Chapter 6 - The Woman Bastion Buried
The explosion never came.
Instead, speakers activated.
A woman's voice filled the warehouse.
“Bastion.”
He froze.
He knew it.
“Mother?”
Beatrice watched something break behind his eyes.
Elena Mercer appeared on a suspended monitor.
Older.
Alive.
“I'm sorry,” she said.
Bastion stepped toward the screen.
“You're alive.”
“Yes.”
“Twelve years.”
“I know.”
“You let me bury you.”
“I had to.”
His voice became dangerously quiet.
“No. You chose to.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Alexander discovered the trafficking operation. When he tried to expose it, they killed him.”
“Who?”
“I couldn't prove it.”
“You disappeared.”
“To keep you alive.”
“You abandoned me.”
The pain beneath those words silenced everyone.
Elena looked directly at him.
“I chose the only option that gave my son a future.”
Beatrice understood Bastion differently in that moment.
His rules.
His obsession with loyalty.
His refusal to trust.
The boy abandoned at nine had simply grown powerful enough to make abandonment difficult.
Elena told them the truth.
Alexander's twenty-three companies had originally moved witnesses and evidence beyond the reach of corrupt officials.
After his death, someone converted the system into a laundering network.
Elena and Thomas had spent years rebuilding evidence.
Then forty million disappeared.
Someone was preparing the final stage.
“What stage?” Beatrice asked.
“Destroy Bastion financially, connect him to every illegal shipment, then kill him before he can defend himself.”
“And the forty million?”
“Payment.”
“To whom?”
Elena looked frightened.
“A private organization called Meridian.”
Bastion knew the name.
So did Adrian.
Mercenaries.
Former intelligence contractors.
People who made deaths look accidental.
Beatrice crossed her arms.
“So somebody paid forty million dollars to arrange Bastion's destruction.”
“Yes.”
“With Bastion's own money.”
“Yes.”
“That feels unnecessarily insulting.”
Bastion looked at her.
She shrugged.
“Tension management.”
Even Elena almost smiled.
Then her expression changed.
“Beatrice, listen carefully.”
Beatrice stepped closer.
“You were selected.”
“For the audit?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you don't stop.”
That answer landed harder than expected.
“The person behind this researched dozens of forensic accountants. They chose you because they knew you would find the irregularities.”
Beatrice felt cold.
“I wasn't supposed to fail.”
“No.”
“I was supposed to discover everything.”
“Yes.”
“Then die.”
Elena nodded.
Her death would make Bastion look responsible.
A forensic accountant discovers evidence against a feared businessman.
Then she dies under his protection.
Perfect.
Beatrice looked at Bastion.
For the first time, she understood the scale of the design.
They weren't investigating the trap.
They were living inside it.
The screen flickered.
“Elena?” Bastion said.
Her image distorted.
“Someone found my location.”
“Where are you?”
“I can't—”
Gunfire sounded through the video.
Bastion stepped forward.
“Mother!”
Elena turned.
Someone entered the room behind her.
The feed froze for one second.
Beatrice saw a man's face.
Then darkness.
Bastion stared at the dead screen.
Beatrice had seen the man before.
At Mercer Logistics.
At the conference table.
One of the seven.
May you like
She whispered his name.
“Marcus Vale.”
