Chapter 3 - The Secretary Who Set a Trap
Peter Alden believed he had stolen Harper’s evidence.
That was his first mistake.
His second was believing Harper Reed kept only one backup.
When Dante confronted her about it, she looked almost offended.
“You think I stored forty-six million dollars of fraud evidence on one flash drive?”
“You hid it behind a picture.”
“The decoy.”
“Of course.”
“You sound sarcastic.”
“I’m discovering layers to your personality.”
Harper adjusted the hospital blanket.
“My actual backup is somewhere safer.”
“Where?”
“No.”
Dante sighed.
Nico laughed.
Neither man had slept.
Harper had been awake for thirty minutes and already regained control of the room.
“Then Alden thinks he has everything,” Nico said.
“Exactly.”
Harper nodded toward the tablet.
“Let him.”
Dante folded his arms.
“And when he discovers the files are fake?”
“He won’t immediately.”
“What did you put on it?”
“Enough real invoices to look legitimate.”
“And then?”
“A tracking script.”
Nico stared.
“You put malware on a flash drive?”
“I prefer ‘defensive accounting.’”
Dante smiled despite himself.
“How long until it calls home?”
“As soon as he opens it on an internet-connected system.”
Nico checked the tracking software.
“Nothing yet.”
“Then he’s cautious.”
Dante walked toward the window.
He had known Peter Alden for nine years.
Alden was boring.
That had always been his strength.
He wore conservative suits, drove a ten-year-old Lexus, had one wife, two teenagers, and the personality of a quarterly earnings report.
Nobody suspected boring men.
That was probably why boring men sometimes stole forty-six million dollars.
Harper watched Dante’s reflection in the glass.
“You’re taking it personally.”
“He entered your office while you were unconscious.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“He worked for me.”
“There.”
Dante turned.
Harper continued.
“You think loyalty is something you purchase.”
“I pay people very well.”
“That isn’t loyalty.”
“It helps.”
“It buys incentives.”
“Which are useful.”
“Until somebody offers a better one.”
Dante looked at her.
“What buys loyalty, then?”
Harper thought about it.
“Nothing.”
He frowned.
“You earn it.”
Before he could answer, Nico’s tablet pinged.
Tracking activated.
“Got him.”
A map appeared.
The flash drive had been opened.
Not at Moretti Tower.
At the Gramercy Hotel.
Room 814.
Nico was already calling a team.
Dante reached for his coat.
Harper said:
“No.”
He stopped.
“No?”
“You cannot go personally.”
“Why?”
“Because Alden knows you.”
“So?”
“So if he sees you, he knows the drive betrayed him.”
Dante hated reasonable objections.
Nico sent two surveillance men instead.
They arrived twenty minutes later.
Room 814 was empty.
The laptop remained on the desk.
The flash drive still connected.
Dante stared at the video feed from the hotel hallway.
“Where is he?”
Nico checked traffic cameras.
Then Harper asked the question neither man had.
“Whose room is it?”
Nico searched the reservation.
His expression changed.
“Lauren Beck.”
Harper’s friend from the zoning office.
The last person who had seen Harper before the attack.
Harper’s face drained.
“No.”
Dante walked toward her.
“Harper.”
“Lauren gave me the files.”
“Maybe because she wanted you to find them.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if they needed somebody connected to me to carry the evidence.”
Harper shook her head.
“She called me terrified.”
“Fear can be real and still be useful.”
Nico received another alert.
“Hotel security found blood in the bathroom.”
Harper’s breath stopped.
“Lauren?”
“No body.”
Dante looked at Nico.
“Find her.”
Two hours later, Lauren Beck was discovered inside a storage unit in Brooklyn.
Alive.
Bound.
Terrified.
And furious.
She demanded to speak to Harper.
Dante refused.
Harper overruled him.
Lauren was brought to a secure interview room in the hospital after medical clearance.
The moment she saw Harper’s bruised face, she cried.
“Oh my God.”
Harper remained still.
“Did you set me up?”
“No.”
“Then why did Peter Alden use your hotel room?”
