Chapter 13 - The 74th Street Trap
The Ashford townhouse on East 74th Street was an opulent six-story limestone mansion that had belonged to our family for four generations. But over the past six months, it had served as Victoria’s primary residence while she planned her grand wedding to my father.
It was 1:15 PM when Marcus, Detective Cole, and I pulled up across the street in an unmarked surveillance van.
"The perimeter is clean on thermal," Marcus observed, squinting at his infrared scanner. "No heat signatures on floors one through five. But the sixth floor—the master suite—is emitting a strange localized electrical frequency."
"Jamming equipment?" Cole asked, chambering a round into his service pistol.
"Or an active automated defensive perimeter," Marcus cautioned. "Evelyn, if Victoria gave up that location so easily, she might have sent you straight into Nikolai’s ambush."
"Victoria is terrified of dying," I replied, checking the magazine of my 9mm. "She didn't set a trap. But Nikolai knows that townhouse is his only physical link to the corporate shares. If he hasn't retrieved that drive yet, he's either inside or watching the front door."
"We enter through the adjoining brownstone’s rooftop," Cole decided. "Low profile. No sirens until we secure the asset."
Ten minutes later, we stepped silently through the skylight hatch onto the top floor of the townhouse. The master suite was draped in darkness, heavy velvet curtains blocking the afternoon sun. The air smelled of expensive French perfume, ozone, and fresh gun oil.
I moved along the gilded hallway, my boots making no sound on the plush Persian runner.
I reached the master bedroom. In the far corner, beside the enormous four-poster canopy bed, a velvet tapestry had already been moved aside, revealing the recessed electronic safe embedded in the reinforced brick.
The safe door was wide open.
"Damn it," Cole cursed beneath his breath, raising his weapon. "We're too late."
"No," Marcus whispered, pointing his tactical light at the floor beneath the safe.
Lying on the hardwood was an open leather briefcase. Inside sat a matte-black military-grade cold storage hard drive, glowing with a soft pulsing green diode.
It was still here.
"Don't touch it!" Marcus shouted, lunging forward to grab my arm just as my hand hovered inches above the drive.
He pointed a narrow laser beam at the base of the briefcase. A microscopic fiber-optic tripwire, thinner than a human hair, was linked directly to a barometric charge concealed under the floorboards.
"Pressure release," Marcus muttered, sweat beading on his forehead. "If you lift the drive, the entire floor collapses into the ballroom below."
Suddenly, the heavy double doors of the master bedroom slammed shut with a deafening metallic thud.
The sharp sound of an electronic magnetic lock engaging echoed through the room.
From the wall speakers mounted in the ceiling, a chillingly calm, mocking voice filled the room.
"You really are your father's daughter, Evelyn. Predictable. Driven by sentiment. Blinded by righteousness."
Nikolai Vance.
"You're not in the house, Nikolai," I said loudly, looking directly at the hidden pinhole camera above the mantelpiece. "You're running like a common street thief."
"I don't need to run," Nikolai laughed over the intercom. "While you were chasing breadcrumbs in my wife's bedroom, my sister-in-law Julianna entered the New York Stock Exchange with emergency federal warrants. The board just voted. Arthur Ashford has been officially removed. Triton Capital owns Ashford Global."
The sound of a digital countdown began to beep through the intercom.
*Beep... Beep... Beep...*
May you like
"And as for you, little heiress... you have ninety seconds before forty pounds of thermite liquidates the historical Ashford townhouse—with you inside."
***
