Chapter 9 - The Laundry

At 5:58 p.m., Maya stood alone beneath the broken sign of Saint Vincent Industrial Laundry with Isabella’s copied drive inside her coat.

Rain had started again.

Chicago seemed determined to make every terrible thing happen in the cold.

Her earpiece was gone. Too easy to detect. The tracker Marco had given her was taped beneath the inner sole of her left shoe.

No weapon.

No visible protection.

She pushed open the rusted door.

“Hello?”

A flashlight snapped on.

“Hands up.”

Maya obeyed.

Two masked men searched her thoroughly. One removed her phone, smashed it against a concrete pillar, and patted down her coat.

“Drive.”

She handed it over.

“Where’s Janelle?”

“Walk.”

They took her through a room filled with abandoned washers large enough to hide bodies, then down a corridor where steam pipes had long since gone cold.

Janelle sat tied to a metal chair beneath a hanging work light.

Her lip was split. Otherwise she looked intact.

“Maya.”

“I’m here.”

“I specifically told you not to do anything stupid.”

Maya nearly laughed.

A third man entered.

No mask.

Silver falcon pin.

Dominic Vale looked exactly like his gala photograph, except tired.

Maya stared at him. “That’s disappointingly obvious.”

He touched the pin. “Sentimental habit.”

“You kidnapped a six-year-old wearing your identifying jewelry?”

“I never planned to be seen by her.”

Janelle said, “Criminal genius.”

Dominic ignored her.

He held out his hand to the masked man, received the drive, and studied Maya.

“You opened Isabella’s room.”

“The song did.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I barely believe it.”

Dominic’s expression shifted. “Isabella always liked theatrical safeguards.”

“You knew about the red door.”

“I knew she had hidden something. I didn’t know where until Evelyn panicked.”

Maya’s heart accelerated. “Where is Evelyn?”

“Alive, last I checked.”

“Why help Alessia?”

Dominic’s jaw tightened. “Because Evelyn has a conscience that arrives late.”

“And you don’t?”

“Conscience is expensive.”

He inserted the drive into a laptop on a nearby table.

Maya watched carefully.

“What did Isabella find?” she asked.

“Nothing she understood.”

“She understood enough to scare you.”

Dominic smiled without warmth. “She understood money. She did not understand survival.”

Janelle said, “You sound like a man who practices speeches in mirrors.”

One guard struck the back of her chair.

Maya snapped, “Don’t touch her.”

Dominic looked amused. “There it is. Same instinct that kept you in that warehouse.”

“Why was Alessia there?”

“We needed Luca distracted.”

“You kidnapped his child to distract him?”

“To move him. There is a difference.”

“Move him where?”

Dominic’s eyes sharpened. “Away from a transaction.”

Maya remembered Isabella’s spreadsheets. Foundation transfers. City systems. Judges.

“What transaction?”

“Not your concern.”

“It became my concern when you put a microphone in my apartment.”

Dominic closed the laptop.

“The copy is incomplete.”

Maya forced confusion. “That’s what was in the room.”

“No. Isabella’s master files include a key ledger.”

Good.

He did not know Marco had found the second encrypted partition that afternoon.

Maya said, “Then maybe she never finished it.”

Dominic stepped closer. “Where is Luca?”

“At home.”

“Liar.”

He pulled a gun.

Janelle went still.

Maya’s pulse roared in her ears.

Dominic pressed the barrel beneath Maya’s chin.

“Where is he?”

Maya remembered Luca’s face before she left.

If anything changes, you walk away.

Too late.

She looked directly at Dominic. “If you kill me, you still don’t get the ledger.”

His eyes narrowed.

“And if you kill Janelle, you lose the only leverage you have.”

“You think very highly of yourself.”

“No. I think very poorly of your options.”

A distant metallic sound echoed through the building.

Dominic’s head turned.

One masked man lifted his weapon.

Another sound.

Closer.

Dominic grabbed Maya by the arm. “You brought them.”

“I came alone.”

Technically true.

Gunfire erupted somewhere below.

The lights died.

Janelle screamed.

Maya dropped instantly and kicked toward Dominic’s knee.

He cursed.

A weapon fired above her.

Then Marco’s voice thundered from the darkness.

“DOWN!”

Men moved through the room with terrifying speed.

Maya crawled toward Janelle’s chair.

A hand seized her shoulder.

She twisted, ready to fight.

Luca’s voice came out of the dark.

“It’s me.”

She froze.

“You were supposed to stay out,” she gasped.

“So were you.”

He pulled her behind a concrete pillar as another shot cracked.

Within ninety seconds, it was over.

Two kidnappers were wounded. One surrendered. Dominic was gone.

A rear service door stood open to the rail line.

Marco swore.

Luca looked at Maya, then at Janelle as guards cut her free.

“He planned an escape.”

Maya shook her head.

“No.”

She looked at the abandoned laptop.

“He planned to lose this place.”

Luca followed her gaze.

On the screen, before the power died, Dominic had copied something from the fake drive.

Not Isabella’s evidence.

A tracking program Marco had embedded in it.

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Maya exhaled.

“He took the bait.”