Lauren stared.
“Peter?”
“You know him.”
Lauren’s silence answered.
Dante stood against the wall.
Lauren finally whispered:
“He recruited me.”
Harper’s eyes hardened.
“For what?”
“Information.”
“How long?”
“Eight months.”
“You were selling him zoning schedules?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lauren looked down.
“My mother’s cancer treatment.”
Harper’s anger faltered.
“Lauren.”
“Insurance stopped paying. Alden offered money.”
“How much?”
“Thirty thousand.”
Dante spoke for the first time.
“And when did thirty thousand become attempted murder?”
Lauren looked horrified.
“I never knew they were going to touch Harper.”
“What did you know?”
“That Alden wanted copies of internal zoning documents.”
“Why give Harper North Crown?”
Lauren swallowed.
“Because I realized what he was doing.”
“What was he doing?”
“He was buying condemned Southside properties through intermediaries.”
Harper frowned.
“Moretti Holdings already owns most of Southside.”
“Not the underground rights.”
Dante stared.
“Underground?”
Lauren nodded.
“Old freight tunnels.”
Nico straightened.
Baltimore, Manhattan, Southside—no, here presumably city not named? We have NYC-adjacent. Could be New York Southside waterfront. Fine.
Lauren continued.
“Utility corridors. Service tunnels. Several connect the waterfront warehouses to old rail infrastructure.”
Dante understood first.
“Smuggling.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
Lauren looked toward Harper.
“I found customs manifests.”
Harper’s face changed.
“What kind?”
“Medical shipments.”
Dante’s voice went cold.
“Drugs?”
Lauren shook her head.
“People.”
Silence.
Harper stared.
“No.”
“I don’t know exactly,” Lauren said quickly. “But there were transportation records. Temporary worker permits. Passports. Names that appeared twice with different photographs.”
Dante felt sick.
His father had used the waterfront for illegal cargo decades earlier.
Dante had ended several operations when he took control.
There were lines he refused to cross.
Human trafficking was one.
Alden knew it.
Everyone knew it.
“So Alden has been using my property,” Dante said, “to move people.”
Lauren nodded.
“And paying North Crown to hide construction inside environmental remediation.”
Forty-six million dollars suddenly made sense.
The money did not merely disappear.
It built something.
Harper whispered:
“The tunnels.”
Lauren nodded.
“I think so.”
Dante looked at Nico.
“Who oversees Southside construction?”
They all knew.
Gabriel March.
Another man on the watch list.
Two senior executives.
Maybe more.
Lauren began crying.
“I tried to pull out. Alden told me it was too late.”
“Why meet Harper?”
“Because she was the only person I knew who could reach Dante without going through them.”
Harper’s expression changed.
“What did you give me besides the invoices?”
Lauren looked confused.
“An envelope.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I never received an envelope.”
Lauren went pale.
“I put it in your bag before we left.”
The stolen bag.
Dante stepped forward.
“What was inside?”
“A photograph and a property deed.”
“Whose photograph?”
Lauren looked at him.
“Your father.”
The room fell silent.
“What about him?”
“He was standing inside the Southside tunnel.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“When?”
“The photograph was dated thirteen years ago.”
One year before Anthony Moretti died.
Lauren continued.
“And there was another man beside him.”
“Who?”
She hesitated.
“Elias Voss.”
Dante closed his eyes briefly.
Harper watched him.
The betrayal was getting closer.
Then the door opened.
Nico’s man entered holding a phone.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We found Peter Alden.”
“Where?”
“Dead.”
Harper flinched.
Dante’s expression became stone.
“Where?”
“Parking garage beneath City Hall.”
“And the flash drive?”
“Gone.”
Lauren covered her mouth.
Nico asked:
“Cause?”
“Looks like a fall.”
Dante knew better.
Alden had become inconvenient.
Whoever stood above him was cutting strings.
Harper whispered:
“Elias?”
Dante said nothing.
Because his phone had just received a message.
May you like
From Elias Voss.
We need to talk privately. Your father lied to both of us.
