Chapter 14
The next morning, the cabin felt less like a sanctuary and more like a war room.
Julian had spread a map of Seattle across the wooden dining table, placing heavy magazines and knives on the corners to keep it flat. Victor was awake, looking pale but coherent, sipping black coffee.
"Marcus thinks we're dead in the rubble," Victor rasped. "He'll be consolidating power today. Reaching out to the capos, telling them you went crazy and he had to put you down. He'll use the port as his stronghold."
"The port is too fortified," Julian analyzed, tracing a line along the waterfront. "He has three hundred men on payroll there. We can't breach it with just the two of us."
"You need to draw him out," Clara said from the doorway. She walked into the room, her expression hardened. The vulnerable woman from the night before was gone, replaced by the survivor who had stared down death in a dozen different living rooms. "He wants the ledger. The one Elias hid. He knows you have it."
"He thinks it's buried under the penthouse," Julian corrected.
"Then we let him know it survived," Clara countered. "We let him know I have it. I'm the bait."
"Absolutely not," Julian's head snapped up, his voice cracking like a whip. "You are not stepping foot anywhere near Marcus."
"Julian, listen to me," Clara pressed, stepping up to the table. "He killed Elias because he thought Elias had the proof. If I call Finch, tell him I escaped the penthouse and I have the flash drive... Finch will tell Marcus. Marcus won't trust his men to handle it. He'll come himself to make sure the loose end is finally cut."
"It's suicide," Victor interjected softly. "They won't negotiate. They'll just kill you."
"Not if we pick the battleground," Clara said, her eyes locked on Julian. "We do it at the old lumber mill in Blackwood Reach. It's isolated. Lots of cover. I know every inch of that mill because I've pulled mangled loggers out of it for five years. You set up a sniper position. I walk in, show them the drive, and you take the shot."
May you like
Julian stared at her. He hated the plan. It went against every protective instinct screaming in his chest. But looking at the cold, calculating fire in Clara's eyes, he realized something profound. She wasn't just a medic anymore. She was a weapon. And she was asking him to pull the trigger.
"If Marcus gets within ten feet of you," Julian said, his voice a lethal promise, "I blow his head off."
