Chapter 5 - The Traitor Inside the House
The warehouse stood at the edge of the East River, abandoned except for rusted machinery and broken windows. Owen waited beneath a hanging industrial light with Sal bound to a chair.
Twenty armed men surrounded him.
Maya entered first.
Damian followed ten paces behind with his hands visible.
Owen smiled. “The great Damian Voss, reduced to following a waitress.”
“Release Sal,” Maya said.
“The ledger.”
She held up the leather book.
Owen examined it, then signaled for a man to collect it. The transmitter inside should have activated when the cover opened.
Nothing happened.
Owen flipped through the pages.
“This is a copy.”
A gun pressed against Maya’s back.
Adrian emerged from the shadows.
Damian’s cousin had betrayed them.
Adrian removed the transmitter from the ledger and crushed it beneath his shoe.
“You really believed Victor acted alone?” he asked.
Owen laughed. “Victor discovered our arrangement and tried to gather proof. We gave you a convenient traitor, and you accepted him.”
Damian looked at Adrian. “Why?”
“Because your father promised the empire to my father. Then you took it.”
“My father promised everyone everything.”
“And you turned our family business into hospitals and real estate. You made us respectable while men laughed behind our backs.”
“You murdered innocent people to protect a reputation.”
“We murdered them to remind the city what the Voss name means.”
Owen approached Maya.
“Her father believed evidence made him powerful too.”
Maya’s hands shook, but she held his gaze. “You shot him.”
“He should have surrendered the tapes.”
“You killed him in front of his child.”
“You were supposed to be asleep.”
Damian lunged.
Adrian raised his gun toward Maya.
She dropped as a shot cracked through the warehouse. The bullet struck the light above them, plunging half the room into darkness.
Marcus had taken position on the catwalk.
Gunfire erupted.
Damian pulled Maya behind a steel column. Owen’s men fired toward the windows while Marcus’s team entered from two sides.
Sal tipped his chair and rolled behind machinery.
Adrian found Maya in the darkness and seized her hair. She drove the heel of her hand into his nose. He cursed and struck her across the face.
Damian saw it.
He crossed the space with terrifying speed and slammed Adrian against the wall. The gun fell between them.
Adrian reached for it.
Maya kicked it away.
Damian wrapped both hands around his cousin’s throat.
“Damian,” Maya said.
Adrian’s face darkened.
“Damian, stop.”
He looked at her.
“If you kill him now, he wins.”
Damian released him.
Marcus’s men restrained Adrian.
Across the warehouse, Owen dragged Sal toward an exit. Maya followed before Damian could stop her.
Owen fired twice. She ducked behind an old forklift. When he reached the river door, Sal threw his weight backward, knocking them both to the floor.
Maya seized a length of chain and struck Owen’s wrist. His gun skidded away.
Owen hit her hard enough to blur her vision.
He raised the chain above her.
Damian shot him in the shoulder.
Owen collapsed.
Sirens approached from every direction.
Damian lowered the gun and knelt beside Maya.
“Are you hurt?”
“My face disagrees with Adrian.”
His fingers trembled as he touched her cheek.
The feared Damian Voss was afraid.
Maya covered his hand with hers. “We survived.”
Federal agents entered moments later. The evidence had reached the prosecutor before the meeting, along with Damian’s records of Owen and Adrian’s crimes.
But Owen had one final weapon.
As paramedics lifted him onto a stretcher, he smiled at Damian.
“You gave the government enough to destroy us,” he said. “But you also gave them enough to destroy yourself.”
Damian looked at Maya.
“I know.”
He had known from the beginning that turning over the records would expose his own crimes.
Maya understood his plan at last.
He had not gone to the warehouse expecting to walk free.
Agents approached him with handcuffs.
Damian placed his weapon on the ground.
“No,” Maya whispered.
He took her face between his hands.
“This is how it ends.”
“You promised to ask me again.”
“I’m asking now.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Ask what?”
“Wait for the man I could become.”
May you like
The agents pulled his hands behind his back.
Maya watched them lead him away as dawn broke over the river.
