THE SCARLET SECRET

“If you touch her, Marcus, I will kill you,” I promised, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper.

Marcus chuckled, a hollow, terrifying sound. “You’re a builder, Charles, not a killer. Bring the drive to the old shipyard at the Port of Miami tonight at midnight. Come alone, or the next call you get from that hospital will be from the morgue.”

The line went dead.

When I reached the hospital, the ICU wing was eerily quiet. I rushed toward Sarah’s room, but a firm hand grabbed my shoulder, yanking me into an empty supply closet. I struggled, ready to fight again, until I saw a badge flashed in my face.

“Quiet!” hissed a woman with sharp eyes and a worn suit. “I’m Detective Elena Rostova, FBI. We’ve been watching your partner’s cartel connections for six months. We were trying to pull Sarah out, but she went off-grid to protect you. She didn't trust us.”

“Your operation got her nearly killed!” I snapped, shoving her hand away. “Marcus has men inside the local police force. They just tried to grab me at her apartment.”

“I know,” Rostova said grimly. “That’s why I pulled the local detail off this floor. My federal agents are guarding her room now. She’s safe. But Marcus is panicking. He needs that ledger to prove to the cartel that he didn't steal the missing millions himself.”

I pulled the USB drive from my shoe, holding it up. “I have it. And I have a meeting with him tonight at the shipyard. He thinks he holds the cards.”

Rostova’s eyes narrowed. “Give me the drive, Miller. We raid his office, we arrest him.”

“If you just arrest him, the cartel will send someone else to finish Sarah off,” I argued, my mind racing with a desperate plan. “We have to end this tonight. We have to catch the cartel bosses in the act, too. Wire me up. Let me make the trade.”

The FBI agent stared at me, evaluating my resolve. She saw a man who had already lost his wife once to his own neglect and was absolutely unwilling to lose her again to a bullet.