Chapter 13 - The Last Man Inside
Austin reached the mansion in record time.
He expected betrayal.
Instead he found Rosa bleeding beside the staircase.
Jacey was hiding beneath the library desk.
Austin dropped beside Rosa.
“Who did this?”
She struggled to speak.
“Not me.”
“I know.”
“Kitchen entrance.”
Bruno ran toward it.
Austin found Jacey.
She threw herself into his arms.
“He wanted my phone.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“You've seen him before?”
She nodded.
“At Mom's apartment.”
Austin's body went cold.
“The man with the scar?”
“Yes.”
Finally.
The real man.
Security footage showed him entering through the service entrance using Rosa's access code.
He had stolen it months earlier.
The employee identification number belonged not to Rosa but to a former employee whose credentials had never been removed.
Nathan identified him.
Samuel Crane.
Catherine's private security chief.
And the man with the scar on his left wrist.
They tracked him to an abandoned shipping office.
Austin wanted to go.
Jacey grabbed his sleeve.
“No more.”
He looked down.
“What?”
“No more leaving.”
He understood.
Every time adults said they were protecting her, they disappeared through a door.
Her mother.
Austin.
Judge Bell.
Everyone.
Austin crouched.
“Then I won't.”
He called federal agents instead.
Samuel Crane was arrested two hours later.
No shootout.
No revenge.
No body.
Austin remained exactly where he'd promised.
Beside Jacey.
The choice felt strangely more difficult than violence.
And infinitely better.
Rosa survived.
By morning, the mansion was crowded with legitimate investigators.
Austin voluntarily handed over records concerning his own organization.
Marcus stared at him.
“You know what this could cost you.”
“Yes.”
“Everything.”
“No.”
Austin looked toward Jacey eating pancakes with Elena.
“Not everything.”
Marcus nodded.
Then handed over his own records.
Bruno did the same.
The criminal empire Austin inherited began dismantling itself from the inside.
Some businesses were legitimate and could survive.
Others could not.
Austin accepted that.
At noon, Judge Bell arrived.
“Jonathan is talking.”
Elena looked up.
“Why?”
“Because Catherine started talking first.”
Austin almost smiled.
Of course she had.
“They're turning on each other?”
“Completely.”
Bell placed a folder on the table.
“There is something else.”
Austin opened it.
Inside were documents related to his father.
Federal cooperation agreements.
Witness statements.
Evidence he'd collected.
His father had spent the final four years of his life trying to destroy the network.
Not enough to erase everything he had done before.
But enough to change the story.
Austin closed the folder.
“I hated him.”
Daniel stood beside him.
“So did I.”
“He wasn't innocent.”
“No.”
“But he tried.”
“Yes.”
Austin looked at his daughter.
“Maybe that's enough.”
That evening, Elena found him on the mansion steps.
“You're giving up control of the organization.”
“Yes.”
“What will you do?”
“I own legitimate companies.”
“That sounds boring.”
“I've developed an interest in boring.”
She smiled.
“Jacey will ruin that.”
“I'm counting on it.”
Elena sat beside him.
For a moment they were back in Vermont.
Older.
More damaged.
But alive.
“I don't know how to do this,” Austin admitted.
“What?”
“Be her father.”
“Nobody does.”
“I've commanded hundreds of men.”
“Congratulations.”
“I've negotiated with people who wanted to kill me.”
“Very impressive.”
“She asked me yesterday whether clouds get lonely, and I had absolutely no answer.”
Elena laughed.
Austin looked at her.
He had missed that sound.
“I don't know how to do this with you either.”
Her laughter faded.
“Neither do I.”
“Can we try?”
Elena looked toward the windows where Jacey was drawing.
“Yes.”
Austin took her hand.
Then a car stopped outside the gates.
Bruno approached.
“No plates.”
Austin stood.
A courier stepped out.
He carried one package.
No weapon.
The box was addressed to Austin.
Inside was a final letter from Catherine, written before her arrest.
Austin opened it.
One line.
Your father kept a second family secret beneath your mother's grave.
Daniel looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
Austin didn't know.
The next morning, he and Daniel went to the family cemetery.
Beneath the memorial stone was a sealed compartment.
Inside sat a birth certificate.
Austin unfolded it.
He read the child's name.
Then the date.
Daniel leaned closer.
Both brothers went silent.
May you like
Because the certificate proved there had been a third Cole child.
And she was still alive.
