Chapter 13 - The Last Transmission
The coastal wind wailed through the open hangar doors, whipping rain across our faces.
"My father died because you poisoned his saline drip through Julian Thorne and Nurse Cross," I said, my voice steady despite the adrenaline coursing through my veins. "Because you wanted Bennett Holdings broken up and sold to the defense contractors."
Dominic let out a dry, rattling laugh that sent chills down my spine.
"Is that what Julian told you? Julian didn't know the half of it!" Dominic stepped closer, his eyes gleaming with mad satisfaction under the harsh fluorescent lights. "Your father wasn't poisoned to steal an airline, Emily! Richard Bennett was dying anyway! The crash seven years ago wasn't an assassination attempt—it was a suicide mission Richard designed himself to fake his own death!"
The words hit me like a physical blow. The world seemed to tilt beneath my feet.
"You're lying," I whispered.
"Ask Marcus!" Dominic pointed a trembling, spotted finger at his nephew. "Why do you think your father sent you away to Europe six years ago? Why do you think he let Patricia mistreat you, humiliate you, strip you of your allowances, and force you into the shadows? He was hiding you! He was making sure the board, the press, and our international creditors thought you were an irrelevant, broken exile so they wouldn't hunt you down!"
"Hunt me down for what?" I yelled over the roaring storm.
"For the key!" Dominic screamed, lunging forward before Marcus slammed him against the bulkhead, locking his arms behind his back as federal agents clamped steel handcuffs around his wrists. "The brass key you're wearing around your neck! You think it opens a private safe in Manhattan? It opens the sovereign repository vault beneath the Northstar Terminal in Geneva! The vault that holds the classified records of the Atlantic Alliance!"
Dominic thrashed in the agents' grip as they hauled him toward the helicopter, his crazed laughter echoing against the concrete walls.
"He didn't leave you an airline, Emily! He left you a target on your back! And now that you've claimed the throne, *they* know you have it!"
The agents dragged Dominic into the roaring belly of the Black Hawk, leaving me and Marcus standing in the middle of the wet, empty submarine dock.
Marcus lowered his weapon, breathing heavily, his eyes fixed on the brass key hanging from the chain around my neck.
"Emily..." Marcus said softly.
My phone vibrated violently inside my tactical jacket.
I pulled it out with shaking hands. The caller ID displayed an encrypted, unlisted satellite number originating from a private server in Switzerland.
I pressed the screen and brought the phone to my ear.
"Emily?"
The voice on the other end was raspy, aged, and filled with deep, labored breaths—a voice I hadn't heard in six years. A voice that belonged to a man buried beneath six feet of earth in a cemetery in Westchester.
"Dad?" I whispered, my heart freezing in my chest.
"Emily, listen to me very carefully," my father’s voice crackled through the static-filled receiver. "Don't trust the lawyers. Don't go back to Manhattan. They’ve already breached the terminal vault. Run."
May you like
The line clicked dead.
Behind us, out in the dark, churning waters of Penobscot Bay, the red navigation lights of an unidentified military vessel broke through the surface of the black ocean.
