Amir Talibi clicked the pen in his hand. Once. Twice. The sharp sound echoed in the suffocating quiet of his office. He had stripped the room of everything but the essentials: his desk, two chairs, and the sprawling corkboard that was his map of the O’Malley empire. He’d even unplugged the landline. The only person he allowed in was his partner.

  Don Koche sat in the chair opposite the desk, nursing a lukewarm coffee. He had adopted a patient, supportive demeanor, like a man sitting vigil at a sick friend’s bedside.

  “I have it,” Talibi said, breaking the silence. He stopped clicking the pen and leaned forward, his eyes burning with renewed purpose. “A way to find the leak.”

  Koche leaned in, mirroring him. “You think you know who it is?”

  “No,” Talibi said slowly, deliberately. “But I know how to make them reveal themselves. I’m going to set a trap. Not for the O’Malleys. For the mole.”

  He gestured to the board, to a glossy promotional photo of a sleek, modern building under a starry sky. The Costello-O’Malley National Space Museum. “We’ve been looking at their businesses. But what about their pet projects? This place is Ty Costello’s whole world. It’s new, it’s isolated out in the little town of Hudson, and it has acres of unmonitored land surrounding it.”

  “Perfect for a quiet meeting,” Koche offered, playing along.

  “Perfect for an illegal transaction,” Talibi corrected.

  Koche’s eyebrows rose. “That’s a big move. You have intel on this?”

  “It just came in yesterday,” Talibi said, a faint, cunning smile touching his lips. “ A former lieutenant from the Murphy Drug Cartel, which was annihilated by the O’Malley Clann a few months ago was arrested. He gave us a valuable piece of intel. There’s a five-hundred-thousand-dollar money drop that is happening on the museum grounds. Friday night. Midnight.” He stared hard at Koche. “And the only two people in the entire world who will know about this raid are you and me.”

  The unspoken accusation hung between them. Talibi was laying his cards on the table, but he was holding one back. He was testing his last trusted ally.

  Koche held his gaze, his face a mask of dawning realization and grim resolve. “So we leak the plan… to ourselves. And we see if Meeka O’Malley moves to stop it.”

  “Exactly. If they move their assets, if they cancel the drop, if they do anything other than act like it’s a normal Friday night, then we know. We know the leak is real, and it has to be someone with access to this room,” Talibi finished. He didn't say ‘You’. He didn’t have to.

  Koche leaned back in his chair, letting out a low whistle. “It’s a hell of a gamble, Amir. If you’re wrong, we look like idiots chasing ghosts. If you’re right…” He let the sentence hang. “But I’m with you. One hundred percent. What’s the plan?”

  “The plan is simple,” Talibi said, his voice flat and cold. “You and I will prepare a small, elite team. We tell them nothing until an hour before we move. Friday night, we hit the museum grounds. If we find an O’Malley crew taking the cash, we’ve made the biggest bust of our careers. If we find nothing, and Meeka makes no moves… then the informant was wrong. But if the place is scrubbed clean, if there’s evidence of a cancelled operation, then I’ve got my proof. The leak is right here, in my inner circle.”

  Don Koche nodded slowly, his expression hard. “Let’s flush them out,” he said, his voice filled with a convincing, righteous anger. He stood up, the perfect picture of a loyal partner ready for war. “I’ll start drawing up a list of tac team members we can trust.”

  He walked out of the office, closing the door softly behind him. In the empty hallway, the anger on his face dissolved, replaced by the cool assessment of a stockbroker who’d just been handed a sure thing. He pulled out his encrypted phone and sent a text to his only contact. He didn’t bother with pleasantries or code. Talibi wanted to set a trap. Koche was more than happy to help him spring it.

  ‘Cash drop. Hudson Space Museum. Friday. Midnight. Five-hundred-thousand-dollars. Talibi is leading the raid himself. Only he and I know.’

  He sent the message, then calmly walked to the restroom, broke the SIM card, and flushed the pieces down the toilet.

  ***

  The information landed on Meeka’s desk in the Apex less than ten minutes later, delivered verbally by a stone-faced Ashley Kelley. Meeka listened without interruption, her fingers steepled before her, her gaze fixed on the glittering cityscape beyond the armored glass.

