Chapter 18 - HE USED ME AS BAIT
Noah didn’t deny it.
That hurt more than a lie.
I stood over him with blood on my hands—his blood—and felt something inside me snap cleanly in two.
“You knew the window would fall.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I’d be standing there.”
“Yes.”
Eli looked like he wanted to kill him.
I held up one hand.
“No. I want to hear this.”
Noah pushed himself against the wall.
“I authorized the operation code. Not the kill.”
“What does that mean?”
“I leaked your routine to Ward.”
My mouth went dry.
“You told them where I’d be.”
“I needed Ward to move.”
“So you used me.”
“I sent Eli the warning.”
“You hoped he’d save me.”
“I knew he would.”
Eli whispered, “You didn’t know anything.”
Noah looked at him.
“I knew you loved her.”
Silence.
I turned toward Eli.
He looked away.
Wrong time.
Wrong universe.
I turned back to Noah.
“You risked my life to expose Ward.”
“I had spent seven years trying to get CORE. She never touched the temple archive because she couldn’t open it. I needed her scared enough to break the window and flush you toward the key.”
I felt sick.
“You made all of this happen.”
“No. Ward chose violence.”
“You chose me as the target.”
He had no answer for that.
My phone rang.
Agent Pike.
I answered.
“Maya, we have your mother. Tessa too. They’re alive.”
My knees almost gave out.
“Where’s Ward?”
“Gone.”
Of course.
Pike’s voice tightened.
“We found something else. Mercy’s servers are beginning a remote wipe.”
Eli looked at the CORE laptop.
“How long?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe less.”
Noah grabbed the laptop.
“We dump everything now.”
Pike shouted through the phone, “Do not do that!”
Noah ignored her.
“Those files are evidence.”
“They’re also full of victims’ private lives,” I said.
“Collateral damage.”
I stared at him.
He heard himself too late.
Eli stepped between us.
“Noah.”
“You want Ward to walk?”
“No.”
“Then move.”
“No.”
Noah pulled a second gun from his ankle.
I actually laughed.
“Does every man in my life keep a backup gun?”
Noah aimed at Eli.
“This isn’t funny.”
“No. It’s pathetic.”
He looked at me.
“You don’t understand what I’ve lost.”
“I lost you!”
That hit him.
I stepped closer.
“I mourned you. I buried Mom. I lived with Dad’s death. And while I was doing that, you decided pain made you smarter than everyone else.”
His gun lowered an inch.
Then the laptop chimed.
CORE RELEASE READY.
FINAL AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED: ASSET 47.
A microphone lit up.
Noah raised the gun again.
“Say the phrase, Maya.”
I looked at my brother.
“Or what?”
His eyes filled with tears.
That was somehow worse.
“Or everything we suffered was for nothing.”
Behind him, the cemetery door opened.
Judge Helen Ward stepped inside.
And she was holding my mother by the arm.
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