Chapter 6 – THE TRAP AT NORTHBRIDGE TOWER

The phone slipped from my trembling hand. Jack caught it before it hit the floorboard.

“Who is this?” Jack demanded, putting it on speaker.

“Someone who has been waiting twenty years for a promotion,” the voice sneered.

Jack’s face turned completely white. “Marcus.”

Marcus was the Chief Operating Officer of Northbridge. He was the man who had scheduled my interview this morning. The man who had smiled at me in the lobby.

“I have the boy on the roof,” Marcus said smoothly. “No cops. Just you, Jack. And the girl.”

The line went dead.

“Marcus is Silas’s inside man,” Jack realized, hitting the steering wheel in fury. “He orchestrated the boardroom attack. He knew you were coming in for the interview.”

“He has Leo,” I sobbed, panic clawing at my throat. “My brother is only ten years old. He has nothing to do with this!”

“I promise you, Emily,” Jack said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “Marcus will not touch one hair on his head.”

We drove to the towering glass skyscraper of Northbridge Consumer Group. The building was dark, the employees long gone.

We bypassed the lobby and took the freight elevator to the 50th floor, then climbed the maintenance stairs to the roof.

The cold Boston wind whipped around us as we stepped onto the helipad.

Marcus stood by the ledge, a gun pressed to Leo’s temple. My little brother was crying, his hands tied behind his back.

“Let him go, Marcus!” I screamed.

“Toss the gun, Jack,” Marcus ordered.

Jack slowly placed his weapon on the tar paper and kicked it away.

“It’s over, Marcus,” Jack said calmly. “Silas failed at the pier. You have no leverage.”

“I have the heir to the Whitmore empire,” Marcus smiled cruelly.

“What?” I gasped.

Marcus looked at me. “Your mother didn’t just hide proof, Emily. She hid the bloodline. You aren’t Jack’s enemy. You’re his half-sister.”

My world tilted.

Jack didn’t look surprised.

“I know,” Jack said softly. “My father told me before he died.”

“And the boy,” Marcus sneered, pulling Leo tighter against him. “Is the only legitimate male heir. If he dies, the syndicate falls to me.”

Marcus cocked the gun.

“Say goodbye, Jack.”

But Leo, crying and terrified, suddenly did exactly what I had taught him to do if a stranger ever grabbed him.

He stomped his heel down with all his might onto Marcus’s foot, and bit his arm.

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