Chapter 13 - THE BETRAYAL OF TWO FATHERS
Luka sat down.
For the first time since I met him, he looked completely lost.
“My father signed this.”
I said nothing.
There was nothing to say.
The man Luka had spent months trying to redeem had authorized the payment connected to my father’s death.
Ryan leaned over the file.
“Maybe it wasn’t for the crash.”
Luka looked at him.
“Don’t defend him.”
“I’m not.”
Ryan pointed to the description.
“Asset extraction.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Luka read the line again.
“Not assassination.”
“What’s the difference?”
“A lot.”
He stood.
“Antonio may have been paying to get Michael out.”
My heart pounded.
“Out of what?”
“Helix.”
Luka opened the remaining pages.
Near the back was a flight manifest.
Michael Carter.
Gabriel Torres.
No Antonio Moretti.
Luka frowned.
“Gabriel Torres was my uncle’s alias.”
“Your uncle was on the plane?”
“Yes.”
“But he was supposed to be dead already.”
Luka looked up.
“My family told everyone Gabriel died years earlier.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Ryan found another page.
“Look.”
A handwritten note.
EXTRACTION FAILED.
AIRCRAFT LOST.
M.C. PRESUMED DEAD.
G.M. STATUS UNKNOWN.
My heart stopped.
“Presumed.”
Luka read it twice.
“They never recovered bodies.”
My father’s plane went down in mountainous terrain.
I had always been told the wreckage burned.
“What if my father survived?”
Nobody answered.
The idea was impossible.
And yet twenty-four hours earlier, I believed Luka was a stranger.
Ryan found a later memo.
Dated three months after the crash.
M-17 ARCHIVE COMPROMISED.
SOURCE BELIEVED TO BE M.C.
Luka stared at me.
“If Michael was dead, he couldn’t compromise the archive.”
My breath caught.
“My father survived.”
“Maybe.”
Ryan looked at another file.
“There’s more.”
A wire transfer.
Sent every month for six years after the crash.
Recipient.
NORTH STAR CLINICAL FOUNDATION.
Location.
Alberta, Canada.
My hands began trembling.
“Who made the payments?”
Luka answered.
“Antonio.”
His father.
The man who allegedly betrayed mine.
Maybe Antonio had not paid to kill my father.
Maybe he had paid to hide him.
We searched the rest of the safe.
One document mentioned a patient.
MARTIN COLE.
Neurological injury.
Protected identity.
No visitors.
I looked at Luka.
“North Star.”
He nodded.
“We go.”
Ryan checked the time.
“We have six hours before Helix’s deadline.”
My heart sank.
Samuel.
The sequences.
Grace.
Everything was converging.
Luka called Evelyn.
No answer.
He called again.
Nothing.
My pulse quickened.
Then my mother answered.
“Elena.”
“Where’s Evelyn?”
A pause.
“She left.”
“What?”
“She got a message from Samuel’s number.”
Luka swore.
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“Did she take Grace?”
My voice broke.
“No.”
My mother answered quickly.
“Grace is with me.”
I nearly collapsed from relief.
“But Evelyn took one of the cars.”
Luka asked.
“Tracking?”
His guard responded through the phone.
“Disabled.”
I looked at Ryan.
“Helix has Samuel.”
“And now Evelyn is going to them.”
Ryan nodded grimly.
“She’s the second key.”
I looked at the transparent strips in my hand.
We were the first and third.
Then another message appeared on my phone.
A photograph.
Evelyn was sitting in a metal chair.
Samuel stood behind her.
Alive.
A timestamp showed the image had been taken two minutes earlier.
Below it was one sentence.
May you like
BRING ELENA AND THE BABY.
OR BOTH REEDS DIE.
