Chapter 27 - The Trap at Lake Pontchartrain
Dawn broke over Lake Pontchartrain like a bruised peach, casting a pale, sickly light across the weathered wooden piers of an old marina outside New Orleans.
The air was humid, heavy with the scent of brackish water and diesel exhaust. Moored at the end of the longest pier sat a sleek, white 60-foot yacht bearing the name The Sovereign.
According to Mateo’s intercepted comms, Marcus Vance was waiting on board.
Adrian and I walked side-by-side down the wooden planks of the pier. Behind us, hidden in the treeline along the shoreline, Mateo and a team of loyal operatives had the marina surrounded. In the back of a secure transport van parked nearby, Oliver and Emma were asleep under the watchful eye of our most trusted medic.
“Stay behind me when we board,” Adrian murmured, his hand resting reassuringly near his holster beneath his linen jacket.
“I’m not hiding behind you anymore, Adrian,” I replied, my voice steady, the fear that had paralyzed me for six years finally burning away into cold, hard resolve. “Vance killed my father. He hunted my children. This is my fight, too.”
Adrian looked at me, a flicker of profound respect and fierce adoration softening his hard features. “Together, then.”
We crossed the gangplank and stepped onto the pristine teak deck of The Sovereign.
The yacht’s salon doors slid open automatically as we approached.
Sitting in a white leather armchair at the center of the spacious, mahogany-paneled lounge sat a man in his late sixties, wearing an immaculate tailored gray suit that looked entirely out of place in the swampy Louisiana heat. Silver hair, rimless glasses, and a calm, polite smile that didn’t reach his cold, dead eyes.
May you like
Marcus Vance.
“Adrian Moretti,” Vance greeted smoothly, raising a crystal tumbler filled with amber whiskey as if welcoming old friends to a cocktail party. “And Dr. Sophia Laurent. Or should I say... Mrs. Moretti? I must admit, I never expected the ruthless head of the Moretti syndicate to turn into a domestic family man hiding out in the Florida panama.”
