Chapter 12 - The Federal Prosecutor’s Doorstep-12
The sleek sports car roared down the interstate, its rear window completely blown out and replaced by rushing wind and howling rain. Inside the cabin, the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. Little Leo—for Leah had finally whispered his name to him during a quiet moment in the car—slept soundly in his makeshift bassinet, completely oblivious to the chaos surrounding them.
Mae sat in the passenger seat, rapidly tapping away on a ruggedized tablet connected to the stolen flash drive and her own hospital security logs.
"We’re fifty miles outside of Washington, D.C.," Mae announced, her eyes glued to the screen. "If we hit the federal plaza before dawn, we can hand the master archive directly to Marcus Vance—the head of the DOJ’s public corruption task force. He’s an old-school prosecutor who hates the Carver family with a passion."
Leah sat in the back seat, adjusting her tactical vest and checking the magazine of her pistol. Her body ached with a profound, bone-deep exhaustion, but her mind was sharper and more focused than it had ever been in her life.
"Will he take us seriously?" Leah asked, her voice raspy from the cold air. "Doreen has judges, politicians, and police chiefs in her pocket."
"He'll take us seriously when he sees the client list and the offshore bank routing numbers," Simone interjected, keeping her eyes locked on the highway ahead. "Doreen didn't just traffic infants; she laundered campaign donations for half the state legislature through the Carver Foundation. When you pull on a thread that big, the whole corrupt tapestry unravels."
As the grey, imposing skyline of Washington, D.C., loomed on the horizon through the sheeting rain, Leah felt a cold knot form in her stomach. She knew Doreen wouldn't let them reach the Department of Justice without a fight. The matriarch of the Carver dynasty was cornered, and a cornered monster was most dangerous when facing total annihilation.
True to her fears, as they took the exit ramp toward the federal plaza, two unmarked black SUVs pulled out from behind a concrete overroad barrier and slammed their high beams on, boxing the sports car in from both sides.
"Ambush!" Mae yelled.
Simone didn't brake. She swerved violently, clipping the guardrail and scraping the side of her car against the concrete barrier as she gunned the engine past the first SUV.
CRASH!
One of the black SUVs deliberately rammed their passenger-side door, spinning the sports car into a terrifying 360-degree slide across the wet asphalt. The car slammed to a halt against a streetlamp directly in front of the massive stone staircase of the Department of Justice building.
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Before the smoke from the shredded tires could clear, the doors of the black SUVs flew open, and four armed private security guards spilled out, led by none other than Nathan Carver himself.
Nathan looked frantic, his hair disheveled, holding a suppressed pistol with a trembling, desperate grip as he marched across the wet pavement toward their wrecked car.
