He nodded once, as if confirming a fact already important to him. “Then you should know this before we move. If your husband is in there, we bring him out. If Jordan is in there, we bring her out. If Victor is in there, this ends.”
There was nothing theatrical in the way he said it. That made it land harder.
The plan formed quickly. One team would create disruption at the front perimeter—enough to force movement, trigger mistakes, and pull security attention outward. Elias would lead a smaller entry along the rear side, where the cliff wall and service access gave them the cleanest approach. I was ordered to stay in the vehicle staging area with a tablet connected to one of the drone feeds.
I said nothing, because I knew this was not the moment to fight over pride.
The operation started in the dark just before sunrise.
On the screen I watched figures move through low brush and wet rock, black against darker black. The drone feed shifted from treeline to roofline to the rear terrace. Somewhere below the frame, a window was breached. Somewhere else, a door alarm flashed and went dead.
Then the first loud crash came from the front wing.
Not gunfire exactly, at least not the movie kind. More like sharp concussive pops and glass giving way. Shouting followed. A woman’s voice rose over it all, high and panicked, and I knew instantly it was Celeste.
So the accident had been fake after all. She was here.
The front distraction had become something bigger—either because the people inside were more on edge than expected or because Victor’s people were already in conflict with someone else.
Then the ground trembled beneath the tires of the SUV.
An explosion.
Small enough not to level the house, large enough to shake every window and send a plume of smoke out from somewhere below.
On the tablet, Elias’s voice cracked over comms.
“They’re trying to destroy something. Move.”
That was when I stopped obeying.
I threw open the door and ran.
By the time I reached the side entrance, smoke was already spilling through a cracked basement window. Men were moving through the hallways at speed. One of Uncle Ben’s people tried to block me, but I ducked past him and kept going, driven by the wild certainty that if Sterling was in that house, he was below ground.
The basement door at the end of the corridor stood ajar.
I went down the stairs.
The air changed immediately—colder, wetter, closer. Concrete walls. Exposed pipes. A single yellow ceiling light buzzing somewhere ahead. Then I turned the last corner and the world narrowed to one terrible room.
Jordan was tied to a support pillar, wrists bound, mouth gagged, eyes wide with fury and fear.
On a narrow metal bed against the wall lay a man so gaunt and altered I did not recognize him until he moved and I saw his eyes.
Sterling.
His beard was overgrown. His face was hollow. One shoulder looked wrong beneath the thin blanket over him, as if it had once healed badly from some old injury. But it was him.
It was him.
I think I made a sound. I am not sure. Everything in me surged toward him at once—love, grief, relief, rage so violent it almost blacked out my vision.
And standing between us, holding a handgun with lazy confidence, was Victor Thorne.
Ellis stood near him, pale and wrecked. Celeste was there too, all her social polish stripped away, her hair disordered, pearl earring missing, panic and resentment battling across her face.
Victor turned when he heard us on the stairs.
“Perfect,” he said. “Now everyone’s here.”
Elias and three of Uncle Ben’s men flooded in behind me and took positions, weapons raised but restrained by the angle of Victor’s arm and the closeness of the muzzle to Sterling’s head.
Jordan made a muffled sound behind the gag.
Victor smiled.
“Not another step,” he said. “I’ve been chasing scraps of evidence across two states because none of you know when to leave grief alone. Hand over every copy of what Sterling collected, and perhaps I let this end quietly.”
“Let him go,” Elias said.
Victor didn’t even look at him. His attention stayed on me.
“You’re Amara,” he said. “He wrote about you more than was useful.”
My hands curled into fists.
Sterling lifted his head with visible effort. His voice, when it came, was rough and faint but still unmistakably his.
“Don’t give him anything.”
I almost collapsed where I stood just hearing him speak.
Victor pressed the gun harder against Sterling’s temple. “He’s still stubborn. Three years and captivity did nothing for his manners.”
Celeste gave a choked sound. “Victor, this has gone too far—”
He cut her off with one sharp look. “You don’t speak unless I ask.”
Ellis did not lift his eyes at all.
That, more than anything, finished whatever remained of my ability to feel shock. He had helped bring us here. He had stood in that room where his son lay half-starved and still said nothing.
Victor extended one hand toward me.
“The drive,” he said. “And the copies.”
