Chapter 7 - The Trap in Queens
Back at the Ridgewood safe house, miles away from the roaring tension of the Greenpoint warehouse, the night was deathly quiet.
Sophia sat at the kitchen table, the gold cufflink she had found in the cellar resting between her fingers. She rolled it back and forth, watching the dim overhead light catch the engraved V.
Emma was fast asleep in the adjacent bedroom, her small chest rising and falling in peaceful rhythm, clutching her stuffed rabbit tightly against her chest.
Suddenly, a soft, electronic beep emanated from Daniel Cross’s security console set up on the counter.
Sophia froze.
She stood up slowly, creeping over to the monitor. A small red light was blinking on the perimeter camera feed covering the alleyway behind the safe house.
A single black sedan had pulled up, its lights off, idling by the rear fire escape.
Two men stepped out of the vehicle. They weren't wearing the tactical gear of Lorenzo’s loyalists. They wore dark raincoats, their hands tucked deep inside their pockets, scanning the back windows with professional, predatory precision.
Vincent had anticipated survivors. He had sent a cleanup crew just in case his coup in Greenpoint went sideways.
Sophia’s breath caught in her throat. She looked toward Emma’s bedroom door, then down at the heavy deadbolt on the kitchen door.
She didn't panic. The fear that had paralyzed her seven years ago, when she stood on Lorenzo’s doorstep with three dollars in her pocket and a baby in her arms, was gone. Replaced by a fierce, maternal iron.
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She walked silently to the hall closet, reaching behind the stack of spare blankets where Marcus Bell had left a compact, suppressed Beretta pistol with a box of ammunition earlier that morning.
She had never fired a gun in her life. But as she checked the slide and felt the cold, heavy steel in her palm, she knew she would empty every single round into the chest of anyone who tried to cross that threshold.
