Chapter 11
Serena hit the floor with a sound I will never forget.
For all the pain she caused me, seeing blood spread beneath her body still made my stomach turn.
Victor dragged me backward, gun pressed to my ribs.
“Move and she dies!”
Everyone froze.
Eleanor did not look at Serena.
Not once.
She looked at the chest.
That told me everything about her.
Julian sobbed in the chair.
“Mom, stop!”
Eleanor snapped, “Shut up.”
Victor backed toward the dock with me.
My mind went strangely calm.
Dad’s voice seemed to rise from memory.
When trapped, come home.
Home was not a place.
Home was Marcus.
Leah.
The truth.
I dropped suddenly.
Victor’s gun fired over my shoulder.
I slammed my elbow into his knee.
Marcus tackled him from the side.
Agents rushed in.
Victor fought like a man who knew prison waited.
Leah disarmed him.
Eleanor tried to run with the hard drive.
Robert Hale stepped through the doorway and blocked her.
She stopped like she had seen a ghost.
“Robert.”
He looked at her with twenty years of hatred.
“Eleanor.”
“You old fool.”
“You killed my best friend.”
She lifted her chin.
“Thomas killed himself by asking questions.”
Robert’s recorder blinked red in his hand.
Eleanor saw it too late.
Her face changed.
Agents cuffed her as she screamed for lawyers, judges, chiefs, senators.
No one came.
Paramedics rushed Serena out.
Julian was untied.
He tried to reach for me.
I stepped away.
His face crumpled.
“I’m sorry.”
“I believe you are.”
Hope flickered.
I ended it.
“But sorry is not a bridge back.”
Marcus opened Dad’s letter with shaking hands.
Inside were two sentences.
May you like
If you are reading this, they came for what I hid.
Do not protect the life I lost; protect the lives they still plan to ruin.
