Chapter 5 - The Trap at the Docks
The Grand Harbor Hotel sat on the edge of the Hudson River, a soaring tower of glass and steel where the city's dark elite met to divide their kingdom.
Rain slicked the black asphalt of the private underground parking garage beneath the hotel. Armed men in identical charcoal suits stood every ten feet, automatic rifles concealed beneath their heavy coats.
Inside a sleek, blacked-out executive van parked two levels below the main ballroom, I sat with Lily while Matteo reviewed the perimeter camera feeds on a series of monitors.
“The five family bosses are already in the top-floor ballroom,” Matteo explained, adjusting the cuffs of a fresh black suit jacket. “Silas has twenty heavily armed men stationed around the floor. He’s taking no chances.”
“How do we get the documents to the bosses without getting shot the moment we step off the elevator?” I asked, my pulse hammering against my throat.
Matteo reached down and pulled a sleek silver flash drive from his pocket. “I spent the last two hours uploading your father’s digitized journals and financial records to an encrypted broadcast server. The moment I enter that ballroom, my tech crew will cut the main display screens and flood every monitor in the room with Silas’s bank transfers.”
“And Silas?”
“Silas will try to kill me before the video finishes playing,” Matteo said quietly. He turned to look at me, his hand reaching out to gently touch my cheek. His fingers were warm, steady, and protective. “That’s why you and Lily stay in this van. Once the security grid collapses, my loyal captains will secure the garage and take you to the docks.”
Lily tensed in the seat behind us. She reached forward, tapping Matteo’s shoulder hard.
Her hands moved with furious speed.
No. Snake has men in the elevator. I saw them.
Matteo froze. He turned to his daughter. “What did you see, Lily?”
Lily pointed at one of the security monitors showing the service elevator lobby. She signed rapidly: The man with the snake tattoo on his neck. He put a black box on top of the elevator cable. He clicked a light.
My stomach dropped into a abyss. “A demolition charge,” I whispered. “Silas isn't going to let you reach the top floor, Matteo. He’s going to drop the elevator shaft the moment you step inside!”
Matteo stared at the monitor, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. If Lily hadn't known how to read the visual body language of Silas’s lieutenants—if she hadn't been watching the details everyone else ignored—Matteo would have walked directly into a steel coffin.
“He set a trap,” Matteo muttered, his dark eyes flashing with lethal realization. “He wants to kill me in the shaft and tell the council it was a mechanical failure.”
“Then we change the plan,” I said, stepping closer to him, my voice filled with an authority I didn't know I possessed. “We don't take the service elevator. We take the public grand staircase. And we don't go in hiding.”
Matteo looked at me, a slow, dark smile spreading across his face. “You want to walk straight through his front line?”
“Silas thinks you are dead or running,” I said, my chest expanding with fierce resolve. “He thinks Lily and I are helpless victims hiding in the dark. Let’s show him who actually rules this city.”
May you like
Lily reached into her turtle backpack, pulled out her blue crayon, and handed it to her father.
She signed one final message before we moved: Break the snake.
