Chapter 6 - THE TRADE
“No.”
Dominic said it before Clare finished reading the message.
She looked at him.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then this should save time.”
“No.”
Rebecca Sloan, the federal prosecutor, stood across the table studying the photograph.
“This is not a negotiation we control.”
Clare looked at her.
“Bell is alive.”
“For now.”
“They want me.”
Dominic stepped between them.
“They are not getting you.”
Clare’s patience snapped.
“Stop deciding what happens to me.”
“I’m deciding what happens to them.”
“That sentence is exactly why people think you’re terrifying.”
“People think I’m terrifying because sometimes I am.”
Rebecca lifted a hand.
“Both of you stop.”
Neither looked away from the other.
Rebecca continued.
“We use the demand.”
Dominic turned.
“How?”
“We make them believe Clare will be exchanged.”
“No.”
Rebecca stared at him.
“She won’t actually be surrendered.”
“No.”
Clare nearly laughed.
“You understand I’m standing here, right?”
Dominic looked at her.
“I noticed.”
“I’m doing it.”
“No.”
“You’re not my husband.”
Nico became extremely interested in his phone.
Dominic’s gaze narrowed.
“No. I’m the man trying to keep you alive.”
“And I’m the woman Bell trusted enough to risk his life contacting.”
“Which is exactly why—”
“Dominic.”
Something in her voice stopped him.
Clare stepped closer.
“I spent nine years walking toward people everybody else was afraid to touch.”
His expression tightened.
“That doesn’t mean you have to walk toward a bullet.”
“No. But it means fear doesn’t automatically get to make my decisions.”
The room went silent.
Rebecca looked between them.
Then smiled faintly.
“She’s doing it.”
Dominic muttered something in Italian.
Clare didn’t need translation.
The exchange was scheduled for midnight at an abandoned distribution center south of the city.
Federal agents would surround the site.
Clare would remain inside an armored vehicle until Bell was confirmed alive.
No improvisation.
No heroics.
No dramatic mafia nonsense.
Those were Clare’s words.
Dominic had stared at her.
“You think I’m dramatic?”
“You surrounded a nurse with five black supercars in the rain.”
“They were SUVs.”
“One was absolutely a Lamborghini.”
“That was Nico.”
Nico raised his hands.
“It was raining.”
Despite everything, Clare laughed.
The tension broke for three seconds.
Then Dominic looked at her.
Really looked.
And Clare’s laughter faded.
He was afraid.
Not for himself.
For her.
That realization stayed with her all evening.
At eleven thirty, they reached the distribution district.
Cold rain had become mist.
Clare wore a bullet-resistant vest beneath her jacket.
She hated it.
Dominic checked the straps himself.
“They’re too tight.”
“They’re supposed to be.”
“I can’t breathe.”
“You’re breathing.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“No.”
“You tightened that.”
“Yes.”
“Control issues.”
“Yes.”
His hands stopped at her shoulders.
They stood very close.
Too close for two people pretending nothing had changed between them.
Dominic lowered his voice.
“If anything feels wrong, you get down.”
“Dominic—”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“You don’t wait for Bell.”
“I know.”
“You don’t wait for me.”
She looked at him.
“That one I’m not promising.”
His eyes darkened.
“Clare.”
“Then don’t make promises for me either.”
For one second, she thought he might say something else.
Instead he stepped back.
The operation began.
The message instructed Clare to enter through the west loading door alone.
Federal agents objected.
The kidnappers sent a live video.
Bell had blood on his face.
A gun against his shoulder.
They gave Clare sixty seconds.
Dominic looked ready to burn the entire building down.
Rebecca made the decision.
“Clare walks twenty feet inside. No farther.”
Dominic’s jaw clenched.
Clare moved.
Every step sounded too loud.
The warehouse was dark.
Her breathing echoed inside the enormous space.
Twenty feet.
She stopped.
“Anthony?”
A light snapped on.
Bell sat forty yards away.
Tied to a chair.
Alive.
“Clare,” he rasped.
She almost cried from relief.
Then a voice came from the darkness.
“Walk forward.”
Clare stayed still.
“No.”
Bell’s eyes widened.
“Clare, leave.”
“Quiet.”
The hidden speaker crackled.
“Forward.”
“No.”
Dominic had told her kidnappers expected fear to create obedience.
Clare knew something they didn’t.
She had spent nearly a decade working with surgeons.
Threatening voices did not impress her.
“You wanted me here,” she called. “I’m here. You want something else? Show your face.”
A man emerged.
Not Victor.
Not Weber.
A security guard.
Clare recognized him from Lakeview.
Frank Keller.
Night supervisor.
Behind him came Kathryn Davis.
The gentle HR administrator who had fired her.
Kathryn looked nothing like the woman from the fluorescent office.
No sympathy.
No soft voice.
“You always were stubborn,” Kathryn said.
Clare felt disgust replace fear.
“You killed patients.”
Kathryn’s expression barely changed.
“We didn't kill anyone.”
“You replaced medication.”
“We corrected an inefficient supply chain.”
“People died.”
“People die in hospitals every day.”
Clare’s hands curled.
“You know their names?”
Kathryn said nothing.
“Eleanor Marsh.”
A flicker.
Tiny.
But there.
Clare continued.
“Charles Benton. Lisa Perez. George Haskins.”
“Stop.”
“You know their names.”
Kathryn’s calm cracked.
“You have no idea how complicated this became.”
“No. I think it became pretty simple when you decided money mattered more than human lives.”
Movement appeared behind Bell.
A second man.
Then Clare noticed the doors at the far end opening.
This wasn’t right.
The FBI was supposed to breach on Rebecca’s signal.
Nobody had signaled.
Kathryn smiled.
And Clare understood.
“They know about the agents.”
Kathryn’s smile widened.
Gunfire exploded outside.
Clare dropped.
Dominic came through the west door before anyone could stop him.
Of course he did.
“Clare!”
Keller fired.
Dominic shoved Clare behind a concrete pillar.
Agents flooded the building.
Everything became noise.
Shouting.
Breaking glass.
Running feet.
Clare saw Bell’s chair tip sideways.
She crawled toward him.
Dominic grabbed her jacket.
“Where are you going?”
“To Bell!”
“No.”
“He’s exposed!”
Another shot struck concrete.
Dominic cursed.
Then followed her.
Together they reached Bell.
Clare cut at the plastic restraint around his wrists with a small emergency cutter.
Dominic covered them.
“Kathryn’s running!” someone shouted.
Clare looked up.
Kathryn disappeared through a side exit.
Keller followed.
Federal agents pursued.
Then Bell grabbed Clare’s sleeve.
“Victor.”
“What about him?”
Bell struggled to breathe.
“It’s not what Dominic thinks.”
Dominic crouched.
“What?”
Bell looked at him.
“Your uncle didn’t start this.”
Dominic’s face changed.
“Who did?”
Bell swallowed.
“The hospital scheme began nine years ago.”
Clare froze.
Nine years.
The exact year she started at Lakeview.
Bell stared at her.
“You were there from the beginning.”
Clare’s skin went cold.
“What are you talking about?”
Bell coughed.
Then forced out the words.
“The first person who discovered the counterfeit medication wasn’t me.”
“Who?”
Bell looked directly at Clare.
May you like
“Your mother.”
And suddenly the death Clare had spent six years believing was an accident no longer felt accidental at all.
