Chapter 3 - The Man Sitting Beside Me
The message stayed on the screen for three seconds.
Three seconds was enough time for a person to change their mind.
Enough time to decide whether to believe a warning.
Enough time to decide whether the person standing in front of you was telling the truth.
I stared at the words.
"Harper, don't trust the man sitting beside you."
My eyes slowly moved away from the phone.
The man sitting beside me.
Mason.
My brother.
For a moment, I hated that the message had worked.
Not because I believed it.
Because it made me question something I had spent my entire life believing.
Family.
Mason noticed my expression.
"What?"
I looked at him.
He looked exactly the same as he did five minutes earlier.
The same face.
The same voice.
The same brother who used to sneak into my room when we were kids because he was afraid of thunderstorms.
The same brother who held my hand at Mom's funeral when I couldn't stop crying.
The same brother who now sat across from me pretending he knew nothing about my past.
"Who sent that?" Mason asked.
His voice was defensive.
Not angry.
Not yet.
I looked at Sergeant Hayes.
"Can you trace it?"
Hayes shook his head.
"Already tried."
"And?"
"Nothing."
That answer bothered me more than I expected.
Nothing.
In my world, nothing was rarely nothing.
A missing file.
A deleted message.
A person erased from a record.
Someone had to make that happen.
Someone had to choose.
Mason stood up.
"Okay."
Everyone looked at him.
"I'm done."
Hayes frowned.
"Mason."
"No."
My brother pointed toward the phone.
"You all are acting like this is normal."
Nobody answered.
"She walks in here after hiding some secret military life from me for years. You recognize her call sign. My father apparently left some secret message. And now someone is texting that I can't be trusted?"
His voice became louder.
"Does anyone want to explain why I'm the last person to know anything?"
I watched him carefully.
Because there was something strange about his anger.
It wasn't fake.
It wasn't an act.
Mason was genuinely hurt.
And that made everything harder.
Because if he was involved...
he was very good at pretending.
"I didn't hide it to hurt you," I said.
He looked at me.
"Then why?"
I didn't answer immediately.
Because the real answer was complicated.
Because telling Mason the truth meant admitting something else.
That I had spent years believing my own family was safer without knowing me.
"I was protecting you."
He laughed quietly.
"From what?"
I looked at Hayes.
He looked away.
That told me enough.
"From this."
Mason stared.
"You think I can't handle it?"
"No."
"Then what?"
I lowered my voice.
"I think you would have gone looking for answers."
He didn't deny it.
Because that was Mason.
He had always run toward problems.
I had always calculated how to survive them.
Two different instincts.
Two different soldiers.
Even if only one of us wore the uniform.
Hayes finally sat back down.
"We need to leave."
Mason looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because if someone sent that message, they know where we are."
The words changed the atmosphere immediately.
The Marines around us suddenly seemed farther away.
The bar no longer felt safe.
I looked toward the windows.
Rain covered the glass.
Outside, cars moved through the parking lot.
Normal.
Too normal.
"How long?" I asked.
Hayes looked at me.
"How long for what?"
"How long did you know Iron Ten existed?"
His expression tightened.
"Since the beginning."
"And you never said anything?"
"No."
"Why?"
He looked down.
"Because I was told you were dead."
The sentence hit harder than I expected.
I didn't move.
"What?"
Mason looked between us.
"Dead?"
Hayes nodded slowly.
"After the mission failed, the report said Iron Ten didn't survive extraction."
I stared at him.
"But I did."
"Yes."
"Then why wasn't I found?"
Hayes didn't answer.
That was the answer.
Someone didn't want me found.
I picked up the photograph again.
The one my father hid.
The one saying I was never supposed to come home.
"My father knew."
Hayes looked at me.
"Your father knew something."
"Same thing."
"No."
His voice became firm.
"Harper, your father knew something was wrong. That's different."
I looked at him.
"How?"
"Because if he knew you survived..."
He stopped.
"Then why didn't he tell you?"
The question stayed between us.
I didn't have an answer.
And I hated that.
My father was the one person I believed would never lie to me.
But suddenly every memory felt different.
Every conversation.
Every silence.
Every time he changed the subject when I mentioned my work.
Maybe he wasn't ignoring my questions.
Maybe he was protecting a secret.
Mason grabbed his jacket.
"I'm coming."
I looked at him.
"Where?"
"Wherever you're going."
"No."
His eyebrows lifted.
"No?"
"You need to stay out of this."
The second the words left my mouth, I regretted them.
Because Mason looked exactly like a child who had just been told he wasn't allowed to help.
"You still don't get it."
His voice was quiet.
"I've spent my whole life thinking you were just my sister."
I looked away.
"But now I find out you were something else."
"Mason..."
"No."
He shook his head.
"I don't care if you're Iron Ten. I don't care if you were part of some mission nobody remembers."
He stepped closer.
"You're still my sister."
For a moment, I couldn't answer.
Because that was the one thing I never questioned.
Mason was many things.
Reckless.
Loud.
Stubborn.
But he was my brother.
And maybe that was why the message bothered me so much.
Because it suggested the impossible.
That the person closest to me might be the one person I shouldn't trust.
Hayes stood.
"We need to move."
I nodded.
We left the bar separately.
That was the first rule I learned in intelligence work.
Never make it obvious you are leaving together.
Mason walked ahead.
Hayes stayed behind.
I waited.
Then I followed.
Outside, the rain had stopped.
The parking lot reflected the lights from the building.
I reached my car.
Then I noticed something.
A small white envelope placed under the windshield wiper.
My body reacted before my mind did.
I didn't touch it.
I looked around.
Nothing.
No people.
No movement.
Just empty parking spaces.
"Mason."
He turned.
"What?"
I pointed.
His expression changed.
Hayes saw it too.
He immediately moved closer.
"Don't open it."
I looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because whoever left it wanted you to find it."
I stared at the envelope.
A name was written on the front.
Not mine.
Not Mason's.
My father's.
Richard Reed.
My breathing slowed.
Because my father had been dead for eight months.
And yet someone had just left me a letter addressed to him.
Hayes looked at the envelope.
His face lost all color.
"What?"
I asked.
He didn't answer.
He only whispered:
"That's impossible."
I stepped closer.
"Why?"
Hayes looked at me.
"Because that handwriting..."
He stopped.
The parking lot went silent.
Mason stared at the envelope.
"What handwriting?"
Hayes reached toward it.
Then froze.
Because underneath my father's name was another line.
A line written in the same handwriting.
A line that made Hayes step backward.
May you like
"Return to sender."
Then the envelope began ringing.
