Chapter 4 - The Boy With Adrien's Eyes
"Seal the east tunnel."
Adrien's recorded voice filled the room.
Mara stared at him.
Noah was already asleep downstairs, protected from the confrontation.
Adrien listened again.
"Seal the east tunnel. Nobody gets through."
His face tightened.
"I said that."
Mara stepped backward.
"Why?"
"Because Victor told me the attackers were using it."
"When?"
Adrien looked at the timestamp.
10:59 p.m.
Mara had entered the tunnel only minutes earlier.
"You nearly buried us."
"I didn't know you were there."
"You didn't check."
"No."
Again, no excuse.
That made Mara angrier somehow.
"I was bleeding."
Adrien's eyes closed.
"I know."
"No, you don't."
Her voice finally rose.
"I was thirty-two weeks pregnant, Adrien. I could barely breathe. Pike was dragging me through that tunnel while I held my stomach and begged our son not to die."
Adrien stood completely still.
"I heard the explosion behind us. I thought you had tried to kill me."
"I didn't know."
"And I spent three years wondering."
Adrien looked at her.
"You should hate me."
"I did."
"Do you still?"
Mara didn't answer.
Because hatred would have been easier.
Elena interrupted.
"We found something."
Inside the old security archive was a backup drive Victor had missed.
The records showed who had accessed Adrien's command system.
Victor.
Repeatedly.
But on the night of the attack, another administrator account had been used.
Simone Vey.
Mara stared at the screen.
Then Elena enlarged the authentication log.
Simone's credentials had authorized the order sending Mara upstairs.
Adrien's face hardened.
"She set you up."
"Maybe."
"Mara."
"She also warned me."
Nothing fit.
At midnight, another message arrived.
This one contained coordinates.
A motel forty miles north.
Mara recognized Pike's face from the photograph.
"We go together," Adrien said.
"No."
"I'm not letting you—"
Mara turned sharply.
"Finish that sentence."
Adrien stopped.
Three years ago, he would have said he wasn't letting his wife go anywhere dangerous.
Now he understood the problem.
Mara didn't need permission.
"We go together," he said differently. "Because Pike knows both sides."
She accepted that.
They left Noah with Elena and two trusted guards.
At 1:18 a.m., Mara and Adrien entered the motel room.
Pike sat beside the window.
Alive.
Scarred.
Older.
Mara stopped.
"You let me believe you were dead."
"I needed Victor to believe it too."
"You took five million dollars."
"Yes."
Adrien stepped forward.
Pike didn't flinch.
"Why?"
"Victor hired me."
Mara felt sick.
Pike continued.
"He wanted me to make sure you reached the nursery safe room."
"Why?"
"Because the safe room wasn't safe."
Silence.
"There was a secondary exit," Pike said. "Victor's men were waiting there."
Mara stared.
"So you were supposed to deliver me."
"Yes."
"But you changed your mind."
Pike looked at her stomach as though remembering.
"You were talking to your baby."
Mara's throat tightened.
"I heard you on the stairs. You kept saying, 'Stay with me.'"
Pike looked down.
"I'd spent fifteen years telling myself orders were just orders. That night I couldn't do it anymore."
Adrien asked, "Why the five million?"
"Victor paid in advance."
"You kept it?"
"No."
Pike slid a folder across the table.
The money had been moved through dozens of accounts.
Eventually it funded Mara's anonymous medical treatment, relocation, legal identities, and a trust.
Mara stared at him.
"You used his money to hide us from him."
Pike almost smiled.
"Seemed appropriate."
Then his expression darkened.
"But Victor wasn't working alone."
"Simone," Adrien said.
Pike shook his head.
"Not exactly."
He explained.
Simone had discovered Victor's plan weeks earlier.
She had been involved with Victor financially, but not in the attack.
She attached the device beneath the nursery monitor because she was recording him.
"Why didn't she warn us directly?"
"Because Victor had leverage."
"What leverage?"
Pike looked at Adrien.
"Her brother."
Adrien remembered.
Simone's younger brother had disappeared six months before the attack.
She had told everyone he was traveling.
Victor had him hidden.
Simone had been trying to collect evidence without getting him hurt.
Mara sat slowly.
Everything shifted again.
"So Simone wasn't trying to hurt me."
"She made terrible choices," Pike said. "But no. She was trying to stop Victor."
"Where is she?"
Pike looked toward the door.
"That's why I contacted you."
A sound came outside.
Three knocks.
Pike stood.
His face changed.
"That's not her signal."
Adrien moved toward Mara.
The motel lights went out.
Pike whispered, "Back window."
Mara grabbed the evidence folder.
A voice came through the door.
Calm.
Familiar.
Victor.
"Mara."
Adrien froze.
Victor laughed softly from the hallway.
"Three years is a long time."
The door handle began to turn.
Then Victor said the one sentence that stopped Mara cold.
"Before you run, you should know Simone isn't the person who betrayed you."
May you like
A pause.
"The traitor is inside Blackthorn House with your son."
