Chapter 15 - MY BEST FRIEND PULLED THE TRIGGER
The gunshot came through the speaker.
I screamed.
The screen went black.
I ran for the stairs.
Noah grabbed me.
“Let go!”
“You’ll never get there in time.”
“She shot my mother!”
“We don’t know that.”
“I heard it!”
Eli was already at the server console.
“Feed’s delayed.”
I turned.
“What?”
“Thirty seconds. Maybe more.”
He typed fast.
The camera returned.
Mom was alive.
The bullet had hit the wall.
Tessa stood frozen, gun shaking.
A man stepped into frame behind her.
Sloane.
He pressed his pistol against Tessa’s back.
“Do it,” he said.
Tessa sobbed.
“I can’t.”
Sloane smiled.
“That’s why your sister’s medical debt keeps growing.”
My chest tightened.
Tessa’s younger sister had spent years in and out of hospitals.
Mercy hospitals.
“They own her,” I whispered.
“No,” Eli said. “They own the bill.”
On screen, Tessa dropped her gun.
Sloane hit her and reached for Mom.
Agent Pike suddenly moved from the floor.
She kicked Sloane’s knee.
The feed exploded into chaos.
Then black again.
Noah pointed to the server racks.
“We need the archive now.”
“My mother is in a fight with a corrupt cop!”
“And this is why he’s there.”
He inserted the flash drive from Box 317.
The main monitor filled with folders.
PAYMENTS.
LEVERAGE.
OPERATIONS.
ASSETS.
I clicked ASSETS.
Thousands of names.
Photos.
Private records.
Confessions.
Medical histories.
Affairs.
Debts.
Children.
Everything a powerful person could use to own somebody.
I felt sick.
Noah whispered, “This is the Circle.”
Eli opened a folder marked SUCCESSION.
His own photograph appeared.
Below it:
ELI CROSS — PRIMARY CANDIDATE.
Noah looked at him.
“Told you.”
Eli didn’t move.
A second line loaded.
STATUS: REJECTED.
REASON: ATTACHMENT TO ASSET 47.
I stared at Eli.
“What attachment?”
He looked at me.
Before he could answer, the steel door slammed shut behind us.
The monitor flashed red.
PURGE PROTOCOL ACTIVE.
GAS RELEASE IN 09:00.
Noah ran to the door.
Locked.
Eli checked the vents.
A hiss started overhead.
Then another file opened by itself.
A video.
Judge Helen Ward appeared on screen.
Silver hair. Calm smile.
“Hello, Maya,” she said.
“I’ve waited twenty-four years for you to open that door.”
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