Chapter 7 - The Trap Snares the Master
The Cicero warehouse was a hollow, echoing shell of corrugated iron and rotted timber. Rain dripped through holes in the high roof, hitting the concrete floor with a rhythmic, hollow clicking that sounded like a countdown.
Richard Hastings stood in the center of the floor, beneath a single, flickering halogen bulb. In his right hand, he held a heavy, old-fashioned cellular phone linked to the remote server network; in his left, a short-barreled revolver he had bought from a street dealer three hours ago.
The side door of the warehouse groaned open.
Cheyenne walked in. Her coat was wet from the rain, her gold curls damp and clinging to her cheeks. She stopped twenty feet away from him, her hands tucked deep into her pockets, her face an unreadable mask of absolute exhaustion.
"You came," Richard said, a triumphant, ugly smile breaking across his face. "I knew you would. You always were an obedient girl when it came down to it, Cheyenne. The discipline stuck, didn't it?"
"Where is the remote trigger, Father?" she asked, her voice flat, completely devoid of the terror he was expecting.
"It’s right here," Richard said, tapping the phone. "But we’re not going to use it just yet. You’re going to call your new husband. You’re going to tell him that you ran away, that you realized you couldn't live with a Rossi, and that if he wants to see you alive again, he needs to transfer the Gary port licenses to my name by morning."
Cheyenne looked at him. She looked at the pathetic, desperate figure of the man who had dominated her nightmares for twenty years. In the dim, flickering light of the warehouse, he didn't look like a god anymore. He didn't look like the omnipotent master of her universe. He looked like a rat cornered in a sewer.
"No," she said softly.
Richard’s smile vanished, his eyes turning wild. "What did you say?"
"I said no," Cheyenne repeated, taking a step forward. "The files don't matter anymore, Father. Damian already knows what you did to me. He has the medical reports. He has the bank statements. The whole city knows what you are."
"You little bitch!" Richard roared, raising the revolver, his hand shaking with a combination of rage and fear. "I made you! I built that empire for you! You think that mobster cares about you? He’s using you to punish me! The second I’m dead, he’ll discard you like the damaged goods you are!"
"He won't have to," a voice spoke from the darkness behind the iron pillars.
The sound was low, gravel-rough, and carried an absolute certainty that made the temperature in the warehouse feel like it had dropped to freezing.
Damian Rossi stepped out of the shadows. He wasn't alone. Marco and six heavily armed Rossi soldiers moved with him, forming a seamless, lethal circle around the older man before Richard could even register their presence.
Richard spun around, his gun shaking erratically as he tried to aim it at Damian. "Stay back! Stay back or I’ll kill her! I swear to God, Rossi, I’ll blow her head off!"
Damian didn't stop walking. He moved forward until he was only ten feet away, his chest completely exposed to the weapon. His expression was blank, his eyes the color of a winter sky over the lake.
"You won't shoot her, Richard," Damian said, his voice quiet, conversational. "Because you're a coward who only hurts people who can't fight back. You spent twenty years beating a child because you didn't have the balls to face the men in the street."
"I have the trigger!" Richard screamed, holding up the phone. "One press and the whole world sees what she is!"
Damian pulled a small, black digital device from his pocket and pressed a button. A low, electronic hum filled the warehouse for a second, and the green light on Richard’s cellular phone blinked once and died.
"Marco jammed the network three minutes before we walked in," Damian said, his voice dropping into a register that made the concrete beneath their feet feel thin. "The servers are already inside my house, Richard. Your disgraced doctor, Kenneth Cole, sold us the encryption keys two hours ago for fifty thousand dollars and a one-way ticket out of the state."
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The revolver dropped an inch in Richard’s hand, his face turning an impossible, translucent shade of white. The final card had been played, and he had been left with nothing but an empty hand in the dark.
"Now," Damian said, turning his head slightly toward his soldiers. "Take the gun from him."
