Chapter 15 - Noah
Adrian gripped the receiver until his knuckles whitened.
“Let me hear him.”
A pause.
Then a small voice.
“Mom?”
Sarah made a sound and covered her mouth.
Adrian’s eyes burned.
“Noah, listen to me.”
“Who are you?”
Adrian could not answer.
How did a father introduce himself to a son who had never met him?
Rook took the phone back.
“Touching, isn’t it?”
“I will kill you.”
“Probably. Eventually. But first you’re going to do what I ask.”
“What?”
“Bring Thomas to the old courthouse.”
Thomas shook his head violently.
Rook continued.
“Bring the memory card. Bring Emily. No security team.”
“No.”
“Then the boy loses a finger every ten minutes.”
Sarah lunged for the phone.
Adrian held up a hand.
Rook said, “Midnight.”
The line went dead.
Mara checked her watch.
“Thirty-eight minutes.”
Emily looked at Thomas.
“Why the courthouse?”
Thomas stared at the floor.
“Because that’s where North Star began.”
Claire frowned.
“The old county courthouse burned twenty years ago.”
“The top floor burned,” Thomas said. “The archive basement survived.”
Adrian looked at him.
“What’s down there?”
“The original records.”
“Of what?”
“Every payment. Every operation. Every person North Star compromised.”
Sarah understood.
“Rook doesn’t want control of the company.”
Thomas shook his head.
“No. He wants the archive.”
Adrian looked at Emily.
“And he needs her signature because?”
Thomas answered.
“The archive encryption key is tied to Vale corporate succession.”
Emily laughed in disbelief.
“So all of this—Mason, the fake death filing, the assault—was to make me an authorized successor?”
“Yes.”
“Why not just kill Dad?”
Thomas’s eyes shifted to Adrian.
“Because he tried.”
Adrian remembered the note upstairs.
ACCIDENT — FRIDAY NIGHT.
Tomorrow.
Thomas said, “That was Plan B.”
Mara moved toward the door.
“We can surround the courthouse.”
“No,” Thomas said.
“Why?”
“Because Rook knows your standard containment pattern. I trained him.”
Mara froze.
Adrian looked at his father.
“You trained Evan Rook?”
Thomas’s face filled with regret.
“He was North Star’s best field operative.”
Claire whispered, “Until he died.”
Thomas shook his head.
“Until I ordered Victor to kill him.”
The room went silent.
Adrian stared at his father.
“And Victor failed.”
Thomas looked toward the dark window.
“No.”
Then footsteps approached outside.
A man appeared in the doorway.
Victor.
Blood ran from a cut on his forehead.
He looked at Thomas.
“I didn’t fail.”
He raised a gun.
May you like
“I chose not to obey.”
