Chapter 6 - The Saltwater Trap
The sun had dipped below the Camden breakwater, plunging the harbor into a deep, freezing twilight shaded in bruised purples and grays.
Clara moved quickly through the shadows of the alleyway behind Garrison Art & Restoration, her breath pluming in the icy air. After the stranger in the parka had left the shop, Martha had taken one look at Clara’s trembling hands and pulled a heavy, rusted iron crowbar from beneath the cash register, telling her to pack her duffel bag immediately.
"You need to get to the bus depot in Rockland," Martha had urged, shoving a handful of fifty-dollar bills into Clara’s coat pocket. "I don't care who that man works for—he had murder in his eyes. Take my old Volvo parked behind the shed."
Now, Clara fumbled with the keys to Martha’s station wagon, her fingers numb from the cold. The harbor district was eerily quiet; the seasonal tourist shops were boarded up, and the streetlights flickered intermittently in the rising sea fog.
Before she could unlock the driver’s side door, a heavy black SUV turned into the narrow alleyway without its headlights on, blocking her only vehicular exit.
Clara froze.
The doors of the SUV clicked open simultaneously. Four men in tactical black gear stepped out onto the wet gravel. They didn't speak. They moved with a terrifying, synchronized efficiency, spreading out to cut off any chance of flight on foot. The man from the gallery—the one in the parka—stepped forward from the shadows of the harbor wall, holding a suppressed semi-automatic pistol at his side.
"Clara Vance," the man said, his lips curling into a cold smile. "Mr. Sterling sends his regards. You're going to get into the back of our vehicle quietly. If you scream, or if you make that old lady inside the shop call the local sheriff, we will put a bullet through her head and carry you out anyway."
Clara’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She backed up until her spine hit the cold steel of the Volvo’s door. She thought of Julian—his arrogance, his towering pride, the way he had commanded her to get out of his car in the sleet. He had warned her that the world outside his fortress was full of wolves. She had hated him for saying it, but God help her, he had been right.
"Why do you want me?" Clara demanded, her voice surprisingly steady despite the terror shaking her limbs. She lifted her chin, refusing to cower before them. "Julian and I are separated. I have no access to his corporate accounts or his security grids."
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"We don't care about his bank accounts, sweetheart," the man chuckled, taking a step closer, raising the muzzle of the suppressed weapon toward her chest. "We care about breaking him. And Alexander Sterling knows that if we send Julian Montgomery his wife's fingers in a velvet box one by one, he'll sign over every shipping port on the Atlantic seaboard just to get your corpse back. Now walk."
Clara’s fingers closed tightly around the heavy brass buckle of her duffel bag strap. She braced herself to fight, knowing she wouldn't survive, but determined to never let herself be used as a tool to destroy the man she still, hopelessly, loved.
