Chapter 4 - The Bait and the Trap
The wind howling off the freezing harbor cut through Lena’s thin hoodie like a razor blade. Pier 44 was a desolate wasteland of rusted shipping containers, towering cranes, and black, churning water that swallowed the city lights.
Lena crouched behind a stack of weathered timber crates, her fingers clenching the lead-wrapped flash drive inside her pocket. She had spent the last hour debating whether to run deeper into the underground transit system, but the caller's parting words echoed relentlessly in her mind: Marco Lombardi’s men are already searching your tunnels. You have nowhere left to hide.
If she was going to die, she wanted answers about Dr. Guzman. She wanted to know why her brilliant, uncompromising mentor had been slaughtered in a parking lot for treating an injured animal.
Footsteps crunched against the gravel behind her.
Lena whipped around, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. Out of the heavy sea fog emerged a tall silhouette wearing a tailored trench coat. As the figure stepped under the flickering amber glow of a security light, Lena gasped.
It wasn't a cartel hitman. It was Detective Vance—the lead investigator assigned to Dr. Guzman’s murder eight months ago, the man who had officially closed the case due to a "lack of actionable evidence."
"Vance?" Lena whispered, stepping out from the shadows. "You... you're the one who called me?"
Detective Vance stopped ten paces away, his hands buried deep in his pockets. His face was etched with exhaustion, dark circles bruised beneath his eyes. "It was the only way to get you out of your hole, Lena. Lombardi’s network is compromised from the top down. If I had called you on a secure line, his interceptors would have tracked it in seconds."
"Compromised?" Lena stepped closer, her instincts screaming that something was fundamentally wrong. "You closed the case! You told the press the cartel was untraceable!"
"I had to," Vance said quietly, his voice devoid of warmth. "Or I would have ended up in the trunk of a cruiser like the captain before me. Lombardi owns the police department, Lena. He owns the courts. And right now, he owns your life."
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"Then why are you here?" Lena demanded, her hand tightening around the flash drive. "If Lombardi owns everything, why didn't you just hand me over to him?"
Vance offered a cold, mirthless smile. "Because I don't want Lombardi to have the flash drive. I want it for myself."
