Chapter 4 - The Shadow of the PastDesperate MovesDesperate men do not go quietly into the night; they burn down the house around them.
Three weeks after losing control of Whitmore Capital, Cole was living out of a mid-tier extended-stay hotel near LaGuardia Airport. His luxury apartment had been seized by court-appointed receivers, his sports cars were impounded, and Sierra had abandoned him the moment his credit cards stopped working, taking her luggage and blocking his number.
His hair was unkempt, his eyes sunken. The only thing keeping him awake was a lethal mix of cheap bourbon and pure, toxic rage.
"She ruined me," Cole muttered to himself, pacing the narrow hotel room. "The little bitch ruined everything."
He picked up a burner phone he had purchased at a convenience store—the only line of communication he had left that wasn't monitored by Arthur Harris’s legal team.
He placed a call to a private investigator he used to hire for corporate opposition research—a ruthless ex-cop named Vance.
"Vance," Cole growled into the receiver. "Did you find her?"
"It wasn't hard, Whitmore," Vance’s gravelly voice came through the speaker. "She's at the Bennett estate in Great Barrington. She barely leaves the grounds. High security. Private guards at the gate."
"She has my kids, Vance," Cole lied, his voice cracking with feigned desperation. "She kidnapped my son and daughter. The courts are corrupt. I just want to see my children."
Vance chuckled darkly. "Save the sob story for the judge, Cole. I know what Harris is doing to you in court. You want to force her to negotiate, right?"
"I want leverage," Cole spat out, his eyes turning wild. "If I have the twins, she’ll drop the criminal charges. She’ll sign the settlement. She'll do whatever I ask."
"The Bennett estate is a fortress, Whitmore," Vance warned. "You can't just walk in."
"She goes to the pediatric clinic in town every Thursday morning," Cole said, his mind racing through the old routines he remembered from her schedules. "She doesn't take the full security detail into the clinic. She thinks she’s safe in that small town."
"It'll cost you fifty grand," Vance said. "Upfront."
May you like
Cole looked at the leather duffel bag sitting on the unmade bed. Inside was the last stash of untraceable cash he’d managed to pull from a private safe deposit box before the freeze took full effect—the emergency fund he had hidden from everyone.
"I have the cash," Cole said, his knuckles turning white around the phone. "Meet me in Great Barrington tomorrow morning. We take the kids."
