Chapter 168: Someone Else’s Arrangement

The footsteps above had faded, but the silence they left behind felt heavier.

"Who’s upstairs?" Liam asked.

Harrison said nothing, and that told Liam something on its own.

The man wasn’t surprised someone was up there. He was surprised they’d let themselves be heard.

"You didn’t wire this place," Liam said, glancing at the cable behind the desk.

"No."

"Then who did?"

A pause. "Someone I made an arrangement with." You knew I’d tear apart your network.

"I knew you’d try. You were always going to hit the properties first, the money, the routes.

That’s how you operate." Harrison leaned against the desk’s edge. "While you were busy with that, I prepared something else."

"Jessica."

"Jessica." Who are you working with?

For the first time, Harrison smiled, not from amusement but from the certainty he wasn’t going to answer. "Someone with resources."

"That’s not a name."

"It’s all you’re getting tonight. He wasn’t protecting a name. He was protecting the arrangement itself, which meant whoever it was still had use for him.

A sharp sound rose from below. Footsteps, several, fast, moving through the building.

"That’s more than a few," Jack said.

"Those men downstairs aren’t yours," Dexter said to Harrison.

He didn’t answer.

Another crash, then a shout.

"That’s enough." Dexter moved for the door.

"You leave this room, you’ll never know where Jessica is," Harrison said quietly.

"Let him go," Liam said. "Take Jack."

Jack didn’t argue. They left, Dexter’s remaining men falling in behind them.

Harrison watched the doorway a beat too long before turning back. "You’re calmer than I expected."

"You’re less impressive than I expected."

"You haven’t seen the part I built for you yet."

"You didn’t build this," Liam said. Harrison’s smile vanished.

Downstairs, Dexter reached the stairwell where two of his men stood over a man in black, no insignia, no face they recognized, nothing tying him to the network they’d already gutted.

"Who sent you?" Jack asked.Blood at the corner of the man’s mouth."Wrong question."

A sound from the hallway. Derek stepped into view, coat buttoned, hands empty.

"You’ve been looking for me," Derek said.

"Found you."I don’t think we’re doing this tonight.

"Then why are you here?"

"To make sure you don’t reach the top floor."

Dexter’s face hardened. "You’re protecting Harrison."

Derek didn’t answer that either. He turned and disappeared down the corridor.

Jack looked at Dexter. "You’re letting him walk?"

"No." Dexter watched the empty hall. "I’m letting him think he did."

Upstairs, alone with Liam again, Harrison returned to his chair. "You have thirty minutes."

"You’re still asking for that."

"After thirty minutes, something happens."

"What?"

"You’ll find out." But his eyes kept drifting to the ceiling, and Liam saw it. You’re not in control of this room.

"You’re wrong."

"You’ve been watching that hallway since we walked in. You’re waiting for something, and you don’t know when it’s coming."

Harrison’s jaw tightened. The first real crack.

"Whoever you’re working with didn’t tell you everything," Liam said.

"You destroyed your own network to make me think I’d won. You used Jessica to bring me here. And now you’re waiting for someone else to finish what you started."

"You’re making assumptions."

"Maybe. But you’re not denying them."

The lights flickered, stabilized, then died completely. Red emergency lights bled into the room. A lock clicked. The office door sealed shut on its own.

Harrison yanked the handle. Nothing.

A panel slid open behind the desk, neither of them having touched it. A small screen lit up.

Jessica. Alive, seated, hands bound, one side of her face bruised, but conscious.

Her eyes lifted to the camera for a single second before the feed cut to Dexter and Jack standing over unconscious men in the hallway.

Then Derek, moving through another floor. Then a dark car outside, a driver whose face never turned toward the lens.

Harrison stared at the screen like it had betrayed him. "This wasn’t part of the arrangement."No,Liam said. "It wasn’t."

"What did you do?"

"I didn’t do anything."

The monitor died. The lights returned. The lock released.."You wanted thirty minutes alone with me," Liam said.

"You’re going to get them. But now we’re going to find out what your partner actually wants." He reached the door, looked back once. "And if Jessica gets hurt before I have her back, your thirty minutes won’t matter."

Outside, the corridor was littered with bodies. "Derek got away," Dexter said."Good." Liam kept walking. "Now we know where he is."

The building had gone quiet again. Too quiet.

"Jessica?" Dexter asked.

"Alive."Jack frowned. "What about the man in the car?"

"Feed died before we could trace it," Dexter said. "Eight seconds."

"Enough time to move her," Liam said. "But that’s not what they were doing. Those cameras weren’t meant to scare us. They were telling us something. Jessica isn’t Harrison’s only leverage."

In the lobby, one of the captured men sat against the reception desk, silent under questioning until Liam crouched and studied his hands. No ring, no watch, a clean scar across one thumb.

"You’re not Harrison’s crew."

A flicker in the man’s eyes."Who do you work for?" "Doesn’t matter." A quiet laugh. "You think Harrison’s who you’re fighting? You’re already too late."

He wouldn’t say where Jessica was, but when Liam showed him her photo, something shifted behind his eyes.

"He doesn’t work for Harrison," the man finally said. "He works with him."

Not an employee. An equal.Liam’s phone rang. Sandra. "There are vehicles leaving the yard. Six of them."

He checked the plates she sent, stopping on the last, an SUV that had been parked outside the logistics yard days earlier.

"They’re moving Jessica," Dexter said.

"No." Liam kept staring at the photo. "They want us to think she’s there. It’s a decoy." He looked up. "They’re moving something else."

In the office above, Harrison hadn’t moved when Derek came back in.

"You’re late." Your men lost. "They weren’t mine." You know what I mean."Where is she?"

"Moving."

"You said you’d tell me."

"You don’t need to know." Derek studied him. "This was never your operation. It was our arrangement. You wanted Sterling brought here."

"And you wanted him dead."

"Eventually." Derek turned for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To make sure Dexter doesn’t follow us." He paused at the threshold. "This isn’t your night anymore."

Then he was gone, and for the first time all night, Harrison looked genuinely angry, not at Liam, but at the man he’d trusted to finish it.

Rain had started again by the time they reached the SUV.

"Where?" Jack asked.

"Not the convoy." Liam looked out at the wet skyline. "River district. That’s where Harrison’s people disappeared."

The engine turned over. Behind them, Harrison remained alone in a building that no longer belonged to him, staring at an empty doorway, finally understanding the truth of it.

He’d brought Liam into the trap. He just hadn’t built all of it.