Chapter 8 - THE PRICE OF THE TRUTH
Gabriel moved to protect Khloe.
But Daniel raised one hand.
“Don't.”
Caldwell laughed.
“Still giving orders, Daniel?”
Daniel ignored him.
He looked at his daughter.
“I never wanted you involved.”
Khloe felt something inside her break.
“You left me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“You let me believe you were dead.”
“I had no choice.”
“You always had a choice!”
Her voice echoed through the warehouse.
Daniel lowered his eyes.
For the first time, Khloe saw fear in her father's face.
Not fear of Caldwell.
Fear of her.
“Your mother discovered what I was doing,” he said. “She wanted to expose the entire network. I tried to stop her.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew what would happen.”
“So you killed her?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Daniel looked toward Gabriel.
“Tell her.”
Gabriel remained silent.
Khloe turned.
“Tell me what?”
Daniel took a slow breath.
“Your mother wasn't killed. I arranged for her to disappear because Caldwell wanted her dead. I thought if everyone believed she had died, she'd be safe.”
Khloe stared.
“Then why did the recording say you ordered her death?”
“Because I told the camera that if anything happened to her, I would be responsible.”
Caldwell stepped forward.
“Enough.”
He struck Daniel across the face.
Khloe screamed.
Gabriel raised his weapon.
Three of Caldwell's men immediately aimed at him.
“Drop it,” Caldwell ordered.
Gabriel slowly lowered his pistol.
Caldwell approached Khloe.
“Your father has spent years protecting a secret. A very expensive secret.”
He gestured toward Daniel.
“Your father created the ledger. But your mother encrypted it. She used a system nobody in my organization could break.”
Khloe looked at the flash drive in her hand.
“The key.”
Caldwell smiled.
“Exactly.”
He explained that the ledger contained proof of illegal weapons shipments, political bribery, murders, and human trafficking operations. It also documented the identities of the men who had financed those crimes.
If the ledger became public, the criminal empire that Caldwell and several powerful associates had built would collapse.
“And you need me to open it,” Khloe said.
“Your mother designed the encryption around a memory only you possess.”
Khloe frowned.
“What memory?”
Caldwell leaned closer.
“The lullaby.”
She remembered her mother singing an old melody while playing the piano.
The blue note.
The words on the locket.
The strange phrase she had never understood.
Caldwell held out his hand.
“Give me the drive.”
Khloe looked toward Jenna.
The younger woman gave a nearly invisible shake of her head.
A warning.
Then Khloe understood.
Jenna had deliberately called her.
She had wanted her to come.
But not to deliver the drive.
To save her brother's memory.
“Where's Vincent's weapon?” Khloe asked.
Caldwell laughed.
“You think you're in a position to negotiate?”
“No.”
She looked at the old piano standing near the far wall.
“I think you're afraid.”
Caldwell's smile disappeared.
Khloe pressed the flash drive into the small metal slot of an old laptop.
The screen lit up.
A sequence of musical notes appeared.
She began entering the melody her mother had taught her.
One note.
Then another.
The system accepted the first sequence.
Caldwell moved forward.
“Stop!”
Khloe entered the final note.
The screen displayed a message.
ACCESS GRANTED
But instead of opening the ledger, the computer began uploading its contents to an unknown destination.
Caldwell lunged.
Gabriel tackled him.
The warehouse erupted into gunfire.
Vincent overturned his chair, breaking one of the restraints against the floor.
Jenna grabbed the fallen weapon.
Daniel pulled Khloe behind a concrete pillar.
A bullet struck the laptop.
The screen went black.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then a phone rang.
It was Caldwell's.
He answered.
A voice spoke through the receiver.
“Mr. Caldwell, we have a problem. The files are already circulating.”
Caldwell's face went white.
“Who authorized the upload?”
The voice paused.
Then came the answer.
“Your daughter.”
Caldwell slowly turned toward Jenna.
She stood behind Khloe with the gun still raised.
“I didn't want to become you,” Jenna whispered.
Caldwell lifted his weapon.
Gabriel shouted.
A gunshot cracked through the warehouse.
Khloe turned toward the sound.
Gabriel was on the floor.
Blood spread across his shirt.
May you like
And the person holding the smoking gun was not Caldwell.
It was Daniel Harper.
