Chapter 3: Baiting the Leviathan

Chapter 3: Baiting the Leviathan

Leo’s office was a shrine to calculated minimalism. Unlike Aaron’s dusty labyrinth of history, Leo's space was all clean lines, polished chrome, and cool glass, overlooking the city's concrete and steel heart. It was a sterile operating theater, and for the next forty-eight hours, he and the Chameleon were its surgeons, preparing to perform an intricate procedure on the mind of Silas Croft.

“He’s not just greedy,” Leo began, pacing before the floor-to-ceiling window. He wasn’t looking at the city, but through it, visualizing his target. “That’s too simple. A common street mugger is greedy. Croft’s affliction is more refined. It’s a compound sickness of avarice and ego. He doesn't just want to win; he needs to believe he’s the smartest man in the room while he does it.”

The Chameleon sat perfectly still at the glass conference table, a laptop open before her. Her severe, professional bun seemed to concentrate her focus. “So the bait can’t just be a pile of money. It has to flatter his intelligence. It has to make him feel like he’s discovered a golden opportunity no one else was clever enough to see.”

“Exactly,” Leo confirmed, turning to face her. The cold fire from their first meeting was now a controlled burn in her eyes. “He’s a landlord who squeezed my client over a hundred-ton vault. He sees it as a liability he can weaponize. We need to make him see it as a priceless, unique asset he was a genius for acquiring.”

“Then we don’t offer to lease the space despite the vault,” the Chameleon said, a flicker of understanding dawning on her face. “We offer to lease the space because of it.”

The plan began to crystallize, a ghost taking shape in the sterile air of the office. Leo provided the psychological blueprint; the Chameleon, with breathtaking efficiency, constructed the machine.

“The suitor,” she began, her fingers flying across the keyboard, “cannot be a known entity. Nothing he can easily vet. It must be foreign, prestigious, and entering the U.S. market for the first time. That explains both their aggression and their anonymity.” She paused, a name appearing on her screen. “Helvetia Private Bank & Trust.”

“Swiss,” Leo nodded in approval. “Implies secrecy, security, old money. Perfect.”

“They cater to an ultra-exclusive clientele,” the Chameleon continued, building the legend layer by layer. “Clients who require absolute discretion and physical asset storage. Not just documents. Think bearer bonds, rare gems, encrypted hard drives with fortunes on them. For a bank like that, a modern, flimsy vault is an insult. But a historic, hundred-ton behemoth from the age of robber barons? That’s not a feature. That’s a marketing campaign. It’s their brand identity.”

For the next day, she worked her dark magic. She secured a domain name for the fictitious bank, populating it with a single, elegant landing page that spoke of centuries of Swiss discretion and was “password protected for client security.” She routed a Swiss phone number to a burner phone that now sat on the table between them. She designed a letterhead, obsessing over the details—a subtle watermark of the Matterhorn, a crisp, 120gsm linen-finish paper that felt heavy with importance. Every detail was crafted to scream legitimacy and immense wealth.

Leo, meanwhile, focused on the numbers. He drafted the core of the Letter of Intent. The offer had to be the stuff of a greedy man’s dreams.

“Twenty-year lease,” he dictated. “Triple the current market rate per square foot. All payments guaranteed for the first ten years by their parent corporation in Zurich. They will require exclusive use of the ground floor and the vault, which they consider the property's primary asset.” He added the masterstroke: “Helvetia will cover, at their expense, any and all necessary interior restorations to return the space to its ‘former glory.’”

It was the perfect lure. It offered Croft an astronomical, long-term profit stream that required zero effort. It flattered his ego by framing the very thing he was using to torture Marco—the vault—as a treasure he had brilliantly acquired. And it subtly offered to solve the removal problem for him, free of charge, if their deal ever fell through in the distant future. It was a trap so beautiful, Croft would leap into it with open arms.

The final piece was the delivery. It couldn't come from them.

“I have a contact,” the Chameleon said, her work on the letter complete. “A high-end commercial broker. He owes me for a… situation I resolved for him in Monaco. He asks no questions. He will believe the lead is genuine, and he will present it to Croft with the appropriate gravitas.”

The next afternoon, a sleek black envelope, bearing the logo of a prestigious downtown brokerage, was delivered by courier to the gleaming tower of Croft Enterprises. Inside was the perfectly crafted Letter of Intent from Helvetia Private Bank & Trust. The bait was in the water.

Leo and the Chameleon waited in his office, the burner phone sitting silently on the desk between them like an unexploded bomb. The tension was a living thing in the room. They had built a perfect illusion, but it was still just smoke and mirrors. Now, it all depended on the vanity of one man.

Hours crawled by. The sun began to dip below the skyline, painting the office in shades of orange and purple.

Then, the burner phone rang.

Its shrill, unfamiliar tone sliced through the silence. They both stared at it. The Chameleon, her composure absolute, picked it up on the third ring.

“Yes?” she answered, her voice calm and neutral.

She listened, her face an unreadable mask. Leo felt his heart thumping against his ribs. He watched her for any sign, any tell. For a full minute, she just listened, her gaze fixed on the cityscape.

Then, he saw it. The corner of her mouth twitched upwards into a slow, triumphant, and utterly chilling smile. The shared thirst for vengeance that had bonded them in the hotel bar was now being quenched.

She ended the call and placed the phone back on the desk with surgical precision.

“That was my contact,” she said, her voice laced with a satisfaction so pure it was almost tangible. “He’s just left Croft’s office.”

“And?” Leo pressed, leaning forward.

“Croft didn’t even make a counteroffer. He didn’t forward it to his legal team for a thirty-day review. He read the offer, saw the twenty-year term and the triple market rate…” The Chameleon’s smile widened. “He instructed the broker to inform Helvetia that he accepts their terms in principle and eagerly awaits their formal lease agreement. He wants it finalized by the end of the month.”

The leviathan had not just nibbled at the bait. It had swallowed it whole, hook, line, and sinker, with a greed so profound it had bypassed all rational thought. Croft was so blinded by the mountain of imaginary money, he couldn't see the abyss opening up beneath his feet.

Leo leaned back in his chair, the tension draining from him, replaced by an icy calm. The ghost they had built was now real in the mind of their enemy. The impossible vault was no longer Marco's problem. It was Croft's most precious asset.

“The leviathan has taken the bait,” Leo said, his eyes glinting in the twilight. “Now it’s time to set the hook.”