Chapter 464
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Chapter 464:
Lee blinked, thrown completely off balance. “Our cyber team tracked the prepaid card she used. The package is heading to a private genetics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland p>
“Do you need me to use our European contacts to intercept it at customs and incinerate it?” Lee offered the standard crisis management protocol.
“No, Lee,” Justin said.
Lee went still. “Sir p>
Justin turned from the window and walked back to his desk. His fingertips came to rest on the glass frame of a photograph — him and Carmen, taken seven years ago, before the crash.
“Let her mail it,” Justin said softly.
“But, Senator, if she sees the results p>
𝗥𝖾𝗰о𝘮𝗺е𝗇d 𝗍o 𝗒o𝘂𝗿 f𝘳𝗶еn𝘥s
“You don’t understand her psychology,” Justin interrupted, his eyes gleaming with a manic, calculated precision. “If I force the truth on her, her instinct will be to run. She will fight me. She will go to the police p>
He lifted the photograph, his thumb tracing the line of Carmen’s smiling face.
“But if she uncovers it herself? If she spends five agonizing days waiting in the dark, and then opens that envelope to find a 99.99% match?” His voice dropped to a quiet, lethal register. “The maternal instinct will completely override her logic. She won’t run from the monster. She will walk directly into my cage just to be near her son p>
Lee swallowed. A cold sweat broke out along the back of his neck. The sheer, sociopathic depth of Justin’s calculation was genuinely terrifying.
“Withdraw all surveillance on that package,” Justin ordered. “Ensure it arrives in Geneva safely and on time. I want her to see that piece of paper p>
“Yes, Senator,” Lee said, his voice entirely subdued.
Justin hung up, tossed the phone onto the desk, and lowered himself into his heavy leather chair. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, as though he could already detect the faint, desperate scent of Carmen’s surrender on the air.
He pressed the intercom button.
“Send the aides back in,” he said, his voice instantly restored to the flawless, measured warmth of a seasoned politician. “And clear my entire schedule for next Friday evening. I will be in New York p>
He had exactly five days to prepare the townhouse for his wife’s permanent return.
High above the financial district of Manhattan, Gaston Collins sat behind the massive desk in his penthouse office at the Collins Group headquarters, staring at the glowing red numbers on his Bloomberg terminal. His face was a mask of cold, predatory focus.
The intercom buzzed. His executive assistant’s voice came through, carefully measured. “Mr. Collins, Dr. Chloe Monroe is in the lobby. She used a legacy medical-emergency pass that was never deactivated in our system. Security is asking whether you want her removed p>
A wave of pure disgust moved through Gaston’s stomach. He glanced at his Rolex. He would grant this woman exactly sixty seconds of his time before having security physically remove her from the premises.
“Send her up,” he said.