Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 35507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 178(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 178(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
I close the distance and I don't hug him. I grab a fistful of that coat and hold on because if I let go I'm going to put him in the snow.
"You were taken," I say. "Sunbreak Harbor. We tore the map apart. Nash almost died. Sin almost died. I sat on this mountain for months chasing a ghost you decided to be."
"It was a ruse." He doesn't flinch. "My team pulled me in because I wasn't done. I still had a wife to keep off their books and seven sons who kept walking into my mess. I had my people fake the grab so Helix would stop using you as bait and start hunting a dead man again."
"You had to know we'd keep looking."
Billy's mouth twists. "Yeah. I know that now."
The wind cuts across the lot. I still have her scream in my ears. I make myself listen anyway. "Start at the beginning," I tell him. "The real one. Then we go get her."
He nods once. We take my truck. He talks while I drive too fast toward the mill, toward people who can turn a van into a map.
"Years ago I was in a program I can't name on a document. I found a leak. Vanguard Helix wasn't only a contractor. They were selling military secrets out the side door to whoever paid. I brought it up the chain. The chain was already bought. So I died. On paper. Your mother got a folded flag and a story. You boys got a hole I thought would keep you clear of it."
My hands are bloodless on the wheel. "Every Christmas. Every birthday. That was protection."
"Every move I made after that flag was protection. I stayed in their walls as Billy the dock hand and Billy the consultant and Billy the man who signed clipboards in the backs of photographs. I was looking for the one name at the top. The man who greenlit the sales. I got close real close in Sunbreak Harbor. Close enough they started circling your mother again. Close enough Nash and Sin got taken. That was my failure. When the rest of you were clear enough to breathe, I had my team take me off the board. I left so you would stop being useful to them."
"We never stopped being useful. Oakley photographed your breadcrumbs and they took her instead."
"I know." His voice goes rough. "I used a camera I didn't own. I wrote coordinates on paper I knew a shooter would hang behind crates. I counted on a professional keeping raw files. I didn't count on my son falling in love with the professional. That's on me too."
I don't confirm it. I don't have to. The way I took the last turn already did.
"Who's the man at the top?" I ask.
"I don't have his face in a file yet. I have a title and a pattern and a van that just rolled north with your girl. Equinox first. Then we pull him out of her by going through whoever is holding her."
The Foundry is lit when we hit the lot. Power's back. The gate opens on Marin's code before I finish rolling down the window. I'm out of the truck before the engine dies.
They're all here.
Nash by the side door, jaw tight, a healing line still pale at his temple. Sin next to him with his arms crossed and his eyes already on Dad. Crewe at the threshold, the brother I trust wholeheartedly, already wired for a hunt. Mack in a coat that costs more than my truck, which doesn't stop him from looking ready to ruin a life. Banks with two laptops under one arm. Jace last, sun-faded and grim, the beach burned off him.
Six brothers. One father stepping out of my passenger seat. For a second the lot is only Hawthornes and the years we spent chasing a man who was trying not to be found.
Nash moves first. He doesn't speak. He hits Dad's shoulder with a hand that is almost a blow and then pulls him in. Sin follows, rougher. Crewe nods once, which from him is a speech. Mack swears and laughs in the same breath. Banks stares until the file in his head grows a pulse. Jace says, "You old bastard," and his voice breaks on it.
Crewe's hand lands on my shoulder on the way past, a brief grind of bone that says later. I let them have ten seconds. I don't have eleven.
"He faked the Sunbreak grab," I tell them. "Helix sells military secrets. He died on paper years ago to keep us and Mom off the board. He left breadcrumbs in Oakley's photos. They took her from Yard 4 twenty minutes ago in a dark van, north. They want her because she can swear to the files, and they want him to come collect."