  When Ashley finished, a heavy silence filled the room. Quinn Delahunty, who had been reviewing a contract, set it down. Gema and Caitlyn, present for a final briefing on their security audit, stood perfectly still.

  “A five-hundred-thousand-dollar money drop,” Tommy O’Malley said from his seat, breaking the silence. “On Ty’s museum grounds. It’s brazen. I like it. Except for the part where the feds are waiting for us and no such drop exists.” He cracked his knuckles. “We could have Finn’s team waiting for ‘them’. Give Agent Talibi a welcome he’ll curse his mom for.”

  “Too messy,” Reese, the diplomat, countered smoothly. “And it confirms their suspicions about our activities. We simply ensure no one is there. Let them raid an empty field. It’s another embarrassment for them, another win for us.”

  “No,” Meeka said, her voice cutting through the debate. Everyone fell silent. She turned from the window, her eyes moving from Reese to Tommy, and finally settling on Quinn.

  “It’s a trap,” she stated simply.

  Quinn nodded, already seeing the logic. “Talibi was just humiliated by our perfect compliance. His next move wouldn’t be to attack our business. It would be to attack our intelligence network. He suspects a leak.”

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  “Our mole,” Meeka continued, “made a point of saying that only he and Talibi know about this plan.” She paused, letting the implication sink in. “Talibi is testing his partner. He's feeding Agent Koche information to see if we react. If we cancel a non-existent money drop, Koche is exposed, and Talibi knows his task force is compromised.”

  “So we do nothing?” Gema asked, her brow furrowed. “We let them raid the field and find exactly nothing. The mole remains safe, and Talibi remains suspicious but without proof.”

  “Doing nothing is an option,” Meeka acknowledged. “Evading the trap is an option. But there is a third option.” A dangerous, calculating light entered her eyes. “We don’t evade the trap. We don’t ignore it. We walk right into it and reshape it to our own ends.”

  She walked to the head of the obsidian table, a general laying out her battle plan. “Talibi expects to find one of two things: a criminal transaction in progress, or an empty field. We’re going to give him a third scenario he could never possibly imagine.”

  She looked at Ashley. “Get me the board of the Costello-O’Malley National Space Museum. And find the best event planner in Boston. Tell them I want to host a party.”

  Ashley blinked. “A party, Meeka?”

  “Not just any party,” Meeka said, a slow, predatory smile spreading across her face. “A grand last-minute charity gala. For the museum’s new educational outreach program. We’ll invite everyone. The mayor, the police chief, the social elite of Boston. And, most importantly, the press.”

  Quinn began to laugh, a low, appreciative chuckle. “Oh, that’s just vicious craic, fair play. I love it.”

  “Talibi’s team will storm the grounds expecting to bust a massive dirty cash drop,” Meeka continued, her voice alive with the thrill of the move. “Instead, they’ll crash a black-tie event, guns drawn, in front of every major news camera on the East Coast. He won’t just be embarrassed. His career will be ruined.”

  The audacity of the plan was breathtaking. It was a checkmate move, turning Talibi’s own trap against him in the most public and humiliating way possible.

  “Now,” Meeka said, her smile fading as she shifted into operational mode. “We have less than three days to put this together. This needs to be flawless.”

  ***

  Ty was in the museum’s planetarium, adjusting the alignment of a deep-space projection, when Meeka found him. Comet, his golden retriever, trotted over to greet her, his tail thumping against the curved wall.

  “Mamai,” Ty said, surprised. “What are you doing here? Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s perfect, mo stor” Meeka said, stroking Comet’s head. She looked up at the swirl of simulated galaxies on the dome above them. “This place is beautiful, Ty. You’ve done amazing work.”

  “Thanks,” he said, a proud smile on his face. “We just got the new lensing configured. You want to see the Orion Nebula?”

  “Later,” Meeka said, her tone becoming more serious. “I need a favor. A big one.”

  Ty’s expression grew cautious. He knew this tone. It was the one that preceded events that he usually reads about online later. “What kind of favor?”

