room, and waited until I chose to speak. Sometimes the opposite of control was not comfort. It was space.