Chapter 10 - Olivia
Safehouse Seven was a farmhouse two hours outside the city.
We arrived before dawn.
Ethan barely spoke during the drive.
I had never seen him frightened to hope.
Samuel stayed behind to secure the Mercer Tower server.
For once, I was alone with my husband.
Not as his wife.
Not exactly.
As two people trying to understand the machinery that had shaped our lives.
When we reached the farmhouse, Ethan stopped at the porch.
“I can’t.”
I looked at him.
“You came this far.”
“What if it’s another trap?”
“Then we face it.”
He gave a broken laugh.
“You still say we.”
“I said we face it.”
“That doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
The door opened before we knocked.
A woman stood inside.
Forty years old.
Dark hair.
Ethan’s eyes.
He stopped breathing.
“Olivia?”
She covered her mouth.
Then Ethan was across the porch.
They held each other for nearly a minute without speaking.
I turned away.
Some moments did not belong to witnesses.
Later, Olivia told us what happened.
The crash had been staged.
Not by Ethan.
By Thomas.
Olivia had discovered accounting files connected to his illegal network.
She had threatened to go to the police.
Thomas arranged a collision meant to frighten her.
Instead, the other driver died.
My father learned the truth before Thomas could reach Olivia in the hospital.
Jonathan hid her.
Barbara knew.
Ethan did not.
“Why didn’t you contact me?” Ethan whispered.
Olivia cried.
“Because Dad threatened you.”
“He told me if I ever reached out, you’d be next.”
Ethan stood and walked outside.
I followed.
He leaned against the porch railing.
“My whole life.”
“I hated myself for seventeen years.”
I said nothing.
Then Olivia came outside carrying a metal box.
“Jonathan gave me this.”
Inside were copies of account ledgers.
Photos.
And a handwritten list of names.
Thomas.
Barbara.
Several executives.
Two judges.
A senator.
And Samuel Reed.
I felt my stomach drop.
“Samuel is on the list.”
Olivia nodded.
“He wasn’t just working undercover.”
“What was he?”
“He helped build the laundering structure before he turned on them.”
Ethan looked at me.
Samuel had conveniently brought me to Mercer Tower.
He knew where the files were.
He knew what my father had built.
And he had repeatedly positioned himself as the man guiding me toward the truth.
Olivia handed me another envelope.
“Jonathan told me this was for you if Samuel ever contacted you.”
I opened it.
Inside was one sentence.
Samuel will help you only as long as your goals are the same.
My phone rang.
Samuel.
I answered.
His voice was urgent.
“Claire, you need to leave the safehouse.”
“How do you know where we are?”
Silence.
Then gunshots exploded through the farmhouse windows.
Glass shattered.
Ethan pulled me to the floor.
Olivia screamed.
Samuel shouted through the phone.
“Claire!”
I looked toward the tree line.
A black SUV was speeding toward the house.
And Samuel said the words that made me realize we had been followed from the beginning.
May you like
“They found the location through me.”
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