  “I need to borrow your museum,” she said. “On Friday night. I want to throw a gala. A fundraiser.”

  He stared at her. “A gala? Mamai, it takes months to plan something like that. Invitations, catering, security…”

  “I have people who can handle the details,” she said gently. “What I need is your permission. And your help.” She met his eyes, her own unwavering. “Ty, you know we have… enemies. People who want to hurt our family. There is a man, a federal agent, who is obsessed. He is convinced we are doing something illegal here. On your property.”

  “Here? At the museum?” Ty asked, shocked. “That’s crazy. This place is clean.”

  “I know,” Meeka said. “And we are going to prove it to him in a way he will never forget. He is planning to raid this building on Friday night. I want him to find a party where he’s expecting a crime scene.”

  Understanding dawned on Ty’s face, followed by a flicker of conflict. He loved his museum. It was his sanctuary, his piece of the world that was separate from the family’s other business. And she was asking him to use it as a shield. But she was also his mother, and the family was under attack.

  “They’ll come with guns,” he said quietly.

  “Yes,” Meeka admitted. “But they won’t use them when they’re surrounded by news cameras and the city’s most powerful people. This isn’t a fight, Ty. It’s theatre. And you’re the director.”

  He looked around the planetarium, at the quiet testament to science and discovery he had built. He thought of his Mamo and Great-Aunt Liz, of the fierce bubble of protection the family had always wrapped around him. They were asking for his help now, using his world to protect theirs. Comet nudged his hand, as if sensing his conflict.

  “Okay,” Ty said, his voice firm. He met his mother’s gaze, no longer a boy but a man making a choice. “What do you need me to do?”

  Relief and pride washed over Meeka’s face. “I need you to be the host. I need you to get on the phone and personally invite every important person you’ve ever met. Tell them it’s for a good cause. Tell them it’s the party of the year.”

  A slow grin spread across Ty’s face. The O’Malley instinct for showmanship was in his blood, after all. “Leave it to me, Mamai. We’ll throw a party so grand, they’ll be talking about it for years.”

  ***

  Back in the security operations center, Gema and Caitlyn stood before a digital schematic of the space museum, their earlier personal connection replaced by focused professionalism. The hastily planned gala was now their mission.

  “The guest list is over three hundred people and climbing,” Gema said, pointing to the main entrance on the layout. “Standard event security protocols won’t cut it. My team will be visible. Blazers and earpieces. We’ll manage access control, scan for weapons at the door, and maintain a perimeter.”

  “It’s a soft perimeter,” Caitlyn noted, her eyes tracing the outer edges of the property. “Talibi’s team won’t come through the front door. They’ll come through the trees.”

  “Exactly,” Gema agreed. “Which is where your people come in. But they can’t be seen. Not as soldiers.”

  Caitlyn nodded, her mind already working through the logistics. “My people will be the catering staff. The valets. The string quartet. We’ll embed them. They’ll be armed, but with concealed pieces that won’t flag on a metal detector wand. Their job isn’t to engage. It’s to observe and report. They’ll be my eyes on the ground.”

  Gema looked at Caitlyn, a new level of respect in her eyes. It was a brilliant solution, blending covert operations with high-society aesthetics. “They’ll be working under your command, but they’ll be operating inside my security structure. We need a single, seamless communications channel. No mistakes.”

  “We’ll share a channel,” Caitlyn said. “My tactical lead will report directly to you. If your people see something, they flag it. If my people see something, they flag it. No one moves unless we both agree.”

  It was an unprecedented level of integration for their two units. The line between Gema’s overt security and Caitlyn’s covert force was blurring. They were building a new kind of strategy together, born of necessity and an unexpected, unspoken trust.

  “Okay,” Gema said, meeting Caitlyn’s intense gaze. “Okay. We can do that.”

  For a moment, they just looked at each other, the master of systems and the master of people, finding a new, electrifying equilibrium. The mission was dangerous, the stakes impossibly high, but for the first time, it felt less like two separate operations and more like one.

  Caitlyn gave a slight, confident nod. “Let them come,” she said, her voice a low murmur that Gema felt more than heard. “We’ll be ready for them.”