Chapter 4 - THREE BOMBSNobody moved.
Teddy stood above them with the detonator in one hand and a pistol in the other.
His calm was worse than rage.
Marin kept one arm around June.
Her sister’s body trembled violently.
Cassian’s gun remained trained on Teddy.
“Give me the remote,” he said.
Teddy smiled.
“Still giving orders.”
“You were loyal once.”
“I was useful once.”
“You raised me.”
“I studied you.”
The words struck Cassian harder than any bullet.
Teddy stepped closer to the railing.
“Your father believed violence created loyalty. August Bowmont believed money did. Both men were fools.”
“What do you believe?” Marin asked.
Teddy looked down at her.
“Secrets.”
The harbor wind moved through the broken windows.
“A secret can make a judge ignore a body. It can make a police captain lose evidence. It can make two crime families sign contracts written by the same hand.”
“The ledger,” Marin said.
“Yes.”
“My mother found it.”
“Part of it.”
“You killed her.”
Cassian’s head turned toward Teddy.
Teddy showed no regret.
“Evelyn was given many opportunities to forget.”
Marin felt June clutch her arm.
The room blurred at the edges.
“You ran her car off the road.”
“I did not drive the truck.”
“But you ordered it.”
“I solved a problem.”
Cassian fired.
The bullet struck the railing inches from Teddy’s hand.
“Next one goes through your wrist.”
Teddy did not flinch.
“If my grip releases, the signal activates.”
Cassian’s expression changed.
Dead-man switch.
Marin forced herself to think.
Three bombs.
Warehouse.
Cathedral.
Hospital.
Teddy wanted them frozen.
But the detail that mattered was not what he said.
It was what he did.
His thumb pressed the top of the remote.
A true dead-man switch would require constant pressure.
Yet his grip had changed when Cassian fired.
The button had not released.
“He’s lying,” Marin said.
Teddy’s eyes shifted toward her.
Cassian did not lower his gun.
“About which part?”
“The switch.”
Marin stood slowly.
“Don’t,” Teddy warned.
“You moved your thumb.”
“The device is pressure sensitive.”
“No.”
She took another step.
“You want us to think releasing it will trigger the explosives, but if that were true, you wouldn’t be standing in the warehouse containing one of them.”
“I am prepared to die.”
“People who are prepared to die don’t build escape routes.”
His gaze hardened.
Marin pointed toward the open catwalk door behind him.
“You planned to leave.”
Cassian understood.
“Marco.”
Marco spoke into his radio.
“Find every exit.”
Teddy’s calm finally cracked.
“Do not test me.”
Marin looked at the remote.
“The bombs might be real. But the dead-man switch isn’t.”
Teddy raised the pistol toward her.
Cassian fired.
The bullet hit Teddy’s shoulder.
The remote fell.
Marin ran.
She caught it before it struck the concrete.
For one terrible second, everyone waited.
Nothing happened.
Cassian’s men stormed the catwalk.
Teddy fired blindly and escaped through the upper door.
Marco followed.
Cassian rushed to Marin and took the remote.
Three digital countdowns glowed on the screen.
Twenty-eight minutes.
All real.
“Can you stop them?” Marin asked.
“No.”
Cassian handed the device to one of his specialists.
“Find the signal frequency.”
He called the hospital first.
Evacuation began.
Then the cathedral.
The warehouse bomb was located beneath the central floor.
June looked faint.
Marin guided her toward the exit.
Serafina remained on her knees with her hands restrained.
“Take her too,” Marin said.
Cassian looked at the woman who had kidnapped June.
“She tried to kill you.”
“She is still standing inside a building with a bomb.”
Serafina stared at Marin.
“Why?”
“Because I am not Teddy.”
They escaped the warehouse with nineteen minutes remaining.
Bomb squads were deployed across the city.
The hospital device was found beneath an oxygen delivery dock.
The cathedral bomb sat in the old crypt.
Cassian drove toward St. Matthew’s while Marin stayed with June inside an armored vehicle.
“You should go with her,” Marin told him.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Cassian.”
“My men can protect June.”
“She needs someone she knows.”
“So do you.”
The answer silenced her.
They reached the cathedral with eleven minutes left.
Police had cleared the area.
Cassian led Marin beneath the church through a narrow stone stairway.
“You are not touching the bomb,” he said.
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You were thinking it.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“I know exactly what you look like before doing something reckless.”
The crypt smelled of dust and cold stone.
The device was attached to an old iron door beneath the altar.
A bomb technician worked quickly.
Marin saw symbols carved into the iron.
A needle.
A thread.
The Marquette crest on one side.
The Bowmont crest on the other.
“This isn’t just a bomb,” she said.
Cassian turned.
“What?”
“It’s hiding something.”
The technician warned them to step back.
Seven minutes.
The iron door could not be opened without disturbing the device.
Marin examined the edges.
New wire.
Old lock.
The bomb had been installed recently, but Teddy had chosen this location for a reason.
“Look at the remote.”
Cassian pulled out the recovered device.
Each countdown carried a label.
W.
H.
F.
Warehouse.
Hospital.
F did not stand for cathedral.
“First stitch,” Marin whispered.
Cassian looked at the iron door.
“The first stitch is behind it.”
Five minutes.
The technician identified the trigger.
He could stop the explosion, but not before the internal lock sealed permanently.
Cassian made a decision.
“Save the building.”
Marin grabbed his arm.
“The evidence—”
“Is not worth your life.”
“It may be the only proof Teddy controls both families.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will when he kills again.”
Cassian stepped closer.
“No.”
His voice was low and fierce.
“I will not watch you die for a secret buried before either of us had a choice.”
The technician cut the wire.
The countdown stopped at three minutes and twelve seconds.
Silence flooded the crypt.
The iron lock clicked.
Sealed.
Marin stared at the door.
Then she remembered the key from the dress.
She pulled it from her pocket.
Cassian saw it.
“No.”
“The lock may have sealed electronically, but the original mechanism is still there.”
“Marin.”
She inserted the key.
It turned.
The iron door opened.
Inside was a narrow chamber.
Shelves filled with ledgers.
Photographs.
Weapons.
Medical records.
And two wooden chairs facing each other.
One bore old bloodstains.
On the wall behind it hung a photograph of Cassian at fourteen.
The original.
Not a copy.
Below the photograph was a sentence written in Evelyn Holloway’s hand.
TEDDY MADE THE FIRST CUT.
Cassian went still.
Marin entered the chamber.
On the floor lay a silver box.
Inside was a spool of dark surgical thread.
The same thread used on Cassian’s wedding wound.
And beneath it was a recent photograph.
May you like
Teddy standing beside Cassian’s father.
A man who had supposedly died eight years earlier.
Related Stories
