Chapter 4
I did not go alone.
I told Emily I would.
That was different.
She stood in the clubhouse garage while Cole checked my motorcycle.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“She’s my mother.”
“And she told you to find me so you wouldn’t end up beside her.”
Emily glared at me.
“You don’t get to order me around.”
I almost smiled despite everything.
“That attitude might answer one question about who your father is.”
She froze.
So did I.
Neither of us had spoken directly about it.
The photograph showed Sarah holding a baby.
But fourteen years had passed.
Emily was ten.
She wasn’t the baby in that picture.
The realization had been waiting between us.
Emily looked down.
“What happened to your baby?”
My chest tightened.
“I don’t know.”
“Mom never told me.”
“What did she tell you about your father?”
“That he died.”
I looked away.
So Emily wasn’t mine.
Or Sarah had lied about her age.
Or there was another truth waiting.
I crouched beside her.
“When I bring your mom back, we’re going to ask her together.”
Emily’s eyes filled.
“You really think she’s alive?”
“I heard her.”
“They could kill her.”
“Yes.”
I refused to lie.
Fear deserves truth too.
“But they’ve kept her alive for a reason.”
“What reason?”
“The key.”
I held it up.
“And that means we still have leverage.”
She hugged me unexpectedly.
My breath caught.
“Bring her back.”
I closed my eyes.
“I will.”
Central Station had been abandoned for years except for a few municipal storage rooms.
I rode there alone.
At least, that was what Keller was supposed to believe.
Cole and Mateo followed several blocks behind.
Boone stayed with Emily.
Victor disappeared before we left.
That worried me.
At the station, I entered through a broken side door.
Dust covered the floor.
The building smelled like rust and old rainwater.
My phone buzzed.
A text.
THIRD FLOOR.
I climbed.
Every footstep echoed.
On the third floor, a single light burned.
Keller stood beneath it.
Two armed men waited behind him.
And tied to a chair was Sarah.
For fourteen years I had imagined this moment.
Sometimes she screamed at me.
Sometimes she forgave me.
Sometimes she walked past without recognizing me.
Reality was worse.
She looked older.
Thinner.
A bruise darkened one cheek.
But she was Sarah.
Her eyes found mine.
Everything inside me cracked.
“Ray.”
I forgot the guns.
I took one step.
Keller raised his hand.
“Stop.”
Sarah shook her head.
“Don’t give him anything.”
My voice barely worked.
“I thought you were dead.”
“I know.”
“I came back.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I know.”
Keller laughed.
“Touching.”
I looked at him.
“You wanted the key.”
“Both pieces.”
So he knew about Victor’s tag.
I pulled them from my pocket.
His expression brightened.
“Place them on the floor.”
“Release Sarah.”
“After.”
“No.”
One of his men pressed a gun against Sarah’s shoulder.
I felt murder enter my thoughts.
Keller smiled.
“You were always emotional.”
“You knew me?”
“Oh, very well.”
He stepped closer.
“I was at the warehouse.”
My blood turned cold.
“You?”
“I locked Sarah in room 317.”
Sarah stared at him with hatred.
Keller continued.
“Victor gave us the schedule. But the fire went wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“We wanted you inside.”
He smiled.
“Sarah escaped through a service passage before the flames spread.”
I looked at her.
“How?”
“A firefighter found me.”
Her voice shook.
“His name was Michael Reeves.”
Keller’s smile vanished slightly.
Sarah continued.
“He realized men were searching hospitals for me. He hid me.”
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
Sarah’s face crumpled.
“I tried.”
Keller answered for her.
“We intercepted everything.”
She closed her eyes.
“They sent me photographs of you.”
“What photographs?”
“You outside bars. With women. Riding with Victor.”
I understood.
“They told you I betrayed you.”
“They told me you had handed me over.”
Pain cut through me.
“Sarah, no.”
“I know now.”
Keller clapped slowly.
“Fourteen years of romantic misunderstanding. Wonderful.”
I turned toward him.
“You kept watching her all this time?”
“Cross did.”
“Why?”
Sarah answered.
“Because I had copies.”
“The Meridian records.”
She nodded.
“I hid them before the warehouse.”
Keller pointed at my hand.
“And that opens them.”
I looked at the key.
“Where?”
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
He sighed.
“Then watch her die.”
The gun shifted toward Sarah’s head.
I lowered the keys.
Sarah shouted.
“Ray, don’t!”
I crouched.
Set the brass key and metal tag on the floor.
Then slid them forward.
Keller bent.
That was when the third-floor windows exploded inward.
Smoke flooded the room.
Keller shouted.
His men spun toward the windows.
A figure came through the side corridor.
Victor.
Cole followed.
I lunged toward Sarah.
Gunfire cracked into the ceiling.
I hit the floor beside her and dragged the chair behind a concrete column.
“Ray!”
“I’ve got you.”
My hands shook as I cut the rope with my pocketknife.
Sarah stared at me.
“You came back.”
“Fourteen years late.”
She touched my face.
“Still counts.”
Another shot.
I covered her.
Then the fighting stopped almost as quickly as it started.
Cole shouted.
“CLEAR!”
Keller had escaped.
One man was unconscious.
Another had surrendered.
Victor stood near the stairwell holding his shoulder.
Blood darkened his shirt.
Sarah saw him.
Her entire face changed.
“You.”
Victor lowered his head.
“I’m sorry.”
She stepped toward him.
I expected her to scream.
Instead she slapped him.
Hard.
Victor accepted it.
Then Sarah said quietly, “That doesn’t cover fourteen years.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“It doesn’t.”
Sirens approached outside.
Cole had called a detective he trusted before we arrived.
Sarah suddenly grabbed my arm.
“Emily?”
“She’s safe.”
Sarah almost collapsed from relief.
Then her expression changed again.
“The key.”
I looked toward the floor.
Gone.
Keller had taken both pieces during the chaos.
Sarah closed her eyes.
“That’s bad.”
“How bad?”
She looked at me.
“The archive isn’t just evidence against Cross.”
“What else?”
“There’s a list.”
“What list?”
“Names.”
Her voice dropped.
“Police. Judges. politicians. Businessmen.”
Cole stared.
Sarah continued.
“People Cross has controlled for decades.”
My stomach tightened.
“If Keller opens the archive—”
“He destroys it.”
Victor shook his head.
“Where is it?”
Sarah looked at me.
“Beneath Saint Catherine’s Hospital.”
I frowned.
“That hospital didn’t exist fourteen years ago.”
“The old building beneath it did.”
Then she grabbed my jacket.
“And Ray, there’s something else inside.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“The truth about our son.”
I stopped breathing.
“What truth?”
Sarah’s voice broke.
“He survived the warehouse.”
My legs felt weak.
“Where is he?”
She began crying.
“I don’t know.”
I grabbed the back of a chair.
Sarah continued.
“They took him from me when he was three months old.”
The room disappeared around me.
“Who?”
“Adrian Cross.”
My chest tightened until I could barely breathe.
“And he told me if I ever came looking for you…”
May you like
She covered her mouth.
“He would kill our boy.”
