Chapter 7 - The Serpent’s Nest
The safehouse was hidden beneath an abandoned textile warehouse on the industrial waterfront, far from the gleaming skyscrapers of the Sterling empire. The damp air smelled of rusted iron and old paper. Marcus slammed a heavy iron bolt into place, securing the heavy steel door behind them, while Julianna dropped the blood-stained gold lapel pin onto a scarred wooden worktable.
“The Serpent Guild,” Marcus said grimly, leaning against a stack of storage crates as he lit a cigarette. “I thought that syndicate died out twenty years ago when the feds raided the docks. If they’re back, it means someone high up in the government is protecting them.”
Julianna paced across the concrete floor, her heels clicking rhythmically against the stone. “They aren’t just protected, Marcus. They’re running the bankruptcy court. That’s why Eleanor was arrested. The feds didn’t move on her for embezzlement—they moved on her because she stopped paying protection money to the Guild.”
Marcus blew a ring of gray smoke toward the high, grimy rafters. “And what about your mother? You always believed she abandoned you. But if the Guild had her…”
“She didn’t abandon me,” Julianna interrupted, her voice hard as granite. “She was running from them. And she left me with Eleanor for protection, believing the Sterling name would be a shield. But she didn’t know Eleanor was the one who sold her out to buy the first block of downtown real estate.”
A sudden, sharp series of beeps echoed from the workbench. Julianna’s encrypted laptop, connected to a satellite uplink, was flashing an incoming data transmission from an unknown IP address.
Marcus walked over and tapped the spacebar. A live video feed flickered to life on the screen, showing the interior of a dimly lit holding cell.
Eleanor Sterling sat upright on a steel cot, her hands cuffed behind her back. Standing before her was a man in an expensive custom-tailored suit, his face half-shadowed by the harsh fluorescent light of the precinct.
Julianna gasped, gripping the edge of the metal table so hard her knuckles turned white.
“That’s not a federal prosecutor,” Julianna breathed. “That’s the city’s newly elected District Attorney, David Vance—Arthur’s younger brother.”
On the screen, David leaned down until his face was inches from Eleanor’s.
“You had a good run, old woman,” David said smoothly, his voice coming through the tinty laptop speakers. “But the board meeting at noon is going to ratify my control of the trust. And when Julianna shows up with her little microfilms… well, accidents happen on the waterfront every day.”
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Eleanor raised her head, spitting blood onto David’s polished Italian leather shoe. “You think you’ve won, David? You don’t know what you’ve awakened.”
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