Chapter 6 - The Nurse They Wanted Gone
Three of Adrian's security men rushed inside.
The sniper vanished.
Claire knelt beside Adrian.
The bullet had grazed his shoulder.
“I'm fine.”
“You're bleeding.”
“I've had worse.”
“I don't care.”
She tore open his shirt and treated the wound.
Adrian watched her hands.
Steady.
Focused.
Exactly like Daniel's.
“Claire.”
“Don't talk.”
“That is generally my line.”
“Tonight it's mine.”
For once, he obeyed.
They moved to a secure property outside Manhattan.
Claire should have returned home.
Instead she stayed.
At 4:00 a.m., Adrian found her sitting in the kitchen with Daniel's cassette.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“Can't.”
“Neither can I.”
He sat across from her.
Claire asked, “What happened after the SEALs?”
Adrian told her.
He returned home angry.
Then his wife, Elena, died during what police called a robbery.
Adrian later learned the killers had been looking for classified material Daniel had sent him.
That broke something inside him.
He stopped believing institutions could deliver justice.
He built his own power.
Sometimes legally.
Sometimes not.
“That's how you became what people call a mafia boss?”
“Yes.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Parts.”
Claire appreciated that he didn't lie.
“Did you kill people?”
Adrian looked at her.
“Yes.”
She absorbed it.
“Bad people?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly isn't comforting.”
“It wasn't meant to be.”
Claire should have feared him.
Instead she saw a man who had spent fifteen years building walls because everyone he loved became a target.
“Why keep Elena's ring?”
He touched it.
“Because loving someone doesn't end when they die.”
Claire understood.
Her father's absence had taught her the same thing.
At sunrise, Marco entered.
“We found something.”
Satellite records showed an abandoned federal facility beneath an old naval warehouse in Brooklyn.
The building had once been controlled by Thomas Keene.
Claire stood.
“That's where we're going.”
Adrian looked at her.
“We?”
“Yes.”
He sighed.
“You are exhausting.”
“You're welcome.”
They entered the warehouse after dark.
The facility below had been abandoned.
Mostly.
One room still had electricity.
Inside they found surveillance photographs.
Claire as a child.
Claire graduating nursing school.
Claire entering hospitals.
Adrian after leaving the Navy.
Adrian beside Elena.
Years of their lives covered the walls.
Claire felt sick.
“They watched me.”
Adrian touched one photograph.
Daniel had been right.
Claire had never been lost.
She had been monitored.
Then Claire noticed a photograph taken only hours earlier.
It showed her sitting beside Adrian in the hospital.
Someone had been inside the room.
Adrian turned it over.
A message was written on the back.
SHE WAS NEVER YOURS TO PROTECT.
A noise came from behind the wall.
Marco found a hidden door.
Adrian opened it.
Inside sat a computer.
The screen activated.
A live video appeared.
An older man sat in darkness.
Thomas Keene.
“Hello, Ghost.”
Adrian's face became stone.
Claire stepped forward.
“Where is my father?”
Keene smiled.
“Daniel always said his daughter was impatient.”
Claire's heart stopped.
“You knew him.”
“Oh, Claire.”
Keene leaned toward the camera.
May you like
“I spoke to him this morning.”
The screen went black.
