She sat back to process this news. Lantrak Holdings didn’t exist, at least not in any public corporate registry. Marise scrolled deeper, cross-referencing associated tags—insurance broker, PO box, emergency roadside contact. Then she found it: a flag in an old internal case file.
Lantrak Holdings LLC – Subsidiary of Cerberus Logistics Group.
Cerberus. The name made her mouth go dry.
It was a private "logistics" company in the same way a snake was a pet: coiled, cold, and deadly. They did book work for offshore oil interests—surveillance, extraction, and asset retrieval under the guise of maritime transport, and subcontracted security to low-life criminals of the underworld.
She clicked into a sealed federal report she shouldn’t have had access to.
Cerberus had been investigated five years ago for covert operations involving data theft and coercion of civilian scientists working on renewable energy prototypes in California. The case had gone quiet after two of the scientists dropped out of public life.
Those were their people in that black SUV watching Kathleen. Which meant whoever paid them considered Kathleen’s work detrimental to their business. And they wouldn’t wait for press conferences or patents.
Marise leaned back in her chair, concerned now. Cerberus had been employed to shut down Kathleen’s experiment and they wouldn’t hesitate to use force if necessary.
She had a choice to make. Stay out of it and leave Kathleen at the mercy of these dangerous people, or get involved.
She closed her laptop with a sigh. The choice had already been made when she kissed her.
Marise arrived at five o’clock the third night and waited in her car. An hour later, Kathleen drove into her underground parking and the light came on in her apartment. Marise moved her car closer until she was directly opposite the apartment building.
The black SUV came into the street on eight and parked. Marise focused on it.
At eleven, Kathleen’s light went out.
An hour later, the passenger door of the SUV cracked open with a muffled click. Two broad-shouldered men climbed out,both in dark clothing, their faced covered by balaclavas. They moved without urgency and climbed the stairs to the front door. They turned to scan the street, then one of them pulled out a phone and tapped a code into the building’s side keypad. The other jiggled something in the lock with practiced ease. A faint metallic click sounded, then the door swung open.
They slipped inside.
Marise was already moving. She left her car door ajar and crossed the road at an angle, shadowing their steps by ten seconds. When she reached the entrance, the door was sliding shut. She caught it with her palm, eased it open, and inched into the small foyer.
It was dimly lit by a motion sensor bulb that flickered once, then held. They’d taken the stairwell at the right, ignoring the lift.
She climbed behind them, two floors down, her sneakers silent on the floorboards. The fourth-floor corridor was quiet, lined with grey carpet and lit by a line of dim LED lights. She peeked around the corner to see what they were doing. The taller man stood outside Kathleen’s unit while the other crouched, working the lock with an electronic tool. Finally, there was a small click and he rose and laid the tool on the ground. He reached under his coat, pulled out a handgun and fitted a silencer onto the end. With a nod to his colleague, he disappeared into the unit.
Marise sidled closer, silent as breath. She waited until the taller one checked his watch, his body angled toward the lift, and then she struck.
One hand seized the back of his collar while the other slammed the steel edge of her flashlight into the base of his skull. He grunted once and slumped forward. She caught him before he hit the carpet, then eased him down. After laying him on his stomach, she dug in her pocket for two zip ties and bound hishands together. Then did the same to his legs. He wasn’t going anywhere when he woke up.
The second man had reached Kathleen’s bedroom door when Marise barrelled into him. He staggered backward, hitting the wall with a thud, the revolver flying out of his hand.
He recovered quickly. He was bigger than her, maybe mid-thirties, with combat boots and a hard jaw. Ex-military, from the way he pivoted into a low stance and launched at her.
She ducked the first swing—an elbow aimed at her jaw—and drove her shoulder into his midsection, knocking him into the edge of the kitchen area. A sharp grunt sizzled out of his mouth, but he didn’t slow. He came back harder, grappling now, trying to pin her arms.
Marise twisted out of his grip, using his own momentum to pull him off balance. Her foot connected with the side of his knee. A crack echoed. He cursed loudly and swung again, catching her cheek with the back of his fist. Pain bloomed white behind her eye.
She rallied, and ignoring the ringing in her ear, drove her knee into his ribs, once, twice. His grip loosened. She slipped out, grabbed a heavy ceramic bowl from the kitchen counter, and smashed it into the side of his head.
He went down, breath rasping, out cold.
She grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back until he was face-down on the tiles, her knee on his spine. With a zip tie, she bound his wrists securely and tied his ankles as well. Only then did she take a breath.
She wiped blood from her mouth with the back of her hand.
The next moment, she looked up and found herself staring down the barrel of a gun.
The light came on in the hallway and Kathleen stood at the entrance of the kitchen, barefoot in sleep pants and a rumpled shirt, a silver revolver in her two hands.
