Chapter 13 - The Brother Bridget Never Knew
Daniel Collins looked like Thomas.
Not exactly.
But enough.
Same eyes.
Same crooked left eyebrow.
Same habit of pressing his lips together before speaking.
Bridget stared.
Her blade was still near her throat.
Sebastian looked between them.
“This changes nothing.”
Daniel raised his hands.
“It changes your access.”
Adrian aimed at him.
“Come closer.”
Daniel smiled.
“No.”
Bridget found her voice.
“How?”
Margaret looked shattered.
“I’m sorry.”
“How?”
“Before me. Your father was nineteen.”
“And you knew?”
“For years.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He promised Daniel’s mother he would stay away.”
Daniel spoke.
“She married another man. He raised me.”
Bridget struggled to process it.
This was not the moment.
Maybe there would never be a good moment for discovering a secret brother while being held at knifepoint by a criminal banker.
Sebastian tightened his grip.
“Enough.”
Dominique shifted on the floor.
Bridget saw his hand move toward the dropped gun.
Adrian saw it too.
“Don’t.”
Dominique froze.
Sebastian pointed toward Daniel.
“Come here.”
“No.”
“Then she dies.”
Daniel looked at Bridget.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“This.”
He pressed a button on a small remote.
The chapel went dark.
Dominique moved.
A gunshot.
Sebastian’s grip disappeared.
Bridget dropped.
More gunfire.
Then emergency lights came on.
Sebastian was bleeding from the shoulder.
Adrian had vanished.
Grant kicked his abandoned weapon away.
Gabriel tackled one of Sebastian’s men.
Rafael stood near the exit.
“Adrian went below.”
Salvatore appeared through the side entrance.
“Tunnel.”
They pursued.
Bridget stayed with Dominique.
“You’re hurt.”
“Vest.”
“You still got hit.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Recently?”
He smiled weakly.
“Fair.”
Daniel approached.
Bridget looked up at him.
He stopped several feet away.
“I didn’t know about you until three years ago.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Thomas left me a letter too.”
“Of course he did.”
Daniel almost smiled.
“He told me never to contact you unless Vesper activated the inheritance lock.”
“How did you know?”
“A lawyer called me yesterday.”
“Which lawyer?”
Daniel’s smile disappeared.
“Adrian.”
Bridget stood.
“He wanted you here.”
“I realized that too late.”
“He needs both of us.”
“Yes.”
A shot echoed from below the chapel.
Gabriel shouted.
Bridget helped Dominique stand.
“Stay.”
“No.”
“You are becoming predictable.”
“So are you.”
They entered the tunnel.
Below the chapel was not a tunnel.
It was a vault complex.
Old family money had built it during Prohibition.
New technology had transformed it.
Servers.
Documents.
Weapons lockers.
Adrian stood beside the central terminal.
Gabriel faced him.
Rafael stood nearby.
Salvatore blocked the opposite exit.
Sebastian had been left upstairs under Grant’s guard.
Adrian laughed.
“The whole family.”
Bridget entered with Daniel.
“And both keys.”
Adrian smiled.
“Yes.”
Dominique raised his gun.
“It ends.”
“No.”
Adrian touched the terminal.
“If I die, every Vesper account empties into jurisdictions you will never trace.”
Bridget frowned.
“You’re bluffing.”
“Maybe.”
She looked at the screen.
Numbers scrolled.
Her father’s mind had built part of this.
What would he do?
Locks were questions.
She looked at Daniel.
“Did Dad teach you codes?”
He blinked.
“What?”
“Codes.”
“Yes.”
“Number substitution?”
“Every birthday.”
Bridget almost laughed.
Same childhood game.
Different homes.
Same father.
She approached the terminal.
Adrian pointed his gun.
“Stop.”
She stopped.
“What do you want?”
“Authorization.”
“To transfer?”
“To dissolve.”
Everyone stared.
Adrian smiled.
“You still think I want Vesper.”
“Don’t you?”
“I want freedom from it.”
Salvatore laughed.
“You murdered people for freedom?”
“I maintained a machine your generation built.”
