Chapter 8 - The Woman in Green
Rebecca Kane’s gun didn’t shake.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Dempster slowly raised his hands.
Selena stared at the woman who had promised protection.
“You worked for Camilla?”
Rebecca smiled.
“For twenty-seven years.”
Alidoro looked toward the exit.
Rebecca shifted the weapon.
“Don’t.”
He froze.
“You killed my father?” Selena asked.
“No.”
“Who did?”
Rebecca’s smile vanished.
“Camilla.”
The answer should have devastated Selena.
Instead, it clarified everything.
Camilla had built the network.
Serrano enforced it.
Rebecca protected it.
And Alidoro had been used to reach Selena.
“What happens now?”
“You give me the drive.”
Dempster answered.
“I don’t have it.”
Rebecca aimed at Selena.
“You’ll find it.”
Dempster’s face became terrifyingly calm.
“If you hurt her, there will be nowhere on Earth you can hide.”
Rebecca laughed.
“That reputation of yours has always been useful.”
Selena looked at him.
“What does she mean?”
Rebecca answered.
“Dempster Flores, feared mafia billionaire. Wonderful headline, isn’t it?”
Dempster said nothing.
Rebecca continued.
“Camilla cultivated that reputation. Anonymous tips. Convenient photographs. Rumors. It made legitimate investigators focus on him while the real organization operated around him.”
Selena remembered every article.
Every whisper.
Dempster had benefited from the fear.
But someone else had created it.
Rebecca gestured toward a service corridor.
“Move.”
They walked.
Selena noticed Dempster’s left hand.
Two fingers flexed once.
A signal.
She remembered his security chief explaining emergency gestures.
Get down.
Selena dropped.
The lights went out.
Dempster moved.
A gunshot cracked.
Glass shattered.
Someone screamed.
Selena crawled behind a stone bench.
Seconds later, emergency lights illuminated the gallery.
Rebecca was on the floor.
Dempster had her gun.
Security flooded the room.
Alidoro leaned against the wall.
Blood stained his shoulder.
He had been shot again.
“You have terrible luck,” Selena said.
He laughed weakly.
“I’m noticing.”
Federal agents loyal to an internal anti-corruption unit arrested Rebecca.
But Camilla escaped the museum.
Serrano disappeared too.
The war moved into the open.
By morning, prosecutors had enough evidence to raid properties in four states.
Selena should have felt relieved.
Instead, she received a photograph.
Her mother.
Helen Roundtree stood outside a grocery store in Queens.
A red circle had been drawn around her face.
Beneath it:
BRING THE ORIGINAL MODEL. COME ALONE.
Selena’s blood froze.
She called her mother.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Dempster entered.
“What happened?”
She showed him.
Within seconds, the mansion became chaos.
Security checked cameras.
Phones.
Traffic feeds.
Then Selena’s mother called.
Selena answered immediately.
“Mom?”
“Sweetheart?”
“Where are you?”
“Home. Why?”
Selena closed her eyes.
Her mother was safe.
The photograph was a threat, not an abduction.
Yet.
Dempster ordered protection around her apartment.
Selena turned toward him.
“This ends tonight.”
“No.”
“You keep saying that word.”
“And you keep proposing suicide.”
“I can duplicate the model.”
“They want the original.”
“They don’t know what original means.”
Dempster stopped.
Selena explained.
“There is no single original. The model generates verification keys dynamically.”
“So?”
“So I can give Camilla something that looks real.”
“A trap.”
“Yes.”
Dempster hated it.
Matthew loved it.
Three hours later, Selena contacted Camilla.
The meeting would happen at Pier Seventeen.
Where everything began.
At midnight, Selena entered alone.
At least that was what Camilla believed.
A transmitter was sewn into Selena’s coat.
Dempster and federal tactical teams waited outside the surveillance perimeter.
Camilla stood inside with Serrano.
And six armed men.
“You have your father’s courage,” Camilla said.
Selena held up a flash drive.
“You killed him.”
“He forced my hand.”
“No. You chose.”
Camilla smiled faintly.
“You still believe people are divided into victims and villains.”
“No.”
Selena looked directly at her.
“I believe people make choices.”
She held up the drive.
“And you made yours.”
Camilla extended her hand.
“Give it to me.”
Selena did.
Camilla inserted it into a laptop.
Files appeared.
Her eyes widened.
Years of transactions.
Accounts.
Names.
Then the screen changed.
UPLOAD COMPLETE.
Camilla’s face transformed.
“What did you do?”
Selena smiled.
“Made my choice.”
Outside, sirens erupted.
Serrano raised his gun.
Dempster burst through the side entrance.
A shot rang out.
Selena saw Dempster jerk backward.
Then fall.
May you like
Everything inside her stopped.
“Dempster!”
