Chapter 4 - The Sting That Went Wrong
Miami smelled like salt and coconut sunscreen and money. We checked into a cheap motel off the highway, far from the fancy South Beach hotels Voss owned, Agent Carter and a team of six agents in the rooms next to us. Mom stayed in the Brooklyn safe house—we agreed it was too dangerous for her to come, even with protection. She called me every night, though, her voice tight, reminding me to be careful, reminding me what Voss was capable of.
Our plan was simple: I’d pretend to take Voss’s bribe. I’d call him, tell him I’d changed my mind, say I’d hand over Mom’s ledgers and the rest of the evidence in exchange for the ten million dollars and the penthouse. We’d set up a meeting at his private penthouse in downtown Miami, wear a wire, get him to admit to everything on tape, then the agents would move in and arrest him.
Simple. Until it wasn’t.
I called Voss from a burner phone the next morning. He picked up on the first ring, like he’d been waiting.
“Changed your mind, huh?” he said, amused. “Told you everyone has a price.”
“Ten million isn’t enough,” I said, making my voice sound greedy, cold, nothing like the girl who’d given that wedding speech. “I want twenty. And a seat on the board of your company. And full immunity for anything the Harringtons did. If I’m gonna work for you, I’m not going down for their mistakes.”
He laughed. “Twenty million. I like a woman who knows her worth. Deal. Come to my penthouse at nine tonight. Come alone. If I see so much as one cop, I’ll have your mom’s head on a platter before you can say ‘FBI.’”
He hung up.
At eight forty-five, I stood in the parking garage of Voss’s penthouse building, wearing a tight black dress Blake had bought me once—perfect for the part of the greedy gold digger— a wire taped to my inner thigh, a small panic button in my purse. Agent Carter pulled me aside, his face serious.
“If anything goes wrong,” he said, “hit that button. We’ll be two minutes out. Don’t be a hero. Your mom needs you.”
I nodded, took a deep breath, and walked into the elevator.
Voss’s penthouse was on the top floor, the entire level, floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the ocean and the city lights. He was waiting for me by the bar, holding two glasses of champagne, wearing a white linen shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, a gold chain glinting against his tanned skin. He was older than I’d expected—sixty, maybe, with silver hair and cold blue eyes that looked right through you.
“Grace,” he said, smiling, holding out a glass. “You look even better in person than you did on the news.”
I took the champagne, didn’t drink it. “Where’s the money?”
“Eager,” he said, laughing, and nodded at the coffee table. There was a black duffel bag there, unzipped, full of stacks of hundred-dollar bills. “Twenty million, just like you asked. And the contracts for the penthouse, the board seat, the immunity. All you have to do is hand over the ledgers.”
I set my purse on the table, pulled out the stack of Mom’s notes—we’d made copies, the real ones were safe with the FBI—and handed them to him. He flipped through them, his smile getting wider.
“Your mom was always a nosy little cleaner,” he said, tossing the ledgers on the table. “I should have killed her twenty years ago. Would have saved me a lot of trouble.”
My blood boiled, but I kept my face blank. “So. We have a deal?”
“We have a deal,” he said, and held out his hand. I reached to shake it—
And then his smile dropped.
He grabbed my wrist, hard, his fingers digging into my skin so hard I cried out.
“You think I’m stupid?” he said, his voice cold, no trace of amusement left. “You think I didn’t know you were wearing a wire? You think I didn’t know the FBI is parked outside this building? You really thought you could trick me? The same way you tricked Blake?”
He ripped the wire off my thigh, held it up, and crushed it in his hand.
“Kill her,” he said, over his shoulder.
Two men stepped out of the shadows behind me—big, bald, wearing black, guns in their hands. I hit the panic button in my purse as hard as I could, then spun around, grabbing the champagne bottle off the bar and smashing it over the closest guy’s head. He went down, blood pouring from his scalp. The other one lunged for me, but I ducked, grabbing a heavy crystal ashtray off the coffee table and slamming it into his knee. He screamed, collapsing.
I turned to run for the door—but Voss was there, holding a gun, pointing it right at my chest.
“Nice try,” he said, smiling again, that cold, dead smile. “But you’re not going anywhere.”
I heard the elevator ding, the sound of agents yelling, running down the hallway. Voss’s head snapped toward the door—just for a second. I lunged for him, knocking the gun out of his hand. It fired, the bullet whizzing past my ear, shattering a floor-to-ceiling window. We fell to the floor, wrestling, his hands around my throat, squeezing—
And then the door burst open. Agents flooded the room, guns drawn, yelling FBI! FREEZE!
Voss let go of my throat, scrambling up, and ran for the back of the penthouse. I gasped for air, coughing, pointing after him. “He’s going for the secret elevator! Mom’s notes said he has one in the master bedroom!”
Carter ran after him, but it was too late. By the time we got to the bedroom, the elevator doors were closing, Voss smiling and waving at us through the gap.
We found the duffel bag of money—all fake, all movie prop bills. The ledgers I’d handed over were gone. The gun Voss had used was gone, no fingerprints, no serial number.
He’d planned the whole thing. He’d known I was wearing a wire. He’d known the FBI was coming. He’d just wanted to toy with me. To show me he was always one step ahead.
May you like
I sat on the floor of the penthouse, my throat bruised, my dress torn, and stared at the broken window. The ocean wind blew in, cold and salty, and I knew one thing for sure:
Voss had made this personal now. And I didn’t lose when things got personal.
