Chapter 6 - THE FOUNDry
The old Cain foundry stood near the East River, surrounded by abandoned warehouses and rusted train tracks.
Rain fell hard enough to blur the city lights.
I entered through the main gate wearing a bulletproof vest beneath a black coat. The transmitter in my ear carried Tristan’s breathing close to mine.
“Do you see anything?” he asked.
“Empty buildings. Broken windows. A lot of rust.”
“Keep walking.”
“I’m beginning to question your definition of safety.”
“I never said this was safe.”
The foundry smelled of oil, wet concrete, and decay.
My footsteps echoed through the massive building.
A single light hung from the ceiling.
Beneath it stood the man from the video.
He was tall and thin, with gray hair and a scar under his chin.
The silver serpent ring gleamed on his finger.
My mother sat in a chair beside him, bound but conscious.
“Emma,” she whispered.
I started forward.
The man raised a gun.
“Stop.”
I froze.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Victor Rusk.”
I recognized the last name.
“Vivian Rusk’s brother.”
He smiled.
“Very good.”
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
“I don’t have it.”
“You do. You simply don’t remember.”
He gestured toward a metal table.
On it lay a glass filled with amber liquid.
My stomach tightened.
“You drugged me tonight.”
“Your memory was blocking information we needed.”
“You tried to kill me.”
“No. I needed you alive.”
“Someone shot at me.”
“That was not my order.”
“Then whose?”
Victor’s smile disappeared.
“Tristan Cain’s.”
The transmitter in my ear went silent.
I looked toward the dark corners of the foundry.
“Tristan?”
No answer.
Victor watched me carefully.
“Your billionaire boss has been using you since the day he hired you.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Is it? Your father died investigating Cain Global. Tristan knew your name before your interview. He chose you because he believed you inherited Daniel Hart’s memory.”
“My father’s memory?”
“Your father encoded information into ordinary memories. Places, sounds, small details. You were a child, but you were always with him. He hid the ledger inside a story he told you.”
I thought of my childhood.
The house in Queens.
The old red bicycle.
My father taking me to the Cain construction yard on Sundays.
The smell of sawdust.
The storm drain behind the abandoned workshop.
Victor continued.
“Your mother tried to bury the truth. Alexander Cain helped her.”
“Then why did you say Alexander betrayed my father?”
“Because he did.”
The dark room shifted.
I heard a faint click behind me.
A gun.
Victor looked past my shoulder.
“Tristan,” he said.
Tristan stepped out from behind a concrete column, holding his weapon low.
He was soaked from the rain, his hair dark against his forehead.
“Let her mother go.”
Victor laughed.
“You really do care about her.”
Tristan’s eyes remained on me.
“Emma, move toward your mother.”
Victor pressed the gun to my mother’s head.
“Don’t.”
Tristan looked at him.
“You’re surrounded.”
“So am I.”
At least ten red laser dots appeared across the walls.
My breath caught.
Snipers.
Tristan’s expression did not change, but I saw the tension in his shoulders.
Victor smiled.
“Your security team is currently being disarmed.”
The lights went out.
Gunfire exploded from the darkness.
Tristan grabbed me and pulled me behind a steel machine. Bullets struck the metal, sending sparks across the floor.
My mother screamed.
“Stay down!” Tristan shouted.
He fired three times toward the ceiling.
A man fell from the catwalk.
I crawled toward my mother while Tristan covered me.
Victor dragged her backward.
“Emma!” she cried.
I saw a red laser move across Tristan’s chest.
Without thinking, I threw myself at him.
The bullet struck the steel machine inches from his face.
Tristan looked at me.
“You just saved my life.”
“You’re welcome.”
He almost laughed.
Then he grabbed my hand.
“We need to get your mother out.”
We moved through the machinery while gunfire continued.
A door appeared on the far side of the foundry.
Tristan kicked it open.
Behind it was a narrow tunnel leading toward the river.
My mother stumbled between us.
Victor followed.
He fired.
The bullet struck my mother’s shoulder.
She fell.
“Mom!”
Tristan shot Victor in the leg.
Victor collapsed, screaming.
Tristan carried my mother while I pressed my hands against her wound.
We reached the river entrance.
A black SUV waited beyond the tunnel.
Marcus stood beside it with a tactical team.
“Get her into the car!” Tristan ordered.
We loaded my mother into the back seat.
Detective Ortiz arrived seconds later with officers.
Victor Rusk was arrested before he could escape.
But as police pulled him away, he looked directly at me.
“You still don’t know what your father hid,” he said.
I stepped toward him.
“Tell me.”
Victor smiled through the pain.
“Ask Tristan why his father burned the ledger.”
I looked at Tristan.
He did not answer.
The ride to the hospital was silent.
My mother was rushed into surgery.
I sat in the waiting room with blood on my hands.
Tristan sat beside me.
“You knew,” I said.
He stared ahead.
“Knew what?”
“That your father may have betrayed mine.”
“I knew there were accusations.”
“You knew my father worked for Cain Global.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I was his daughter before you hired me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know who I could trust.”
“You could have trusted me.”
“I didn’t know that.”
The anger inside me broke through my fear.
“You brought me into this.”
“I hired you to protect you.”
“You drugged me?”
“No.”
“You used me?”
“No.”
“Then why does everyone who knows my father keep dying around me?”
Tristan finally looked at me.
“Because someone inside my company is trying to destroy me.”
“And I’m the key?”
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt more than a lie.
He reached into his coat and removed a small envelope.
“This was found in your purse.”
I opened it.
Inside was a photograph of me as a child standing beside my father at the old workshop.
On the back, in my father’s handwriting, were five words:
THE RED RIBBON REMEMBERS EVERYTHING.
I stared at the photograph.
A red ribbon was tied around my childhood bicycle.
I remembered it.
I remembered my father hiding something beneath the bicycle seat.
I remembered someone watching us from a black car.
Then another memory surfaced.
A woman’s voice.
May you like
Vivian Rusk.
She had been there the day my father died.
