Chapter 3 - The Price of a Life
I sat down across from Maya on the velvet bench, leaning forward with my hands clasped.
"Start from the beginning," I commanded softly. "Who told you to do this?"
"Sam Miller’s men," she whispered, looking around as if the walls of my penthouse had ears. "A man named Vance contacted me three weeks ago. He said he worked for Miller Logistics. He knew everything about Lily's condition—that she has severe pulmonary fibrosis, that she needs bi-weekly injections of PulmoVax to survive."
I felt a cold rage ignite deep in my chest. Sam Miller was my primary competitor in maritime logistics. We had been locked in a bitter bidding war for the city’s port authority lease for six months. I knew Miller was dirty, but targeting a housekeeper’s dying child crossed a line that even New York’s darkest criminal networks respected.
"Go on," I insisted.
"Apex Pharmacy ran up fake charges on my account," Maya explained, tears dripping onto her coat. "They claimed my insurance denied coverage for the last three months. Suddenly I owed $2,800. I couldn't pay it. That's when Vance showed up at my door. He offered to clear the debt and give me free doses for Lily if I used my security clearance keycard—the one your firm issued me to clean your private offices at the dock executive suite—to swap the shipping labels on Crate 409."
"So Crate 409 contained the real medicine," I deduced. "And what did you put back on the manifest?"
"A saline placebo," she choked out. "I didn't want to do it, Mr. Foster! But Vance showed me a video of Lily at her daycare. He said if I didn't bring him the stolen biological core tonight, they would cut off her supply and tell the police I was stealing from your company!"
I stood up, adjusting my cufflinks. The cold, analytical part of my brain—the part that made me millions by exploiting my opponents' mistakes— instantly began calculating the board state.
"Maya," I said, looking down at her. "Where is the drop-off?"
May you like
"The old warehouse behind Pier Forty-Seven," she replied, shaking. "At midnight."
"Good," I said, pulling out my phone and dialing Ryan. "Because Sam Miller just made the biggest mistake of his life. He assumed he was playing against a terrified mother. He doesn't realize he's playing against me."
