Chapter 7 - The Trap
The pale light of dawn filtered through the dusty pines outside the cabin, casting long gray shadows across the floorboards.
Sophia was still sleeping peacefully on the narrow cot, wrapped tightly in wool.
At the wooden table, spread out across a map of the city and surrounding county, sat Daario and Margaret. The anger in Daario’s eyes had been replaced by something far more dangerous: cold, surgical calculation.
“If the board thinks I’m dead—if they assume I burned up in the River Road estate along with Isabella’s evidence—they’ll make their move today,” Daario said, tracing a finger down a highway route leading toward the Canadian border.
“What kind of move?” Margaret asked, sipping black coffee from a tin mug.
“They’re going to liquidate St. Catherine’s orphanage,” Daario said grimly. “Transfer all remaining children to a secondary facility upstate—a facility that doesn’t exist on public records. That’s where they keep the leverage. That’s where they hide the truth about the adoption trafficking ring.”
Margaret slammed her mug down, coffee sloshing over the rim. “We have to stop them. If those children get moved, we’ll never find them.”
“We won't stop them,” Daario corrected, looking up with a cold, predatory smile. “We’re going to help them pack.”
Margaret frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re going to set a trap,” Daario explained, leaning forward. “I still have men inside the union—men loyal to me, not the board. We let the directors believe the archive was destroyed in the fire. We let them think I’m running for the border. They will gather at the main administrative office at St. Catherine’s today to sign the final transfer orders.”
He tapped the map directly over the old brick chapel of St. Catherine’s.
“And that is where we take them all down.”
Margaret stared at him, realizing the sheer audacity of the plan. It wasn't just an escape anymore. It was an execution of justice.
“And the police?” she asked.
“The police are bought and paid for,” Daario said bluntly. “Which is why we aren't calling the cops. We’re calling the federal prosecutor in Washington—the one Isabella mailed her duplicate files to three weeks ago.”
Margaret’s eyes widened. “Isabella mailed duplicate files?”
“She wasn't stupid,” Daario said, a fierce pride swelling in his chest. “She knew the local D.A. was in the board’s pocket. She sent a complete physical copy of the financial audit to the Department of Justice’s organized crime division, with instructions to open it if anything happened to her.”
He pulled his encrypted satellite phone from his pocket—a burner he had retrieved from his truck’s glove box before it sank—and punched in a direct satellite relay number.
After three rings, a sharp, professional voice answered: “Federal Task Force 7. State your authorization code.”
May you like
Daario looked at Margaret, then down at Sophia sleeping soundly across the room.
“This is Daario Moretti,” he said into the phone, his voice echoing off the rough pine walls of the cabin. “I have the evidence your office has been waiting three years for. And I’m about to deliver the board straight to your front door.”
