I came home during my lunch break because I felt guilty about leaving my sick husband alone for the third day in a row.

Headlights flooded the subterranean corridor with blinding intensity.

A black heavy-duty SUV roared around the corner, its engine screaming as it accelerated straight down the lane toward us.

"Get behind the pillar!" I shouted, instinctively lunging to the right and throwing myself behind a massive concrete support column.

Julian scrambled to his feet, but his panic blinded him. He sprinted toward the exit stairwell instead of taking cover.

The black SUV didn't stop. It sideswiped a parked sedan with a deafening screech of tearing metal, swerving violently to pin Julian against the concrete wall.

At the exact moment of impact, the piercing sirens of two Boston Police cruisers exploded from the upper ramp.

Marcus had kept an emergency GPS tracker on my vehicle. He hadn't just followed me; he had brought the tactical cavalry with him.

The black SUV slammed on its brakes, missing Julian by inches as he scrambled up the emergency stairwell door. Two men in tactical vests leaped from the SUV, weapons drawn, but before they could level their sights, three police cruisers screeched to a halt, boxing them in.

"Boston Police! Drop your weapons! Drop them now!"

The two operatives, realizing they were hopelessly outflanked in a public garage crawling with law enforcement, dropped their weapons and raised their hands.

Marcus rushed over to my pillar, his gun drawn, pulling me behind his broad shoulder. "Clara! Are you hit?"

"I’m fine," I breathed, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. "Julian ran into the emergency stairwell. He went up toward the street."

Within minutes, the garage was flooded with blue and red flashing lights, tactical units, and sirens. The two operatives were handcuffed and shoved into the back of separate patrol cars. They refused to speak, their passports revealing diplomatic immunity credentials from a non-extradition Eastern European state.

Julian Mercer was captured three blocks away, collapsed on the steps of the Boston Public Library, sobbing hysterically as transit officers took him into custody.

Three days later, I stood inside the high-security visitors' room of the federal detention facility in Boston. Karen sat beside me.

On the other side of the bulletproof glass sat Julian. He was in full restraints, his wrists chained to a leather belt around his waist, an armed federal marshal standing directly behind his chair.

He picked up the heavy black receiver. I lifted mine.

"You're going to ADX Florence, Julian," I said, my voice steady, devoid of anger, devoid of pity. "Federal racketeering, money laundering, and conspiracy. The plea deal is forty-five years. You will never set foot outside a concrete cell for the rest of your life."

Julian stared at me through the glass. His eyes were hollow, completely drained of the charming, confident man I had married a decade ago.

"You audited my whole life, Clara," he said, his voice flat, dead. "You found every penny. You found every lie. But you didn't listen to me in that garage."

"You were trying to save your skin," I replied.

"The Meridian Syndicate isn't a delusion, Clara," Julian whispered, leaning closer to the perforated metal grill. "They don't leave loose ends. You took forty million dollars from Vance. You exposed their laundering pipeline to the Department of Justice. You think you won because they locked me up?"

He smiled—a small, tragic, terrifying smile.

"I’m safe in here, Clara. Behind five layers of steel and federal guards. But you? You’re sitting in an open house on an empty beach."

"I am not afraid of ghosts, Julian," I said, looking straight into his dead eyes. "And I don't run."