Chapter 6 - THE PRICE OF HER FATHER
Elena hit pause one frame before the gun touched Charles’s skull.
“Get Vittorio in here.”
Price stood.
“No.”
Elena rounded on him.
“My father has a gun to his head.”
“We have police.”
“We have a leak.”
Vale said, “She’s right.”
Everyone looked at him.
Vale folded his hands.
“If the hostage taker knew about Halcyon before tonight, law enforcement involvement may already be compromised.”
Elena stared at him.
“Useful thought.”
Vale’s expression didn’t move.
Vittorio entered thirty seconds later.
He watched the video once.
Then again without sound.
“Play the first three seconds.”
Elena did.
Vittorio pointed.
“Light flicker.”
“So?”
“Fluorescent ballast. Old.”
He leaned closer.
“Listen under the voice distortion.”
They turned the volume up.
A low metallic rattle repeated every seven seconds.
Dominic frowned.
“Train?”
Elena shook her head.
“No. Conveyor.”
Everyone looked at her.
She replayed it.
“I spent four months inside Whitmore freight facilities during the labor audit. That’s a pallet conveyor with a loose return chain.”
Vittorio’s security chief, Matteo, was already typing.
“How many old facilities?”
“Six in New York and New Jersey.”
Another message arrived.
A link.
LIVE FEED.
Elena tapped it.
Charles appeared again.
His breathing was louder now.
The distorted voice said, “You have four hours.”
Elena leaned toward the phone.
“You can hear me?”
A delay.
Then the voice answered.
“Yes.”
“What do you want inside Halcyon?”
“Ownership.”
“Of Newark?”
A soft laugh.
“Newark is a key. Not the door.”
Vittorio looked at Elena.
She kept going.
“If I sign, you release him?”
Charles jerked against the restraints.
“No.”
The gun struck the side of his head.
Elena’s hand clenched around the phone.
“Dad.”
He blinked hard.
Then looked into the camera.
“Your mother built it because she knew—”
The feed crackled.
The distorted voice cut in.
“Knew what?”
Charles’s mouth opened.
He breathed through blood.
“What they were doing.”
Elena stopped.
They.
Not I.
Not what I did.
What they were doing.
Vittorio heard it too.
His gaze sharpened.
“Charles,” Elena said. “Who is they?”
A thud sounded beyond the camera.
Not in the room.
Farther away.
Then a horn.
Two short blasts.
Elena knew that too.
“Dock signal.”
Matteo turned his laptop.
“Three former Whitmore freight sites still use interior dock signals.”
Elena pointed at one.
“Piermont.”
“No rail access.”
“Exactly.”
The hostage video’s supposed train noise couldn’t be a train.
Conveyor.
Dock horn.
Old fluorescent fixtures.
Piermont.
Vittorio’s people moved.
Vale reached for his phone.
Elena caught his wrist.
“Who are you calling?”
“My office.”
“No.”
His eyes lowered to her hand.
“Release me.”
“When my father is back.”
For one second, something hard appeared in Vale’s face.
Then it vanished.
Elena let go.
The live feed shifted.
Charles was looking somewhere off-camera.
His entire body changed.
Shoulders locking.
Breath stopping.
Recognition.
Elena leaned in.
“Dad?”
Charles stared at whoever had entered the room.
His voice came out barely audible.
“You.”
The gun moved.
May you like
Elena heard a sharp crack.
The screen went black.
