Chapter 4 - The Pier 4 Protocol
By six o'clock that evening, the Beacon Hill estate was under complete lockdown.
Additional armed guards dressed in dark suits patrolled the perimeter walls, while heavy iron shutters were drawn over the lower-floor windows. I had been moved out of my garage apartment and relocated to a lavish guest suite on the second floor of the main mansion—directly across the hall from Julian’s personal quarters.
My new room was larger than my entire old apartment, furnished with white silk drapes, a four-poster bed, and an antique desk. But it felt less like a luxury suite and more like a high-security prison cell.
A knock sounded at my door. Before I could answer, Julian walked in.
He had stripped off his suit jacket, wearing only a dark charcoal vest over a black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. He carried a heavy leather binder under one arm and a sleek, silver glass of sparkling water in the other.
"Drink this," he said, setting the glass on my bedside table. "You look like you're about to faint."
"I haven't slept in thirty-six hours, I'm being hunted by an unknown assassin, and my employer is a mob boss," I said, sitting cross-legged on the bed. "Fainting seems like a reasonable physical response."
Julian let out a low, gravelly sound that might have been a laugh if he were capable of normal human joy. "Fair point. But you need to focus. We leave for Pier 4 in two hours."
I blinked. "We? As in you and me?"
"The thief expects me to bring a full tactical squad to the harbor," Julian explained, opening the binder on the desk. "If Doyle sweeps in with twelve armed men, the thief will dump the evidence into the bay and vanish into the shipping network. But if I arrive with only my personal driver and my personal assistant... he will bite."
"I am a housekeeper, not a personal assistant!"
"You're a personal assistant as of three hours ago," Julian countered smoothly. "Human Resources filed the paperwork. Your salary has been tripled, your medical debt has been wired to the bank and settled in full, and your life insurance policy has been updated."
I froze, staring at him. "You paid off my eighty thousand dollars?"
"Consider it a retainer," Julian said, his tone entirely businesslike. "I don't like my employees distracted by minor financial anxieties when I need their full attention. Now, come here and look at these floor plans."
I slid off the bed and walked over to the desk, standing beside him. The binder contained detailed architectural blueprints of an abandoned cold-storage warehouse sitting at the end of Pier 4 in South Boston.
"This warehouse was built by my grandfather in 1962," Julian pointed to a subterranean level shaded in red ink. "Beneath the waterline is a flooded concrete bunker. It was used to store contraband during the dock strikes. To access the dry room where the ledger is hidden, you have to enter a dual-key security airlock."
"And the thief has the second key," I said, studying the complex valve diagrams.
"Yes. But he doesn't have the primary key." Julian reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a heavy, antique bronze key attached to a thick steel chain. "This key never leaves my person. Which means the thief has two choices: he can try to pick a seven-lever industrial lock under thirty feet of salt water, or he can wait for me to bring the primary key to him."
"You're walking into a trap on purpose," I realized, looking up into his dark eyes. "You're using yourself as bait."
"I'm using us as bait," Julian corrected sharply. "The thief knows you were in the room when the second key was taken. He believes you might have seen his shadow behind the drapes. He will want to eliminate you just as much as he wants this key."
"This is insane," I breathed, taking a step back. "Julian, this is absolute madness. I'm a ballet drop-out who cleans baseboards for a living! I can't go to a dark pier and fight mobsters!"
Julian turned around, stepping close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his chest. He reached down, grabbing my chin with a gentle yet unyielding grip, forcing me to look directly into his dark, fierce eyes.
"You aren't going to fight anyone, Sadie," he said, his voice dropping into an intense, quiet whisper that made my pulse race. "You are going to stand behind me. You are going to watch my back. And if anything goes wrong, you are going to take this key and run to Doyle's chase vehicle."
He slipped the heavy bronze key over his head and placed the cold steel chain around my neck, letting the key rest directly over my heart.
"Why give it to me?" I whispered, my hand instinctively coming up to cup the heavy metal.
"Because he expects me to carry it," Julian said, his thumb softly tracing the curve of my cheekbone. "And because I trust you more than anyone else in this city right now."
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"You met me three weeks ago!"
"And in three weeks, you are the only person who hasn't lied to my face, tried to steal my money, or cowered in fear when I entered the room," Julian said, his dark eyes softening just a fraction. "Now go change. Doyle left a tactical coat and boots in your wardrobe. We ride in twenty minutes."
