Chapter 6 - THE FREEZER
Within two minutes, the temperature dropped below freezing.
Maya started shivering first.
I gave her my jacket.
“No.”
“Take it.”
“You need it.”
“I’m not discussing wardrobe.”
She glared at me.
Then put it on.
Frank and my security team were outside, but the warehouse had reinforced loading doors designed to withstand commercial accidents.
Breaking in would take time.
Time we didn’t have.
Ryan searched the control panel.
“Sam changed the overrides.”
Evan opened a toolbox.
“He did the same thing to me in Prague two years ago.”
I looked at him.
“He tried to kill you?”
“Not successfully.”
That explained the disappearance.
Victor stood against the wall.
“For what it’s worth, I didn’t know Sam had taken over this much.”
“No one cares,” Maya said.
Victor actually looked offended.
Good.
She continued.
“My daughter is sitting in a hospital wondering where I am. Fix the door.”
I looked at her.
There was nothing weak about Maya Santos.
Desperate, yes.
Afraid, absolutely.
Weak?
Never.
We found the first emergency release welded shut.
The second had been electronically disabled.
Temperature: 21°F.
My hands were beginning to numb.
Then Ryan noticed an old drainage tunnel beneath the refrigeration floor.
“Could lead outside.”
“Could also lead nowhere,” Evan said.
“Better than freezing.”
The access grate was bolted.
We attacked it with tools.
As we worked, Victor suddenly collapsed.
Maya dropped beside him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Heart medication,” he said weakly.
The irony wasn’t lost on any of us.
I searched his pocket.
Empty.
“I took it this morning.”
His breathing became shallow.
Maya looked at me.
“He needs help.”
I stared at the man who helped steal medication from children.
Part of me thought fate had a sense of humor.
Then Maya said, “Daniel.”
I looked at her.
“Don’t become like them.”
Six words.
That was all it took.
I knelt beside Victor.
We kept him warm with packing insulation while Evan and Ryan forced the grate open.
The tunnel was narrow and partially flooded.
Maya went first.
Victor couldn’t crawl.
So I dragged him.
That might have been the strangest moment of my life.
Daniel Foster, billionaire CEO, crawling through freezing black water while pulling the criminal who corrupted his father’s company behind him.
Halfway through, Victor whispered, “Leave me.”
“No.”
“You hate me.”
“Yes.”
“Then why?”
I thought of Maya.
Lily.
My father.
“Because I’m tired of letting bad men decide what kind of man I become.”
He went quiet.
We emerged beneath a loading platform outside.
Frank’s men reached us immediately.
Police surrounded the warehouse.
Sam was gone.
Again.
But we had Victor.
And now Victor wanted to talk.
At the hospital, after doctors stabilized him, he gave us the missing piece.
Sam had started as a junior logistics analyst under my father.
Smart.
Ambitious.
Invisible.
He discovered that expensive pediatric biologics could be stolen almost without detection if inventory loss was disguised as temperature failure.
Victor helped expand the scheme.
Evan discovered it.
My father discovered it.
Then Sam arranged the counterfeit medication that contributed to my father’s death.
Victor claimed he learned the truth only afterward.
“Why protect him?” I asked.
“Because by then I was financially tied to the operation.”
“So you chose money.”
“Yes.”
At least he didn’t insult me with another lie.
“What does Sam want now?”
“To erase the old network and rebuild it himself.”
“Using Northbridge?”
“And dozens of other pharmacies.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where would he go?”
Victor looked toward Maya.
“To finish his biggest problem.”
Maya went pale.
“Lily.”
We ran.
Lily’s hospital room was empty.
Again.
The bed had been stripped.
Maya screamed her daughter’s name.
A nurse rushed toward us.
“She was taken for imaging.”
“By whom?”
“Transport.”
“There’s no imaging scheduled,” Dr. Patel said from behind us.
The nurse’s face changed.
Security footage showed a hospital transporter pushing Lily’s wheelchair toward the underground garage.
The man wore a cap.
But I recognized the way he walked.
Sam.
We reached the garage four minutes too late.
The vehicle was gone.
Maya stood beside the empty parking space.
For one second, she made no sound.
Then she turned toward me.
“If anything happens to her—”
“It won’t.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“But I can promise I’m not stopping.”
Her face crumpled.
I pulled her against me.
She held onto my shirt.
Not as employee and employer.
Not even as two people who belonged in the same world.
Just two terrified adults trying to save one little girl.
My phone rang.
Sam.
I answered.
Lily’s frightened voice came first.
“Mommy?”
Maya grabbed the phone.
“Baby! Mommy’s here.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know. Listen to me. Keep breathing slowly.”
Then Sam took the phone.
“You have something I want, Daniel.”
“What?”
“Victor’s archive.”
“You can have it.”
Ryan shook his head violently.
I didn’t care.
“Good,” Sam said. “Bring it to Pier Forty-Seven.”
“Let Lily go first.”
“No.”
Maya whispered, “Please.”
Sam laughed.
I had never hated a sound more.
“Two hours.”
The line ended.
Frank looked at me.
“You know he’ll kill us after he gets the archive.”
“Probably.”
Ryan stared at me.
“So what’s the plan?”
I looked through the hospital window toward the East River.
For most of my life, I won by finding weakness.
This time, Sam believed he had found mine.
Maya.
Lily.
He was right.
May you like
What he didn’t understand was that caring about someone did not only make you vulnerable.
Sometimes it gave you a reason to become much more dangerous.
