Remi wiped her face hard.
“She’s lying about the underage girl.
Domi and Michel planned this weeks ago.
They wanted a weapon to destroy you if you ever fought back.
Erick, she’s not just throwing you away—she’s making sure you get hunted down.”
Erick didn’t answer immediately.
He let go of Remi’s wrist and stared at the TV screen.
Dominique’s crying face kept replaying.
His expression stayed cold and blank.
“Michel paid for this,” Erick said flatly.
“Three weeks ago.
He sent fifty grand through a fake company in Panama to a hacker group in Queens.
They faked evidence in my apartment logs.
They planted a fake phone, edited photos, and paid a runaway girl to lie.”
Remi stared at him, breathing fast.
“You knew?
You knew Michel was setting you up with something that bad, and you didn’t stop it?”
“I did stop it,” Erick said.
He pulled a knife from his bag and checked the blade under the dim light.
“I deleted the server logs when they tried to send them to the police.
But I left Michel’s backups.
I wanted him to feel safe.”
“Safe enough to lie on TV,” Ivan muttered from his cot, holding his bandaged ribs.
“Smart.
But risky, Chief.
People don’t care about server logs.
They see a crying woman talking about her lost kid.
Every cop in the state is looking for you now.”
Aria snapped her laptop shut.
“Ivan’s right.
The NYPD is working with the feds.
Clarke flagged the ‘Quade’ profile as a national security threat.
They’re not just hunting Erick Gerard—they’re authorized to shoot if they think ‘Quade’ is attacking the city.”
“Then we start the Burn Protocol,” Erick said.
The warehouse went dead quiet except for the rain hammering on the roof.
Aria stared up at him, her face losing color.
Even Ivan—who’d watched Erick take down entire tech giants—looked like he was sweating bullets.
“Erick,” Aria’s voice was barely there, “Burn Protocol means scorched earth.
Poof.
You’d be starting from nothing.
Not even a fake ID left.”
Erick turned, his old jacket groaning at the motion.
The guy who used to bow his head and take orders was gone.
What stood there now was something else—something that belonged in the grime of the docks.
“They want a boogeyman?” He flashed teeth.
“Fine.
Aria, kill the backups.
Wipe it all.
Let ‘em chase smoke.”
Aria froze for half a second before cracking her laptop open.
Her fingers moved like she was trying to set the keyboard on fire.
The screen lit up with green code, then flashed red: PURGE AUTHORIZED.
“Remi.” Erick’s voice cut through the dim light.
“Last chance.
Walk out that door, tell the cops I held a gun to your head, and daddy’s lawyers make you a Laurent again by breakfast.”
Remi glanced at the TV screen where her sister was calling her a backstabbing whore live on national news.
She let out a laugh that sounded like broken glass.
“Go back?
They sold me out to keep their stock from tanking.
I’m just a trading card to them.” She grabbed Erick’s jacket collar, her knuckles bone-white.
“Burn it all down.”
Erick studied her.
The Laurents had trained her to be razor-smart.
They just never realized she could be this cold.
“Good,” he said, voice low.
“Then get comfortable in the dark.”
The TV died.
The warehouse lights stuttered out.
The hum of servers clicked off like a last breath.
Everything digital Erick had built was now ash.
“Ivan, are you good to move?” Erick asked the shadows.
“Adrenaline and a fresh clip and I’ll punch through drywall, boss,” Ivan grunted.
“Aria, grab the drive.
We’re hitting the tunnels.” Erick flicked on a flashlight.
The beam cut through the dark, catching dust rising from Aria’s fried laptop.
“Where are we going?” Remi asked, stepping close.
“Someone the Laurents think they own.”
They headed for the rusted hatch in the floor—an old freight tunnel entrance.
Erick wrenched the wheel open with a metallic shriek.
Damp air smelling of wet concrete rushed up.
Before dropping down, Erick glanced back at the dead TV screen.
The Laurents and their puppets thought they’d won.
Threw him in the gutter, expecting him to drown.
But empires aren’t built from the top down.
They’re built in the fucking basement, brick by brick, with the trash nobody wanted.
“Move out,” Erick whispered, vanishing into the dark.
The tunnel swallowed them whole—dark, wet, and smelling like something had died down here years ago and nobody bothered to clean it up.
Concrete ribs arched overhead, rusted rebar poking out like broken bones.
Erick took point, his flashlight carving a shaky path through the gloom.
Remi clung to the back of his jacket, her fingers digging in hard enough to wrinkle the fabric.
She wasn’t bitching about the knee-deep sludge or the way it reeked like a backed-up sewer.
Guess getting stabbed in the back by your own family does that to a person—turns ex-debutantes into survivors.
Aria hugged the hard drive to her chest like it was the last life raft on a sinking ship.
Ivan brought up the rear, pale as shit but still dangerous, like a half-dead wolf.
Now and then, the whole tunnel shuddered with the distant growl of a subway train.
A not-so-subtle reminder: up there, people wanted them dead.
“This friend we’re seeing,” Remi muttered, her voice bouncing off the dripping walls.
“Who is he?”
Erick said without slowing down.
“Used to run logistics for Gerard Dominion before everything went to hell.
When Leroy took over, he tossed him three mil to shut up and disappear.”
Remi wiped filthy water off her face.
“So why would he help us now?”
Erick stopped at a ladder crusted with rust that led up to a manhole cover.
He glanced back, and for a second, the flashlight caught the edge of his grin.
“Because your dad paid him through GD’s system,” Erick said.
“And when I wiped my tracks during the Burn, I left a little surprise in their books.
Tomorrow morning, when Leroy tries to pull up those transfer records to prove he’s good for the money?
Poof.
Gone.”
“Erick…” she breathed, horror slipping into her voice.
“What did you do?”
“I gave you leverage,” Erick said flatly, turning his back to climb.
“Tomorrow morning, you aren’t just a scandalous sister-in-law on the run.
You’re the woman holding the financial trigger to your father’s entire empire.
Now climb.”