Chapter 7 - The Syndicate's Shadow
My burner phone rang at 2:00 AM.
I was sitting in the secure safehouse the FBI had provided, staring out the reinforced window at the dark Chicago skyline. Elias was sitting on the sofa across the room, drinking cold coffee and reviewing tactical maps.
I looked at the caller ID. It was a blocked number, but I knew exactly who it was. I hit speakerphone and set the device on the glass coffee table.
Elias instantly perked up, signaling the tech team in the next room to start tracing the signal.
"Hello?" I said.
"Rachel... please." The voice was ragged, desperate, and completely broken. Logan. "Please don't hang up."
"Why would I hang up, Logan?" I asked, my voice smooth and devoid of any emotion. "I’m enjoying the sound of your panic."
"Rachel, listen to me, you have to help me," Logan begged, his words tumbling over each other in a frantic rush. "The cartel called me. They want eighty million dollars. They think I'm the one who leaked the files. They're going to kill me, Rachel! They’re going to skin me alive!"
"That sounds like a personal problem," I replied coldly. "You should ask your new wife for help. Oh, wait. She's currently busy signing a fifty-year plea deal."
"I was wrong!" he screamed, sobbing openly into the receiver. "I was wrong, okay! I should never have left you. I should never have taken the company. I was stupid, I was manipulated by her! Rachel, I know you have the diamonds from the South Loop unit. I found your note. Keep them! Keep it all! Just tell the FBI to give me protective custody. Tell them I'll testify against Vanessa. Just don't let me die out here!"
I looked at Elias. He nodded, holding up three fingers. Three minutes until the trace was complete.
"You tied me to a bed, Logan," I said, letting the icy rage I had carried for six years seep into my words. "You watched me burn. You slapped me across the face and told me I was too emotional for power. Why should I lift a single finger to save you from the wolves?"
"Because you're not a murderer, Rachel!" he cried. "You're a good person! You've always been better than me!"
"Flattery won't save you," I said. "But... I do have a sense of justice. If you want federal protection, you have to surrender to me personally. I want to see you on your knees before the handcuffs go on."
"Yes! Yes, anything! Tell me where!"
"The old Pierce Holdings development site on Navy Pier," I said, naming the abandoned construction project Logan had bankrupt my company to fund. "The structural framework on the third floor. Be there in one hour. If I see a single cartel tail on you, I walk away, and you belong to them."
"I'll be there," he gasped. "Thank you, Rachel. Thank you."
The line clicked dead.
Elias stood up, pulling his tactical vest from the chair. "We got the ping. He’s in a motel in Cicero. We can have a SWAT team there in ten minutes."
"No," I said, standing up, ignoring the dull ache in my ribs. "He’ll run if he sees SWAT. Let him come to the pier. He needs to face the ghost he tried to bury."
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Elias looked at me, seeing the unyielding steel in my eyes. "You’re going in with a wire and a tactical vest. And I’m going to be ten feet away in the shadows with a sniper team on the adjacent roof."
"Deal," I said.
