Chapter 6 - The Apartment Was Never an Accident
Jo stared at the photograph.
“My landlord?”
“Elliot Crane,” Daniel said. “That's not his real name.”
Of course it wasn't.
Apparently nobody in her life had a real name anymore.
Crane had worked security for Silas Hale twenty years earlier.
He had rented Jo the apartment for one reason.
To keep her where the organization could watch her.
Her cheap rent.
The landlord's strange refusal to accept online payments.
The repairs that somehow happened while she was at work.
None of it had been kindness.
Her poverty had been a cage designed to look like bad luck.
Jo felt sick.
Gideon saw her expression.
“This ends today.”
She looked at him.
“What does?”
“All of it.”
He made calls.
Not to assassins.
To attorneys.
Investigators.
Federal contacts Daniel had quietly cultivated.
Jo noticed the difference.
Gideon could have started a war.
Instead, he started dismantling one.
The hidden drive contained enough evidence to destroy Marcus's network, but releasing it recklessly would expose Sammy's identity.
So they needed leverage.
Daniel volunteered to testify.
Gideon distrusted him.
Jo did too.
But Daniel had spent six years collecting records.
By evening, federal agents had received encrypted copies.
Marcus responded exactly as Gideon expected.
He took Crane.
Then the police chief disappeared.
Rats were eating rats.
Gideon's empire began collapsing.
Warehouses were raided.
Accounts frozen.
Associates vanished.
Jo found him late that night standing in his office.
“You're losing everything.”
“Yes.”
“You don't seem upset.”
He looked at the city.
“I thought everything was the reason nobody could hurt me.”
“And?”
“Turns out it was the reason nobody could get close.”
Jo approached.
“What happens when this is over?”
“To me?”
“Yes.”
“Probably prison eventually.”
She stared.
He smiled without humor.
“You wanted honesty.”
“I didn't say I liked it.”
“No one does.”
Gideon had begun cooperating through an attorney, trading evidence against corrupt officials for consideration regarding financial crimes and conspiracy charges.
It did not erase what he had done.
He knew that.
Jo respected that he never asked her to pretend otherwise.
“You could run,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Will you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
His eyes moved toward the hallway where Sammy slept.
“Because I've spent enough of my life disappearing from consequences.”
Something inside Jo shifted.
She stepped closer.
Gideon looked down at her.
“Jo.”
“What?”
“This is a terrible idea.”
“What is?”
She kissed him.
It was not elegant.
It was not planned.
For half a second Gideon did nothing.
Then his hand touched her waist.
Carefully.
As though she were something he had no right to hold.
Jo pulled back first.
“That was definitely a terrible idea.”
“Yes.”
Neither moved apart.
“Should we do it again?”
“Probably not.”
They kissed again.
The moment ended when an alarm screamed through the penthouse.
Gideon moved instantly.
The lights died.
Emergency illumination painted the hallway red.
Jo ran toward Sammy's room.
Empty.
Her scream tore through the apartment.
The window was open.
A rope hung over the balcony.
Gideon reached the room seconds later.
On Sammy's bed sat the purple spaceship drawing.
A knife pinned it to the mattress.
Gideon pulled out his phone.
It rang before he could dial.
Marcus.
“Happy New Year, boss.”
Gideon's voice became ice.
“If you hurt him—”
“You'll what? Kill me?”
Marcus laughed.
“You were more frightening before you found a family.”
Jo took the phone.
“Marcus.”
Silence.
“You wanted the drive.”
“Yes.”
“You'll get it.”
Gideon looked at her sharply.
Marcus gave instructions.
Old Union Station.
Midnight.
Jo, alone.
The call ended.
Gideon immediately said no.
Jo turned on him.
“My son.”
“My nephew.”
The words stopped them both.
It was the first time Gideon had said it aloud.
My nephew.
Jo's anger softened.
“We get him together.”
“No.”
“You don't own this decision.”
“Neither do you.”
“Then who does?”
A small voice came through Gideon's phone.
A message.
Sammy.
“Mom?”
Jo nearly collapsed.
“Sammy?”
The recording continued.
“Mr. Marcus says Uncle Gideon has to bring the computer thing.”
Gideon's eyes closed.
Uncle Gideon.
Then Sammy whispered something else.
“I left purple arrows.”
The recording ended.
Jo blinked.
“What does that mean?”
Gideon suddenly remembered Sammy drawing in the SUV.
Purple chalk.
He looked at Jo.
“Your son is smarter than everyone I employ.”
Twenty minutes later, Gideon's men found the first purple arrow on a concrete pillar beneath the elevated tracks.
Sammy had been leaving a trail.
It led away from Union Station.
Marcus had lied about the meeting place.
May you like
And the arrows pointed toward the last place Gideon expected.
The Wellington.
