Chapter 9 - The Night Adeline Disappeared
The video ended before the trigger moved.
Adeline stopped breathing.
Elias grabbed her shoulders.
“He’s alive.”
“You don’t know that.”
“They need the ledger.”
“They need my brother until they don’t.”
Isabella offered herself.
“No,” Elias said.
“This began with me.”
“It began with Rourke.”
“And I helped it survive.”
They created a duplicate drive.
Bruno wanted to storm the warehouse.
Elias refused.
Too many entrances.
Too many places to hide Evan.
Adeline disappeared while they argued.
Elias noticed six minutes later.
Her coat was gone.
So was the real ledger.
He called.
No answer.
Then a text arrived.
DON’T FOLLOW ME. GET EVAN OUT WHEN THEY MOVE HIM.
Elias cursed.
Adeline had understood something before they did.
Haverin did not want the exchange at Warehouse 12.
It was a diversion.
The video metadata revealed the real location.
An abandoned ferry terminal.
Elias raced there.
Adeline already stood inside.
Alone.
Rourke faced her.
Haverin stood beside Evan.
Adeline held the drive.
“Let him go.”
Rourke smiled.
“You have your father’s courage.”
“You murdered my father.”
“He made an unfortunate choice.”
“He saved Elias.”
“That was the unfortunate choice.”
Elias heard every word through the transmitter Adeline had secretly taken from Bruno’s equipment.
She had not gone unprepared.
Haverin demanded the drive.
Adeline threw it across the floor.
Evan was released.
He ran toward her.
Then Rourke realized.
“This isn’t the original.”
He drew his gun.
Elias fired first.
The bullet struck the weapon from Rourke’s hand.
Chaos exploded.
Bruno’s men entered.
Haverin fled toward the docks.
Adeline shielded Evan.
Rourke vanished through a service corridor.
Elias chased him.
At the end of the corridor stood two doors.
One led outside.
One downstairs.
Blood marked the downstairs handle.
Elias opened it.
A basement tunnel stretched beneath the terminal.
Rourke was gone.
But someone else was there.
A woman sat tied to a chair.
Mara.
Again.
Except when Elias removed the tape from her mouth, she said something that changed everything.
“Rourke didn’t take me.”
“Who did?”
Mara looked past him.
“Adeline.”
Elias turned.
May you like
Adeline stood at the top of the stairs.
And there was a gun in her hand.
