Chapter 7 - The Final Gambit
My jaw dropped, though the gagging hand over my mouth kept me from screaming.
Celeste Vance. How was she standing here? She was supposed to be locked away in a federal holding facility sixty feet beneath Brooklyn, guarded by federal marshals and isolated from the world.
“Surprised, Ms. Donnelly?” Celeste asked, her voice dripping with venomous amusement as she strolled closer, tapping a silver cigarette case against her manicured fingernails. “Did you really think a few forged audio clips and a compromised U.S. Attorney could keep me locked away forever? Money talks louder than federal badges, my dear.”
The guard holding me relaxed his grip slightly, though his gun remained leveled at my chest.
“Where is Lily?” I managed to choke out past the man’s gloved hand.
Celeste smiled, a sickeningly sweet expression that didn't reach her cold eyes. “Oh, she’s safe. For now. My associate here has her locked in the third-floor panic room. She’s sleeping soundly, thanks to a very effective pediatric sedative.”
My blood ran cold. “You drugged her again?”
“Only a mild dose,” Celeste dismissed with a wave of her hand. “I’m not a monster, Ms. Donnelly. I don't want to hurt the child—I simply want what is legally and rightfully mine. And to get that, I need Gabriel Varrick brought to his knees.”
She stepped right up to me, her face inches from mine, the scent of expensive French perfume masking the metallic smell of gunpowder.
“You see,” Celeste continued, her voice hardening into a razor-sharp whisper, “Gabriel thinks he won. He thinks he can lock me away and play domestic bliss with a common nursemaid. But he made one fatal mistake: he left his perimeter security weak while he chased ghosts at the shipping docks.”
She pulled out a satellite phone from her trench coat pocket and dialed a sequence with chilling familiarity. She held the phone out toward me, pressing the speaker button.
After two rings, a deep, exhausted voice answered on the other end.
“Speak.”
Gabriel.
Celeste’s smile widened into a triumphant grin.
“Hello, brother-in-law,” she purred into the receiver.
On the other end of the line, the sound of screeching tires and a slamming car door echoed through the speaker. Gabriel’s breath hitched.
“Celeste?” His voice dropped into a terrifying, murderous growl. “Where the hell are you?”
“I’m standing in your penthouse, Gabriel,” she said smoothly, pacing back and forth across the hallway. “And I have two very special guests. Your precious little daughter... and your charming new girlfriend.”
A dead, suffocating silence fell over the line. For five agonizing seconds, I could hear nothing except the heavy, ragged breathing of a man realizing his worst nightmare had come true.
“If you touch a hair on her head,” Gabriel whispered, every word dripping with lethal intent, “I will personally skin you alive and scatter your remains across the Atlantic.”
“Oh, spare me the mafia theatrics,” Celeste scoffed, rolling her eyes. “If you want to see them alive again, you’re going to play by my rules. Come back to the Tribeca penthouse alone. No guards. No backup. Drop your weapons at the front gate, and walk through those front doors in twenty minutes. Otherwise... well, accidents happen in high-rise buildings all the time.”
The line went dead with a sharp click.
May you like
Celeste lowered the phone, her eyes gleaming with manic triumph. She looked at the heavy-set guard holding me.
“Tie her to the bannister,” Celeste ordered coldly. “And wait for Gabriel to walk through the front door. When he does... put a bullet in his chest.”