“My generation?”
“Your father, Thomas, Julian Mercer, Eleanor, half a dozen others. Every one of you built systems and handed the consequences to us.”
Bridget understood the bitterness.
Not the murder.
Never the murder.
“You poisoned Dominique.”
“He would have stopped dissolution.”
“You killed my father.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“He refused to unlock the reserve.”
There.
Confession.
Bridget felt her father’s ghost in the room.
“You killed him because he said no.”
“I offered him everything.”
“He already had what mattered.”
Adrian’s eyes flashed.
“Do not turn him into a saint.”
“I don’t need him to be one.”
That surprised even Bridget.
“He made mistakes. He worked for criminals. He lied to his family. Maybe he helped build the thing that destroyed him.”
She took one step closer.
“But when you asked him to choose between money and people, he chose people.”
Adrian raised the gun.
“And died.”
Dominique moved.
Adrian fired.
Rafael stepped in front.
The bullet struck his chest.
He fell.
Chaos erupted.
Dominique fired.
Adrian’s gun dropped.
Gabriel kicked it away.
Salvatore restrained him.
Bridget ran to Rafael.
Blood.
Too much.
Rafael looked at Dominique.
“I’m sorry.”
Dominique knelt despite the pain.
“You’re an idiot.”
Rafael smiled weakly.
“Learned from you.”
Eleanor arrived with medics.
They rushed him away.
Adrian was cuffed.
Grant came down.
“It’s over.”
Bridget looked at the terminal.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
The screen displayed a countdown.
00:04:58.
VESPER RESERVE PURGE.
Daniel stood beside her.
“He triggered it.”
“What happens at zero?”
Salvatore stared.
“All records erase.”
Grant cursed.
“We need those records.”
Bridget studied the interface.
A prompt appeared.
COLLINS DUAL AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED TO ABORT.
She looked at Daniel.
“We can stop it.”
They placed their hands on separate scanners.
PULSE VERIFIED.
Then another prompt.
ENTER FOUNDER PHRASE.
Bridget stared.
“What phrase?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Dad never told me.”
Salvatore stepped closer.
“Thomas used one sentence.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
The countdown reached three minutes.
Bridget thought of her father’s letter.
His puzzles.
Birthday codes.
Things he repeated.
Then she remembered.
Every time she had been scared as a child, Thomas said the same thing.
A lock is only a question.
She typed it.
DENIED.
Two minutes.
Daniel whispered, “He told me something else.”
“What?”
“When I asked why he liked codes.”
“Say it.”
“He said, ‘A secret is only safe when good people know when to break it.’”
Bridget typed.
DENIED.
One minute.
Adrian began laughing from the floor.
“You don’t know him.”
Bridget turned.
“Shut up.”
“Thomas changed the phrase the night he died.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he said it to me.”
Bridget stared.
“What?”
Adrian smiled.
“Untie me.”
“No.”
“Then lose everything.”
Thirty seconds.
Dominique stepped toward him.
“Tell her.”
Adrian laughed.
“Make me.”
Twenty.
Bridget grabbed his collar.
“My father died looking at you.”
Adrian’s smile faltered.
“Tell me what he said.”
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Adrian whispered.
“He said, ‘My daughter will know what matters.’”
Bridget froze.
Then she knew.
She typed three words.
PEOPLE BEFORE POWER.
The countdown stopped.
SYSTEM ABORTED.
Everyone exhaled.
Then a new message appeared.
FINAL FOUNDER ARCHIVE UNLOCKED.
One video file.
Thomas Collins.
Recorded the night he died.
Bridget pressed play.
Her father appeared on the screen.
Older than she remembered.
Terrified.
He looked directly into the camera.
“If Bridget ever sees this, then Vesper survived me.”
She covered her mouth.
Thomas continued.
“And if Dominique Costello is standing beside her, tell him the truth.”
Dominique stiffened.
Thomas looked toward someone off-camera.
“The man responsible for everything is not Adrian Mercer.”
Bridget turned toward Adrian.
His smile returned.
May you like
Thomas spoke one final name.
And Dominique went completely still.
