Chapter 13 - the price of protection
Victor waited outside the locked gate with both hands visible.
Evan approached with Naomi and six armed officers.
Leah remained inside with Ellie and Margaret.
Victor looked smaller than Evan remembered.
The scar along his face extended from his temple to his jaw. His left hand trembled. But his eyes retained the same calculating focus that had controlled the family for decades.
“Where is Claire?” Evan asked.
“Alive.”
“That is not enough.”
“Northstar took her to force me to unlock the account.”
“You sent them to the mansion.”
“I sent them for a drive containing the second access code. They changed the objective.”
“You expected armed men to enter a house containing Ellie.”
“I believed security could contain them.”
Evan laughed once, without humor.
“You always believe you can control the danger you create.”
Victor looked toward the mansion.
“Is she inside?”
“Ellie?”
“My granddaughter.”
“You have no right to call her that.”
Pain crossed Victor’s face.
“No. I don’t.”
Naomi stepped forward.
“You staged your death.”
“Yes.”
“You conspired with Jonathan Vale.”
“I made him believe we were partners.”
“You interfered with a criminal investigation, stole medical material from a child and orchestrated years of harassment against Leah Bennett.”
Victor nodded.
“Yes.”
Naomi seemed almost surprised by the absence of denial.
“Why return?”
“Because Claire will die if Evan does not help me open Northstar.”
Evan’s anger remained.
“Where is she?”
“On a ship leaving the port at midnight.”
Naomi checked the time.
Three hours.
Victor explained that Northstar operated a data vault aboard a converted research vessel. The system remained disconnected from outside networks. Access required two members of Victor’s biological line.
Claire had one access sequence.
Evan had the other, though he did not know it.
“Your childhood medical implant,” Victor said.
Evan touched the small scar beneath his collarbone.
Doctors had told him it was a monitoring device placed after a heart rhythm problem when he was young.
“It contains an encrypted key,” Victor said.
“You put a corporate access key inside a child?”
“I needed something Jonathan could not steal.”
“You needed therapy.”
Victor almost smiled.
“I needed many things I refused to admit.”
Naomi ordered Victor into custody.
He did not resist.
From the back of an armored vehicle, he gave them the vessel’s coordinates and internal plans.
A tactical unit intercepted the ship before it entered international waters.
Evan insisted on joining because the vault required him.
Leah stopped him at the mansion doors.
“You have nothing to prove by getting yourself killed.”
“I can help save Claire.”
“And Ellie needs you alive.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
It was the same question she had asked in Victor’s office.
This time, Evan answered differently.
“I am not going because guilt tells me to. I am going because Claire was taken while protecting my daughter, and I am the only person who can open the system. I will follow Naomi’s orders. I will not try to be a hero.”
Leah searched his face.
“Come back.”
“I will do everything I can.”
Ellie ran from the staircase and hugged his leg.
Evan lifted her.
She whispered, “Long arms.”
He held her tightly.
“Long arms.”
The tactical team boarded the vessel at 11:42 p.m.
Northstar guards surrendered after a short confrontation in the engine corridor. Jonathan was found inside the data vault with Claire restrained beside a biometric console.
He held a gun near her shoulder.
Victor was brought forward in handcuffs.
Jonathan smiled.
“The dead man returns to finish his confession.”
“Let her go,” Victor said.
“You stole my family’s company.”
“Your father killed my son.”
“And you spent thirty years becoming worse than him.”
Victor did not argue.
Jonathan demanded Evan and Claire activate the system.
Evan approached the console.
Claire looked at him.
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do.”
Jonathan forced her hand onto the reader.
Evan’s implant communicated with the second sensor.
The vault opened.
Rows of servers illuminated the room.
Jonathan moved toward the master terminal.
Victor suddenly stepped between him and Claire.
The gun fired.
Victor fell.
Naomi’s team entered.
Jonathan was disarmed and arrested.
Evan knelt beside his father.
The wound was serious but not immediately fatal.
Victor looked at Claire.
“I’m sorry.”
Claire stared at him.
“For which life?”
“All of them.”
Paramedics carried him from the ship.
The Northstar servers contained evidence of hundreds of hidden operations, financial crimes and false identities.
Evan ordered the data transferred to federal authorities rather than used to preserve the Halstead company.
Claire was safe.
Jonathan was in custody.
Northstar was exposed.
For the first time, the threat surrounding Ellie appeared to be over.
But before the final server shut down, one automated message appeared on the terminal.
PRIMARY HALSTEAD SUCCESSOR VERIFIED.
TRANSFER OF NORTHSTAR CONTROL COMPLETE.
Evan stared at the screen.
He had never authorized a transfer.
May you like
The system displayed the name of its new owner.
ELLIE BENNETT HALSTEAD.
