Chapter 4 - The Man in the Ambulance
Damian stepped inside.
Victor raised his gun.
Elias did not move.
“Tessa,” Damian said quietly.
“Stay behind me.”
She ignored him and looked at Elias.
“You weren’t hurt.”
“No.”
“You staged the ambulance.”
“Yes.”
Victor’s voice shook with anger.
“You let us think you were injured.”
Elias smiled.
“That was necessary.”
“For what?”
“To get out of the courtyard.”
Damian walked closer.
“Who do you work for?”
Elias looked almost offended.
“You.”
“Wrong answer.”
“I have worked for you eight years.”
“And for Adrian?”
“Longer.”
Victor aimed directly at his chest.
“Give me one reason.”
Elias looked at him.
“You’re standing too close to the window.”
Victor frowned.
Then the glass exploded inward.
A bullet hit the wall where Victor’s head had been.
Everyone dropped.
Elias flipped the table.
“Move!”
Damian pulled Tessa toward the interior bathroom.
Victor crawled behind the bed.
Another shot punched through the window.
Then another.
Elias shouted, “Service corridor behind the closet!”
Victor looked at Damian.
“Trust him?”
“No.”
“Good enough.”
Elias yanked open the closet doors and kicked the rear panel.
It swung inward.
A narrow maintenance passage appeared.
Tessa stared.
“You people really do have secret doors everywhere.”
Damian pushed her inside.
“Not ours.”
They entered the corridor.
Elias came last and shut the panel.
Darkness swallowed them.
Tessa used her phone flashlight.
“Where does this go?”
“Laundry level.”
Elias moved ahead.
Damian grabbed the back of his jacket.
“Before we go anywhere, you talk.”
“Someone is shooting at the room.”
“And someone blew up my SUV.”
“That was Adrian.”
“Someone murdered Marco.”
Elias stopped.
“That wasn’t.”
Damian’s grip tightened.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer again.”
Elias turned.
“Adrian knew there was a conspiracy inside your organization. He didn’t know how high it went. Marco was supposed to meet us today.”
Tessa said, “Meet who?”
“Me.”
“You knew the driver?”
“I recruited him.”
Damian looked at Elias.
“For Adrian.”
“Yes.”
Victor cursed.
Damian looked as though he wanted to kill him.
Elias continued quickly.
“Marco discovered someone had been changing vehicle maintenance records. He found duplicate access codes.”
“To the armored fleet?” Damian asked.
“Yes.”
“Who had them?”
“We never got the name.”
“Because he was killed.”
“Yes.”
Tessa thought about the bomb.
“The SUV wasn’t the real attack.”
Elias looked at her.
“No.”
Damian turned.
“What do you mean?”
“The explosive was meant to force you into emergency protocol.”
Victor’s face changed.
“Our emergency protocol.”
Elias nodded.
“Backup vehicles. Safe houses. Private medical contacts. Restricted routes.”
Tessa understood.
“The explosion was bait.”
“Adrian’s explosion was a warning,” Elias said. “But whoever killed Marco was waiting to see how Damian reacted.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“They wanted to map the response.”
“Yes.”
Victor stared at Elias.
“So Adrian knew someone planned to hit him today.”
“He knew something was coming.”
“And instead of telling us, he planted his own bomb?”
“He needed Damian to stop trusting the system.”
Tessa shook her head.
“There had to be a less insane way.”
Elias almost smiled.
“You haven’t met Adrian.”
“Apparently I have.”
They moved through the maintenance corridor.
Below them, sirens echoed through the hotel.
Damian stayed close to Tessa.
She noticed without mentioning it.
They reached a steel stairwell.
Elias opened the door.
Empty.
“Laundry level is one floor down.”
Victor spoke.
“And then?”
“There’s a delivery tunnel.”
“To where?”
“Parking structure across the alley.”
Tessa stopped.
“Another garage.”
Elias looked at her.
“No vehicles. We leave on foot.”
Damian nodded.
They descended.
At the laundry level, hotel workers huddled near the loading area.
Police were evacuating staff.
Elias removed his jacket.
Victor tucked away his weapon.
Damian straightened his collar.
Tessa looked at them.
“You’re going to casually walk through?”
Damian said, “People rarely see what they don’t expect.”
A police officer waved them toward the loading exit.
“Everyone out.”
They walked.
No one stopped them.
Outside, the alley smelled of smoke.
Damian took a phone from Elias.
“No personal devices from here.”
Tessa held hers.
