Chapter 20
The drive to the industrial district was completely silent, the rhythmic slapping of the windshield wipers the only sound inside the heavy SUV.
Nathan drove, his grip on the steering wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles bone-white.
Claire sat in the passenger seat. She had refused to stay behind. We started this together, Nathan. We end it together, she had told him, a fierce, unbreakable defiance in her eyes.
Pier 44 was a desolate stretch of rotting concrete and rusted shipping containers, bathed in the sickly yellow glow of a single, flickering streetlamp.
Nathan parked the car, the headlights cutting through the heavy rain.
"Stay in the car, Claire," Nathan commanded, reaching into the glove compartment to retrieve a heavy, encrypted flash drive containing the foundation's transfer protocols.
"If you aren't back in ten minutes, I'm driving this car straight through whatever building he's hiding in," Claire promised, her voice trembling but resolute.
Nathan stepped out into the freezing downpour.
He walked toward an abandoned warehouse at the end of the pier, the massive corrugated metal doors chained open, exposing a cavernous, pitch-black interior.
"Silas!" Nathan shouted, his voice echoing off the rusted metal. "I have the drive! Show yourself!"
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the rain.
Then, a solitary figure stepped out from the shadows behind a stack of wooden pallets.
Nathan braced himself, expecting a cartel ghost, a hardened criminal with a scarred face.
But as the man stepped into the faint, yellow light filtering in from the streetlamp, Nathan's blood ran entirely cold.
It wasn't a stranger.
He wore a tailored suit, soaked through by the rain, and held a suppressed pistol casually in his right hand.
"You?" Nathan breathed, taking a horrified step backward, his mind struggling to process the absolute, shattering betrayal standing in front of him.
"Hello, Nathan," the man said, offering a polite, chilling smile.
It was Arthur Vance. The lead attorney who had helped the Harper family build the foundation. The man who had stood beside them at the gala just last night, celebrating their victory.
"Arthur?" Nathan whispered. "You're Silas?"
"Silas is a brand, Nathan. A digital boogeyman designed to keep the cartels terrified of the dark," Arthur said, slowly raising the pistol. "I'm just a lawyer who knows how to hide money. And you, unfortunately, found my favorite hiding spot."
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"You stood in my house," Nathan said, a burning rage finally eclipsing his shock. "You looked my son in the eye."
"And I'll look him in the eye when I tell him how tragically his parents died in a robbery gone wrong," Arthur replied, his smile vanishing into a mask of pure, sociopathic indifference. "Toss the drive, Nathan. Let's make this quick."
