Chapter 13 - THE FINAL TRAP
For eight months, I had been fighting to get home.
Now that I was finally home...
I was fighting to keep my family alive.
But the family I was fighting for was not the one I thought I had.
It wasn't the house.
It wasn't the marriage.
It wasn't the life I had built.
It was one little girl who believed her father was a ghost.
Lily.
I looked at the message again.
"Come alone."
I knew better.
A soldier survives because he learns one thing:
Never walk into a battlefield without knowing where the enemy is hiding.
And this was a battlefield.
Only this time...
The enemy knew my heart.
They knew I would come for Sarah.
Because despite everything she had done...
She was still Lily's mother.
And Lily still loved her.
I couldn't ignore that.
I handed Lily to James.
"Stay here."
He looked at me.
"Where are you going?"
I didn't answer immediately.
Because saying it out loud made it real.
"I'm going to bring Sarah home."
James shook his head.
"Michael..."
"I know."
He looked at me carefully.
"You don't trust her."
"No."
"Then why?"
I looked toward the room where Lily was sleeping.
"Because my daughter deserves to know her mother survived."
James understood.
That was the difference between revenge and justice.
Revenge would have been easy.
Justice was harder.
Before leaving, I contacted Daniel.
"I need backup."
He immediately understood.
"Where?"
I sent him the location.
An abandoned warehouse outside the city.
A place where nobody would hear someone scream.
Twenty minutes later, I arrived.
The building looked empty.
Too empty.
I walked inside.
"Sarah?"
No answer.
I moved carefully.
Every instinct in my body was warning me.
Then I saw her.
Sitting on the floor.
Her hands tied.
Her face bruised.
She looked up.
"Michael..."
I ran toward her.
"Who did this?"
She started crying.
"You came."
I cut the ropes.
"Who did this?"
Before she could answer...
The lights turned on.
Slowly.
A man stepped out from the shadows.
Brad.
But he wasn't alone.
Behind him stood Colonel Anderson.
My entire body went cold.
"You really are predictable."
Brad smiled.
"You knew he would come."
I looked at Sarah.
She looked terrified.
"Sarah was the bait."
Colonel Anderson nodded.
"She always was."
My hands tightened.
"You used my wife."
He laughed.
"Your wife used herself."
Sarah looked down.
Because she knew there was truth in that.
But not the whole truth.
I stared at Anderson.
"You planned everything."
He nodded.
"From the beginning."
"Why?"
He walked closer.
"Because you found documents you shouldn't have found."
"The contracts."
"The money transfers."
"The names."
I looked at Brad.
"And you?"
Brad smiled.
"I was the solution."
"Your wife was unhappy."
"Your father was desperate."
"Your mother was easy to manipulate."
"And you..."
He pointed at me.
"You were the only obstacle."
I felt anger rising.
"But you failed."
Anderson smiled.
"Did we?"
A cold feeling moved through me.
"What does that mean?"
He looked toward the door.
Then said:
"Check your phone."
I didn't want to.
But I did.
One message.
From an unknown number.
A picture.
Lily.
Sleeping.
At James's house.
My blood froze.
The caption:
"Come alone next time."
My entire body went still.
Because this was no longer about me.
May you like
They had found the one thing I would always protect.
My daughter.
