Quiet Before the Strike
The tension settled into the house like dust. Everyone moved with slow precision — no dramatic charges, no reckless decisions. That was Mandaline's order and Ethan's instinct; both had been burned by speed before. This time they would be surgical.
Eleanor's recovery was slow but steady. She slept in short cycles, her voice hoarse when she spoke. Yet even in her fragility there was iron: she wanted to tell them what she'd seen, who had visited Isabella that night, what fragments of conversation she'd overheard before being taken. Her memory was a collection of torn phrases: "—payment cleared…," "—make it look natural…," "—Isabella arranged…." Each piece stung like salt.
It was Victor's signature that made Mandaline's hands still: a certain way of arranging words, fragments of legalese and threats that matched the way Eleanor described them. Victor didn't need to be visible to be violent; his methods were the sort that worked in shadowed corridors and anonymous accounts.
Ethan and Damien planned their first move: a monitored sting where they would follow a courier who'd been linked to Victor's network. It was the sort of slow trap they could control — no arms, just tracing, waiting for someone to make a mistake.
Clara prepared the files in the study, arranging documents and notes that Eleanor had left. She found something small and sharp: a scrap of receipt with a stamp that indicated a safe deposit box in a nearby town. The handwriting on it — a hurried script — matched the slanted notes Eleanor had made about courier schedules. "This is something," she told Victoria quietly.
Victoria's face brightened with a small fierce light. "We'll hand it to Tessa. She can pull the bank route." Her voice was steady, almost fierce in its smallness. "We're finally building a map."
As night fell, the sting operation began. Damien and Ethan watched the monitor feeds in the small operations room, while Tessa and Victoria coordinated with local contacts. The convoy of couriers came and went on schedule, men with blank faces and briefcases. Then one delivery ran late; the courier made a wrong turn; a license plate didn't match. Tiny imperfections — the things that unravel larger lies.
They followed the trail to a warehouse, the kind of building that smelled of oil and old packing crates. Outside, Aiden stood near a stack of pallets, his silhouette sharp against the night. He looked older, not softened, and his eyes flicked as if searching for someone.
Damien nudged Ethan. "He's here," he said.
Ethan's jaw went taut. "Do not move until we know who he's meeting." His voice was a taut wire.
They watched as Victor's lieutenant appeared — the man from the diner photo — followed by a shadowy figure that briefly turned and caught the lamplight. The camera didn't give everything, but it gave enough. The silhouette's profile — a thin nose, the way he tilted his head — made Ethan's blood run cold.
"That could be Victor," whispered Tessa. "Or someone close to him."
Aiden and the courier exchanged words. The deal looked small. A handoff of a briefcase. A signature. A nod. Nothing dramatic over the security feed. Yet the world of small couriers and black boxes was where big plans were born.
Ethan watched the figure in the camera as if memorizing a face he might never want to see again. He thought of Clara in the mansion, of Eleanor's whispered words, of how close the house had come to losing the people it loved.
He let out a breath that was half prayer and half command. "Bring them in," he said quietly. "Careful. Bring them in and close every door."
It was the quiet before the strike — patient, precise, and dangerous. In the distance, thunder grumbled like a warning. Inside the mansion, they waited, fingers clenched, hearts ready.