Chapter 7 - The Devil’s Bargain
The jet engines whined in the background, a high-pitched hum that matched the tension snapping in the air.
I looked at Julian. My son. Back from the dead, standing feet away from me. I looked at Hannah, clutching Lily as if the world was ending. And then I looked at Celeste, bleeding on the concrete but holding the ultimate leverage.
“Victor,” I said quietly.
Victor looked at me, his gun still loosely pointed at Celeste.
“Put the briefcase on the plane,” I ordered.
“Dad, no!” Julian stepped forward. “She’s taking half the empire!”
“Let her,” I snapped, my voice commanding absolute authority. “Money can be rebuilt. Companies can be bought. My granddaughter’s life is not a bargaining chip.”
Victor hesitated, then slowly backed up the stairs of the Gulfstream, setting the metal briefcase inside the cabin. He looked at Celeste with pure disgust, then walked past her, gesturing for the other guards to follow.
“We’re done,” Victor spat. “Moretti or Whitaker. You’re all poison.” He and the men disappeared into the fog.
Celeste struggled to her feet, clutching her wounded shoulder. She smiled triumphantly.
“A wise choice, Grant,” she mocked. “I’ll authorize the release of the adoption papers once I land in Costa Rica. You have my word.”
“Your word is worth less than the blood on your coat,” Julian snarled.
Celeste turned and began to limp up the stairs of the jet.
I watched her go. I felt Julian’s fury radiating beside me. I saw Hannah’s tears.
But I didn’t panic. Because a man like me never comes to a negotiation without knowing the layout of the room.
“Celeste,” I called out, just as she reached the top step.
She paused, looking back over her shoulder.
“Do you know why I didn’t shoot you myself?” I asked.
She frowned. “Because you’re soft when it comes to family.”
“No,” I said, reaching into my pocket. “Because of this.”
I pulled out the silver compass. The one Hannah had given me in her freezing apartment.
“This belonged to Julian,” I said loudly, ensuring she could hear me over the engines. “You saw it in Hannah’s locker. That’s how you knew Lily was his.”
“So what?” Celeste snapped impatiently.
“So,” Julian chimed in, catching on to my play, “you didn’t look closely enough at it.”
I pressed my thumb against the small release latch on the side of the compass. The back casing popped open.
Inside wasn’t a magnetic dial. It was a micro-SD card and a tiny, blinking red light. A military-grade audio transmitter.
“I had my security team sweep my house for bugs two years ago,” I explained, my voice echoing off the hangar walls. “They didn’t find any. But they told me something interesting. There was a localized, encrypted radio frequency broadcasting from the servant’s quarters. From Hannah’s locker.”
Hannah gasped. “You knew?”
“I didn’t know what it was,” I told Hannah. “Until tonight.”
I looked back at Celeste. Her face had drained of all color.
“You see, Celeste,” I said, stepping toward the plane. “Julian didn’t just give Hannah a compass to remember him by. He gave her a panic button. A transmitter that records audio on a continuous loop and broadcasts to a secure server.”
Julian stepped up beside me. “A server I’ve been monitoring for four years, Celeste. I heard you threaten Hannah. I heard you talk about the adoption papers. And, more importantly...”
Julian pulled out his phone and tapped the screen.
A recording played out of his phone speaker, loud and clear.
“I’ll authorize the release of the adoption papers once I land in Costa Rica.”
It was Celeste’s voice, recorded just moments ago.
“He was weak, Grant... I just expedited the inevitable.” Her confession to poisoning Julian.
“I forwarded that audio to the FBI ten minutes ago,” Julian said coldly. “Along with the folder of your shell companies. The feds are already raiding your bank on 5th Avenue. The adoption papers are seized.”
Celeste stared at us in sheer horror. She turned to run into the plane.
But the pilot stepped out of the cockpit. He wasn’t her pilot. He was Marcus, my head of security, wearing a pilot’s uniform.
He racked the slide of a shotgun.
“Flight’s cancelled, ma’am,” Marcus said.
Sirens began to wail in the distance, cutting through the fog. The FBI was arriving.
Celeste fell to her knees on the stairs of the jet, trapped.
May you like
Julian turned to me, his eyes full of ghosts. “It’s over, Dad.”
“No,” I said, looking at Hannah and the sleeping little girl. “It’s just beginning.”
