Chapter 4: The Shape of the Trap
I didn't sleep.
Logan stayed in Alessandro's room.
The guards outside the door had been replaced by different men — quieter, less visible, positioned in ways that felt deliberate.
Alessandro had given an order I hadn't heard, and the entire floor had shifted around it.
A nurse brought me coffee at four in the morning.
She set it on the windowsill without a word and left.
I wrapped both hands around the cup and watched the city below — the orange glow of streetlights, a delivery truck moving slowly through an empty intersection, the ordinary world continuing without any awareness of what was happening six floors above it.
Daniel sat in the chair by the door.
He hadn't left.
"Tell me about Reeves," I said.
He looked up.
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"Martin Reeves.
Fifteen years with the bureau.
Ran three major undercover operations, all successful on paper.
David was assigned to him four years ago because Reeves had the best record in financial crime in the mid-Atlantic division."
"When did he turn?"
"We think two years ago.
Around the same time David's cover was blown." Daniel's jaw tightened.
"The network David was investigating — they had deep money.
Reeves started taking it.
Small amounts at first.
Consulting fees routed through shell companies.
By the time David figured it out, Reeves had already staged the accident and buried David's identity so deep that David couldn't surface without Reeves knowing."
"So David is trapped."
"David is trapped and Reeves is using Logan as the lock." Daniel looked at my son sleeping against Alessandro's side.
"David made one mistake.
Fourteen months ago, he sent a letter.
Not to you — he knew your mail was monitored.
He sent it to a neighbor.
Mrs.
Paulson, two doors down from your apartment."
I went very still.
"Eleanor Paulson."
"You know her?"
"She brought us soup after the funeral.
She used to watch Logan on Saturday mornings so I could sleep." My throat tightened.
"She moved away eight months ago.
She said her daughter needed her."
"Reeves had her relocated," Daniel said.
"The letter was intercepted.
That's how Reeves confirmed David was still trying to reach you.
And that's when he told David — directly — that if David surfaced, Logan would be used as leverage against him."
"Leverage." The word came out like something I was spitting out.
"He threatened a child."
"He threatened the child of a federal witness who knows enough to end his career and put him in a cell for the rest of his life.
Yes."
Alessandro's voice came from the bed, quieter than before but no less sharp.
"Reeves sent the men who sh0t me tonight.
Not the network.
Reeves."
I turned.
"Why?"
"Because I have been helping David.
Quietly.
For eight months." He paused to breathe.
The effort showed.
"David came to me because he had no one else.
We are not friends.
We have never been friends.
But I have my own reasons for wanting the network destroyed, and David's evidence is the only thing that does it cleanly."
"So Reeves found out you were helping him."
"Reeves found out two weeks ago.
Tonight was his answer."
I set the coffee cup down.
"Where is David right now?
Exactly."
Daniel unfolded the piece of paper he had placed on the bed earlier and handed it to me.
It was an address.
Pittsburgh, as he had said.
A street name I didn't recognize.
"He's been in the same location for six weeks," Daniel said.
"He won't move until he knows you and Logan are safe.
That's the condition he set."
"Then we need to make him move," I said.
"Because if Reeves tried to kjll Alessandro tonight, David is next."
Alessandro looked at me.
"You understand the situation faster than most people," he said.
It wasn't a compliment exactly.
It was something more like recognition.
"I've been surviving on nothing for two years," I said.
"I understand situations very quickly."
Daniel's phone buzzed on his knee.
He looked at the screen.
His face changed.
"What?" I said.
He turned the phone toward me.
It was a text message.
No name.
Just a number I didn't recognize and four words.
*Reeves knows about tonight.*
May you like
Below it, a second message had arrived while Daniel was showing me the first.
*He's already moving.*
