Chapter 8 - THE LAST BETRAYAL
Nobody moved.
Kane kept his weapon aimed at Hayes.
Hayes stood in the red emergency light, his hands raised.
“You need to listen,” the colonel said.
“Step away from him,” Kane ordered Elena.
She did not know whom to believe.
Her mother’s warning echoed in her mind.
Don’t trust Hayes.
The speakers crackled again.
Voss laughed softly.
“Hayes was the officer who signed the original report declaring Mara Ward dead. He helped erase the evidence. He helped bury every witness.”
“Is that true?” Elena asked.
Hayes looked at her.
“Yes.”
The answer was devastating.
Kane’s finger tightened around the trigger.
“You worked for Voss.”
“I worked under Voss,” Hayes said. “There is a difference.”
“You signed the report.”
“I signed a false report to keep Elena alive.”
Elena stared at him.
“Explain.”
Hayes lowered his hands.
“Voss wanted both children. Daniel had the evidence. You were leverage. I helped your mother escape Northstar with one condition.”
“What condition?”
“That she leave you with me.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“Where was I?”
“Hidden with a military family in Oregon. You were told your mother was dead.”
“And Daniel?”
“Voss kept him here.”
Kane looked furious.
“You knew he was alive for eight years.”
“I knew he was alive for six. Then his location was moved.”
“Why didn’t you rescue him?”
“Because every attempt would have exposed Elena.”
Elena’s voice broke.
“You used me as bait.”
“I protected you.”
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
The alarms became louder.
A steel door opened at the end of the corridor.
Armed men entered.
Kane fired at the lights. Darkness swallowed the room.
“Move!” he shouted.
The team scattered through the basement.
Elena followed Kane through a narrow tunnel while Hayes and Pierce went in the opposite direction. Gunfire echoed behind them.
Kane pulled Elena into a storage room and locked the door.
“We need to find your mother.”
“She told me not to trust Hayes.”
“She may have been forced to say it.”
“Or she knows something we don’t.”
Kane found a ventilation map on the wall.
“Voss is controlling the facility from the command center.”
“How do we reach it?”
“Through the old medical wing.”
They crawled through the ventilation shaft while soldiers searched below.
Halfway through, Elena noticed a small red light blinking inside the duct.
“A camera.”
Kane smashed it with the butt of his weapon.
The speaker activated immediately.
Voss’s voice filled the shaft.
“You are very much like your mother, Elena. Always searching for the door after the building has already burned.”
“Where is she?”
“Come to the command center and I will show you.”
Kane whispered, “It’s a trap.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t go.”
“My mother is alive.”
Kane looked at her.
“I know what it means to lose someone. But Voss wants you angry. He wants you careless.”
Elena reached into her pocket and touched the silver pendant.
Trust the man who stops.
She looked at Kane.
“You stopped your fist.”
His eyes met hers.
“I’ll stop anything that comes for you.”
They reached the command center through a service hatch.
Voss stood behind a glass wall.
Mara was beside him, her hands bound.
Daniel stood on the other side of the room.
He was no longer a child. He was a lean man in his twenties, with the same eyes as Elena.
For the first time in eight years, the Ward family stood in the same room.
Voss lifted a remote.
“Give me the memory card, and they live.”
Elena stepped forward.
Kane grabbed her arm.
She whispered, “Trust me.”
Then she held up the memory card.
“I’ll trade.”
Voss smiled.
But behind him, Mara suddenly slammed her shoulder into the control panel.
The lights went out.
May you like
Kane kicked through the glass.
Chaos exploded across the room.
