Chapter 17 - My Mother’s Choice
My mother had not been kidnapped.
She had taken Victor from the estate.
The security footage showed her helping him into a vehicle moments after my father was shot.
She disabled the tracker and drove west.
My father refused to believe she had betrayed us.
I wanted to refuse.
Then I remembered her warning during the video call.
Do not believe anything I am about to tell you.
Perhaps it applied to more than the forced confession.
My mother called me from the road.
“Victor has a dead-man switch.”
Her voice was calm.
“If he fails to enter a code every six hours, thousands of Sterling employee records will be released.”
The files included medical histories, personal addresses, banking information, and security clearances.
Victor was prepared to destroy ordinary employees to protect himself.
My mother pretended to help him escape because she needed access to the device controlling the release.
“Where are you?”
“Near Allentown.”
“Federal agents are tracking the highway.”
“I know.”
A man’s voice sounded behind her.
Victor.
“End the call.”
My mother spoke quickly.
“Clare, your father once told me courage was knowing which thing you were willing to lose.”
The line disconnected.
Marcus traced the call to an abandoned paper mill.
We arrived before the private aircraft.
Victor held my mother inside the control room.
A laptop displayed a countdown.
Fourteen minutes remained before the employee files were released.
Victor had connected the dead-man switch to a biometric sensor around his wrist.
If his heartbeat stopped, the files would upload immediately.
Agents could not shoot him.
He knew it.
My mother stood beside the laptop.
Victor ordered us to provide a helicopter and immunity agreement.
I stepped forward carrying the original government data drive.
“This is what you really need.”
His eyes moved toward it.
The drive contained proof that he initiated the theft.
Without it, he could blame Matthew.
I offered to exchange the drive for my mother and the dead-man switch password.
Victor laughed.
“You inherited Adrian’s confidence without his discipline.”
“And you inherited Matthew’s mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“Believing pain makes people predictable.”
My mother grabbed the laptop.
Victor pulled her backward.
I threw the drive toward him.
He instinctively reached for it.
My mother drove her heel into his knee and tore the sensor from his wrist.
The countdown accelerated.
Sixty seconds.
Victor ran.
Agents chased him through the mill.
I opened the laptop.
The password field allowed only one attempt.
My mother remembered Victor whispering something during the forced recording.
“A kingdom belongs to the man who writes its laws.”
It was a phrase he repeated for decades.
I entered LAWMAKER.
Incorrect.
Thirty seconds.
My father had once told Victor that law did not create loyalty.
Character did.
I entered CHARACTER.
The countdown stopped at three seconds.
Outside, Victor climbed onto the wing of the waiting aircraft.
Marcus ordered him down.
Victor opened the emergency hatch.
May you like
The engine started.
Then Matthew Hayes stepped from the pilot’s cabin.
