Chapter 12 - THE SECRET THEY BURIED

I stared at the photograph for ten seconds.

Maybe longer.

Because sometimes your mind refuses to accept something before your heart does.

The picture showed my old team.

The final mission.

The mission that ended everything.

Seven men.

Seven soldiers.

Seven names.

I was the only one who came home.

Or so I thought.

Ethan looked at the picture.

His face changed.

“What is it?”

I handed it to him.

He went silent.

“Impossible.”

“That’s what I thought.”

He looked closer.

“There’s someone missing.”

I nodded.

Someone standing behind us.

Someone who was erased from every record.

I whispered his name.

“Marcus Vale.”

Ethan looked at me.

“Your commander.”

“Yes.”

“The man who ordered the mission?”

“Yes.”

“And the man who died?”

I looked at him.

“Apparently not.”

For years, I believed the mission failed because of bad information.

Because someone made a mistake.

Because we were unlucky.

But now...

I realized something worse.

We weren’t betrayed by accident.

We were sacrificed.

My phone rang.

Sarah.

I answered.

“Hey.”

Her voice was shaking.

“Dennis.”

I immediately stood.

“What happened?”

“Someone came to the hospital.”

My grip tightened.

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where is Tyler?”

“He’s okay.”

I breathed.

“Sarah, listen to me.”

“What?”

“Take Tyler and leave the hospital.”

“What?”

“Now.”

“Dennis, you’re scaring me.”

“I know.”

A pause.

“But I need you to trust me.”

She went quiet.

Then:

“Okay.”

The call ended.

Ethan looked at me.

“They’re moving.”

I nodded.

“They know Kane talked.”

Lisa’s voice came through the radio.

“Guys?”

“What?”

“You need to see this.”

A file appeared on the screen.

My name.

My old identity.

My old missions.

Everything.

But at the bottom was something new.

A classified document.

PROJECT REAPER.

I stared.

My own name.

My own past.

My own life.

Used like a weapon.

“What is this?”

Lisa’s voice was quiet.

“Someone created the Reaper program.”

I looked at Ethan.

“And?”

She hesitated.

“You weren’t the first.”

My stomach tightened.

“What?”

“There were others.”

The room became silent.

“Other Reapers.”

I stared at the screen.

Other soldiers.

Other experiments.

Other people turned into weapons.

Then a video file opened automatically.

A man appeared on screen.

Older.

Confident.

Cold.

Marcus Vale.

Alive.

He looked directly into the camera.

And then he spoke.

“Dennis.”

My blood froze.

“After seventeen years, I knew you would come back.”

He smiled.

“You always did have one weakness.”

A pause.

“Your family.”

The video ended.

Nobody moved.

Then Ethan whispered:

“He knows everything.”

I looked at the black screen.

“No.”

I picked up my jacket.

“He thinks he does.”

I walked toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

I looked back.

“To remind Marcus Vale why he should have stayed dead.”

Because the man who destroyed my past had returned.

But he forgot one thing.

I wasn’t the same soldier he betrayed seventeen years ago.

I was a father.

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