Chapter 9 - The Trap Emily Chose Herself
Nicholas wanted Emily moved to a safe house.
Emily refused.
The argument lasted forty-three minutes.
Dario timed it.
At minute twenty-eight, he ordered coffee.
At minute thirty-seven, Maria entered, listened for ten seconds, and said, “Both of you are exhausting.”
Emily pointed at Nicholas. “He thinks protection means making decisions for people.”
Nicholas pointed back. “She thinks agency means walking toward a murderer because she has a microphone taped to her chest.”
Maria looked at Dario.
“Who is winning?”
“No one.”
“Good.”
She left.
Emily sat down. “I’m not asking you to like the plan.”
“I don’t.”
“I know.”
“I am stating it for the record.”
“There is no record.”
Dario lifted his phone. “There can be.”
Nicholas glared at him.
Dario put the phone away.
The absurdity helped. Emily’s fear remained, but fear no longer filled the entire room.
Nicholas finally said, “If police approve it, I still want three extraction teams.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Fine.”
“And you follow every instruction.”
“I’ll follow good instructions.”
He closed his eyes. “You negotiate like a hostage taker.”
“You employ criminals. Adapt.”
Dario actually laughed.
Emily refused.
“You’re not bait,” he said.
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You’re thinking it.”
“Then stop reading my face.”
He looked furious.
Dario stood between them with the exhausted expression of a man who regretted every career choice that had led him here.
Emily put the photograph on Nicholas’s desk.
“Victor already thinks I matter. Hiding me confirms it.”
“Keeping you alive confirms I have basic priorities.”
“He wants the ledger.”
“He can want.”
“He doesn’t know police copied it.”
Nicholas went quiet.
Emily continued. “We tell him I took one original page because it mentions my father. We let him contact me.”
“No.”
“Nicholas—”
“No.”
She crossed her arms.
“You gave me a contract that says I can report you.”
“This is not a payroll dispute.”
“Still enjoy the clause?”
Dario looked at the ceiling.
In the end, the police approved a controlled exchange.
Not because Nicholas liked it.
Because Victor had already contacted Emily through a disposable number.
BRING THOMAS’S PAGE. COME ALONE.
The meeting point was an abandoned parking structure downtown.
The detectives briefed Emily twice before departure. No improvising. No following Victor anywhere. No stepping beyond the marked concrete pillar. If anything changed, she was to say, “The weather is turning,” and the team would move immediately.
Nicholas listened from the corner with his arms crossed.
When the lead detective finished, Nicholas asked, “What if he recognizes the wire?”
“We extract her.”
“What if he has a second person?”
“We have perimeter teams.”
“What if—”
Emily cut in. “If you ask one more question, they’re going to arrest you before Victor.”
The detective looked as if he might enjoy that.
Nicholas did not.
Before leaving, Emily went to the staff corridor and stood in front of the empty wall where Nicholas planned to mount the broken vase pieces.
Rosa found her there.
“You scared?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Emily raised an eyebrow.
Rosa shrugged. “My mother says only stupid people go into danger without fear.”
Emily smiled. “Your mother and Nicholas would hate each other.”
“Probably marry within a week.”
They both laughed.
Then Rosa hugged her hard.
“Come back.”
Emily swallowed. “Planning on it.”
At the front door Nicholas waited in silence.
He held out a pair of black gloves.
“What are these?”
“Warm.”
“I have gloves.”
“Yours have holes.”
She stared at him. “You notice too much.”
“Occupational hazard.”
She took them.
No speech.
No promise that nothing bad would happen.
Just gloves.
That felt more honest.
The meeting point was an abandoned parking structure downtown.
Emily wore a wire.
Police occupied two levels above.
Nicholas waited in an unmarked car one block away because detectives refused to let him inside.
He hated that more than anything.
Victor arrived twelve minutes late.
Those twelve minutes were worse than the confrontation.
Emily could hear her own breathing through the wire. Somewhere above, a loose sign tapped in the wind. A car passed on the street below.
The detective’s voice whispered in her earpiece, “Stay where you are.”
She almost answered, then remembered she wasn’t supposed to speak unless Victor appeared.
She thought of her mother.
Of Thomas carving her initial into a key.
Of Nicholas arguing for three extraction teams because he was terrified and too proud to say the word.
Then footsteps approached.
Slow.
Unhurried.
Victor arrived twelve minutes late.
He was seventy, thin, white-haired, ordinary-looking.
That frightened Emily.
Monster faces would make life easier.
“You look like Elena,” he said.
Emily held the envelope.
“You killed my father.”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
Her stomach twisted.
“Why?”
“He thought evidence made him brave.”
“He was brave.”
“He was dead.”
Victor smiled.
Emily understood then that some people mistook survival for proof of superiority.
She held up the envelope.
“What happened to Alessandro Grimm?”
Victor’s smile faded.
“That’s not why we’re here.”
“It is for me.”
“He tried to protect your mother. Carlo gave us his route. I handled the rest.”
Nicholas heard every word through the wire.
Emily’s fingers went cold.
“Is he dead?”
“Yes.”
“Body?”
Victor laughed.
“Always the body.”
He stepped closer.
“Page.”
Emily held it out.
Victor reached.
Then he stopped.
His eyes dropped to her collar.
The wire.
“You stupid little—”
He grabbed her.
Emily drove her knee upward the way Dario had taught her that morning.
Victor staggered.
Police moved.
But Victor had a knife.
He swung wildly.
Emily backed away.
A body slammed into Victor from the side.
Nicholas.
He had left the car.
Of course he had.
Victor struck him once with the knife, slicing fabric along his arm.
Nicholas hit him hard enough to drop him.
Then police swarmed both men.
“Back!” a detective shouted.
Nicholas stepped back immediately.
Victor was arrested alive.
Emily rushed to Nicholas.
“You were supposed to stay in the car.”
“You were supposed to not get stabbed.”
“I didn’t.”
“I almost did.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Neither does anything you’ve done this week.”
She started laughing.
Then crying.
Nicholas pulled her against him carefully.
For the first time, Emily allowed herself to lean.
May you like
Not because she could not stand.
Because she chose not to stand alone.
