CHAPTER 11 — THE AUCTION
We arrived at the freight terminal with twenty-two minutes remaining.
Naomi’s teams surrounded the building, but any aggressive breach could trigger the archive release.
Daniel worked from a mobile command unit, attempting to interrupt the transmission.
“The system has dead-man switches,” he said. “If Marcus’s heartbeat stops, if the power fails, or if the server loses connection, the files transmit automatically.”
“So we keep him alive,” Naomi said.
“And calm.”
Lily insisted on entering.
I refused.
She stared at me.
“This entire thing was built around my identity. Richard married me because of it. My mother disappeared because of it. You don’t get to protect me by hiding the truth anymore.”
She was right.
I hated that she was right.
We entered together wearing concealed transmitters.
The terminal’s main floor had been transformed into a command center.
Computer monitors displayed bids from unidentified buyers.
Ten million.
Twenty-five million.
Forty million.
Names, locations, and access histories appeared in sample files.
Marcus stood on an elevated platform.
Rebecca and Elena sat beneath him, restrained but alive.
Rebecca saw me.
For eighteen years, I had imagined that moment.
In my dreams, I ran to her.
In reality, neither of us moved.
There was too much danger between us.
Marcus smiled.
“The Bennett family reunion.”
Lily looked at her mother.
Rebecca whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Lily’s eyes filled with tears.
But her voice remained steady.
“Help us stop him.”
Marcus gestured toward a biometric scanner.
“Lily will authorize the final archive tier.”
“And if she refuses?” I asked.
“The first list is released.”
A timer showed nine minutes.
Lily stepped toward the scanner.
I saw Rebecca’s fingers move again.
Three.
One.
Three.
Nightfall code for false interface.
The scanner was a decoy.
The real control system was somewhere else.
I scanned the room.
Marcus watched Lily too closely.
Elena looked toward a security camera above the western door.
The camera moved independently.
Someone else was controlling the auction.
Marcus wasn’t the final authority.
Daniel’s voice whispered through my earpiece.
“I found another user inside the network.”
“Identity?”
A pause.
Then:
“Richard Ashford.”
I looked toward the upper windows.
Richard had supposedly remained in federal custody.
But there he was.
Standing inside a glass control room above us.
No handcuffs.
No guards.
He held the real transmitter.
Marcus turned and saw him.
For the first time, Marcus looked surprised.
Richard’s voice filled the terminal.
“You called me disposable.”
He held up the activation device.
“So I changed the auction.”
Marcus shouted, “Put that down!”
Richard smiled.
“Lily signs control of the Ashford assets to me, or I sell every name and blame Arthur.”
Lily looked up at the man who had terrorized her for years.
Richard leaned toward the microphone.
“And if anyone tries to stop me, I release Rebecca’s real file.”
Rebecca’s face went pale.
I looked at her.
“What’s in the file?”
She whispered, “Proof that I caused the bridge crash myself.”
Then Richard opened the first document.
May you like
It showed Rebecca receiving payment the night before her supposed death.
From Marcus Reed.