“This is how Adrian contacts us.”
“That’s also how whoever else is watching can track us.”
She looked at the screen.
No new messages.
Then handed it over.
Damian powered it off.
They crossed into an older office building owned by one of Damian’s shell companies.
On the sixth floor, a private apartment overlooked the financial district.
No staff.
No guards.
No obvious cameras.
Victor checked every room.
Elias stood by the window.
Damian poured water into four glasses.
Tessa took one.
“Start at the beginning,” she said.
Damian glanced at her.
“This is my interrogation.”
“You’re welcome to ask better questions.”
Victor made a strange sound that might have been a laugh.
Damian looked at Elias.
“Why is Adrian alive?”
Elias answered.
“Because I pulled him from the warehouse.”
Damian stared.
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
“I never saw you.”
“You were unconscious.”
“What happened?”
“Your bullet hit Adrian’s shoulder. Not his chest. When the fire spread, a support beam fell between you. I got him out through a drainage channel.”
“And you left me.”
“I thought you were dead.”
Damian looked at him.
Elias lowered his eyes.
“I was wrong.”
“Why hide Adrian for six years?”
“Because your father’s remaining allies wanted him dead.”
“My father died in that fire.”
“No.”
The room became silent.
Damian’s glass stopped halfway toward his mouth.
“What?”
Elias looked at him.
“Your father didn’t die that night.”
Victor turned.
Tessa stared.
Damian set the glass down very carefully.
“Say that again.”
“He survived.”
“That’s impossible.”
“He left the warehouse before the collapse.”
“I saw him trapped.”
“You saw a body near the office door.”
“My father.”
“No.”
Damian stepped toward Elias.
“Who?”
“His lawyer.”
Damian grabbed Elias by the throat and slammed him against the wall.
Victor moved but stopped.
Tessa said, “Damian.”
He did not listen.
“Where is he?”
Elias struggled.
“I don’t know.”
“Where?”
“Adrian has been looking for him for six years.”
Damian released him.
Elias coughed.
Tessa watched Damian.
The revelation had broken something open.
Not grief.
Rage.
“My father let us believe he died.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To disappear while you and Adrian destroyed each other.”
Damian walked away.
Victor swore under his breath.
Tessa asked, “What was his name?”
Damian did not answer.
Elias did.
“Lucian Vale.”
Even Tessa knew that name.
Twenty years earlier Lucian Vale had controlled half the waterfront unions, construction contracts, and private gaming business in the region.
He had vanished from public life before the warehouse fire.
Officially dead.
Unofficially legendary.
Tessa looked at Damian.
“So this isn’t about your brother.”
“No.”
“It’s about your father.”
Damian stared through the window.
“Apparently.”
A burner phone on the kitchen counter rang.
All four froze.
Elias looked at it.
“I didn’t put that there.”
Victor drew his gun.
Damian approached slowly.
The phone kept ringing.
He answered.
“Hello?”
A distorted voice spoke.
“You survived the hotel.”
Damian’s expression hardened.
“Who is this?”
“You have something that belongs to me.”
“What?”
“The valet.”
Tessa stopped breathing.
Damian looked at her.
The voice continued.
“Send Tessa Reed to Pier Nineteen alone before midnight.”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“Why?”
“Because her father stole something from me fifteen years ago.”
Tessa felt the room tilt.
“My father?”
The caller heard her.
A quiet laugh.
“Yes, Tessa.”
She moved toward the phone.
“Who are you?”
“Ask Damian what Lucian Vale did in Baghdad.”
The call ended.
Tessa stared at Damian.
He stared back.
“You knew my father?”
“No.”
“Did your father?”
Damian said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Tessa stepped closer.
“What happened in Baghdad?”
Damian looked toward Elias.
Elias’s face had gone pale.
Victor noticed.
“What?”
Elias backed toward the counter.
“No.”
Tessa’s voice sharpened.
“What happened?”
Elias looked at her.
“Your father didn’t die because of a roadside bomb.”
Tessa stopped.
“What?”
Elias swallowed.
“He died because someone paid for that bomb to be there.”
Tessa stared at him.
“Who?”
The burner phone lit again.
This time no call.
A photograph.
Tessa picked it up.
Her father stood beside three American contractors in Baghdad.
One of them was much younger.
But unmistakable.
Lucian Vale.
And behind the group stood another man.
Damian leaned closer.
His face went white.
Tessa pointed at the stranger.
“Who is he?”
May you like
Damian whispered the name.
“Adrian.”
