Chapter 7 - CORNERED RATS
The call came at 2:14 PM.
We had set up Victoria in the guest suite, stripping her of her personal cell phone and providing her with a secure, untraceable burner phone tapped directly into Vance’s monitoring system. When the device buzzed, the shrill sound cut through the tense silence of the penthouse like a siren.
Victoria stared at the vibrating phone on the nightstand, paralyzed by fear. Marcus stepped forward, his massive frame casting a long shadow, and nodded sharply.
"Answer it," I ordered, standing by the door. "Follow the script. Do not deviate, or I will throw you out into the street."
Victoria’s trembling hand reached out and picked up the phone. She pressed the green button, putting it on speaker as instructed.
"Mom?" Ethan’s voice was barely a whisper, frantic and strained, echoing with background noise that sounded like a busy subway station. "Mom, is that you?"
"Ethan! Oh my god, Ethan, where are you?" Victoria cried, genuine terror bleeding into her voice. "Are you hurt?"
"I can't tell you where I am. The police are everywhere. And... and there are men looking for me, Mom. Men in black SUVs. I haven't slept. I have no money. Did you wire the funds to the offshore account like I asked?"
Victoria choked on a sob, looking up at me desperately. I pointed a sharp finger at her, demanding she stay on script.
"I can't, Ethan. My accounts... Emma froze them. All of them. I have nothing left," she wept.
A horrifying silence stretched over the line. When Ethan finally spoke, his voice was laced with a venomous, unhinged fury.
"That bitch," Ethan hissed. "She ruined everything! She took the cold wallet, Mom. I had a million dollars in untraceable crypto on that drive. I was going to pay a smuggler to get me across the Canadian border. She took my only way out!"
"She wants to make a deal, Ethan," Victoria pleaded, gripping the phone. "I'm with her right now. I'm at the penthouse. She promised she would give the drive back, but you have to do exactly what she says."
"You're with her?!" Ethan shouted, his paranoia peaking. "Are you insane? She's framing me, Mom! She's the one who set up the laundering scheme! She's setting me up to take the fall for the Volkovs!"
I stepped into the room, leaning directly over the speakerphone.
"We both know that's a lie, Ethan," I said, my voice calm, projecting absolute control. "I have the biometric logs. I have the keystroke cadence. And as of last night, I have your mistress, Chloe, who is currently sitting in a police station singing like a canary about the millions of dollars you spent on her."
I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. The mention of Chloe broke whatever delusion Ethan was clinging to.
"What do you want, Emma?" he asked, his voice hollow and defeated.
"I want my life back, unblemished," I stated flatly. "You owe the Volkovs thirty million dollars. The Cayman accounts are frozen, and they aren't going to wait for you to figure out how to unthaw them. They are going to kill you, Ethan. Your only chance of survival is protective custody. I will hand over the cold wallet to the authorities, along with the decryption keys to the Caymans, allowing the FBI to seize the mob's money. In exchange, you will walk into the federal building downtown, surrender yourself, and sign a full, detailed confession proving I had no knowledge of your crimes."
"If I confess to stealing from the Volkovs, I'll be a target in prison for the rest of my life!" Ethan cried.
"And if you stay on the streets, you'll be a target for the rest of the week," I countered brutally. "You have one hour, Ethan. Go to the FBI field office at the Dirksen Federal Building. If you aren't in federal custody by 3:15 PM, I will personally mail the cold wallet to the Volkov syndicate, along with your current GPS coordinates, courtesy of the tracking malware my IT specialist just installed on your burner phone when you answered this call."
"You wouldn't," Ethan gasped.
"Watch me," I whispered.
I disconnected the call, throwing the burner phone onto the bed.
Victoria was weeping hysterically, clutching her chest. "You're a monster, Emma. You are sending my son to slaughter!"
"I am offering him the only lifeboat available," I said coldly, turning my back on her. "He built the sinking ship. Now he has to drown in it."
I walked out of the guest suite, returning to the home office where Sarah and Vance were monitoring the situation.
"Did the malware take?" I asked Vance.
"Yes," Vance nodded, pulling up a digital map of downtown Chicago. A blinking red dot appeared near the Jackson red line subway station. "I have a lock on his location. He's about eight blocks from the federal building. But there's a problem."
Vance pulled up a secondary screen, this one connected to police scanner frequencies and localized traffic cameras. He zoomed in on an intersection two blocks away from Ethan’s location.
Parked illegally in a loading zone were three black Escalades with tinted windows.
"The Volkovs," Marcus identified immediately, stepping closer to the screen. "They must be tracking his burner phone too, or they have spotters on the ground. They are triangulating his position."
My blood ran cold. I hated Ethan. I wanted him to suffer the consequences of his actions in a federal penitentiary for decades. But I didn't want him murdered in the streets. Furthermore, if he died before signing the confession, the FBI might still try to pin the laundering scheme on my network. I needed him alive.
"He's not going to make it to the federal building," Sarah said, panic lacing her voice. "They are going to intercept him."
"Marcus," I said, turning to the towering security chief. "How fast can you get a team down there?"
"Not fast enough to beat the Russians," Marcus said grimly. "Traffic is gridlocked in the Loop. We're looking at twenty minutes minimum."
I stared at the blinking red dot on the screen. Ethan was moving, walking rapidly toward State Street, unaware that a kill squad was closing a net around him. He was a cornered rat, running blindly toward a trap.
I made a split-second decision. I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out my personal, encrypted cell phone. I dialed a number I had acquired years ago during a high-stakes corporate negotiation, a number belonging to a man who operated in the deepest, darkest shadows of Chicago's political and criminal underworld. A fixer who owed me a very large favor.
The phone rang twice. A gruff voice answered. "Sterling. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I need an extraction, Victor," I said, my voice steady despite the adrenaline pumping through my veins. "Downtown Loop. Jackson and State. Three black Escalades are hunting a target on foot. I need you to disrupt the hunt and deliver the target to the steps of the Dirksen Federal Building alive."
"The Volkov crew is running heavy today," Victor mused. "That's a lot of heat, Emma. It's going to cost you."
"Name your price," I said without hesitation. "Just get him into federal custody before the Russians put a bullet in his head."
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"Consider it done," Victor replied, the line going dead.
I looked at Sarah and Vance, the reality of what I had just done settling over the room. I was no longer just a victim trying to clear her name. I was actively playing a deadly game of chess with the mafia, the FBI, and my treacherous ex-husband. And the final checkmate was rapidly approaching.
