Chapter 14 - Bastion’s Last Rule
Marcus should have been under guard.
Instead, he stood bleeding in the doorway.
He wasn't holding a weapon.
“Voss has Elena.”
Bastion aimed anyway.
“How are you here?”
“He arranged my escape.”
“Why?”
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“Because he doesn't leave witnesses.”
Voss had freed Marcus only to force him into one final task.
Bring Bastion.
Marcus refused.
For the first time in seventeen years.
Voss shot him.
“Where is she?” Bastion asked.
“Basement.”
Marcus collapsed.
Beatrice checked him.
Alive.
Barely.
Bastion descended.
The basement had been transformed into a control room.
Elena sat tied to a chair.
Voss stood behind her.
A pistol pressed to her head.
“Archive,” he said.
Beatrice held the drive.
“Release her.”
“First the drive.”
Bastion whispered, “Don't.”
Beatrice looked at him.
She understood.
Trust.
The thing none of these people had possessed enough of.
She tossed Voss the drive.
He caught it.
Elena closed her eyes.
Voss connected it.
Nothing happened.
He frowned.
Beatrice smiled.
“The archive isn't on the drive.”
His expression changed.
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
Before arriving, Beatrice had scheduled distribution to journalists, investigators and international regulators.
Stopping one server no longer mattered.
Voss raised the gun toward her.
Bastion fired first.
The bullet struck Voss's weapon.
It fell.
Elena dropped sideways.
Bastion rushed Voss.
The two men crashed against the desk.
Voss grabbed a knife.
Beatrice kicked it away.
Voss struck Bastion.
Bastion returned the blow.
Years of manipulation ended without elegance.
No grand criminal empire.
No mythology.
Just two men fighting on a concrete floor.
Federal agents stormed downstairs.
Voss reached for the fallen gun.
Beatrice saw it.
“Bastion!”
Bastion turned.
Voss's fingers closed around the weapon.
A shot cracked through the basement.
Voss collapsed.
Adrian stood on the stairs.
Smoke curled from his gun.
Silence.
Then agents moved.
Voss was alive.
Wounded.
Arrested.
For the first time, Bastion didn't have to kill the man who had destroyed his family.
The law could have him.
Outside, dawn approached.
Beatrice sat on the ambulance bumper while a medic examined a cut on her forehead.
Bastion stood nearby.
“You disobeyed me fourteen times tonight.”
“Only fourteen?”
“I stopped counting.”
“Probably wise.”
He stepped closer.
“You told me not to fall in love with you.”
Her humor disappeared.
“Yes.”
“I broke the rule.”
Beatrice looked down.
“Bastion—”
“I don't expect anything.”
That surprised her.
He continued.
“You don't owe me an answer because I protected you. You don't owe me anything.”
“That's unusually emotionally healthy for a terrifying man.”
“I'm trying something new.”
She smiled.
Then her phone rang.
Unknown number.
Both froze.
Beatrice answered.
No voice.
Only a recording.
Alexander Mercer.
A recording they hadn't heard.
“Bastion, if you're hearing this, Gabriel has been stopped. But before you believe this is over, there is one final account you need to see.”
Beatrice stood.
The recording supplied a bank number.
She entered it.
One account appeared.
Balance:
$40,000,000.
The original money.
Untouched.
Bastion stared.
“If the money never left…”
Beatrice understood.
“The transfers were mirrored.”
Someone had created the illusion of theft.
She opened the account ownership field.
A name appeared.
Her name.
BEATRICE ABBOTT.
She stopped breathing.
May you like
Bastion looked at her.
And the bank's final document began to open.
