Glass shattered. A gunshot cracked like a whip, followed by my father’s roar of pain. The sat phone clattered to the floor, the line remaining open, broadcasting the violent destruction of my family’s Christmas straight into my ear.
For illustration purposes only
Chapter 3: The Home Invasion
“Jason! Dad!” I screamed into the receiver, slamming my fist against the desk.
Through the static, I heard the chaotic symphony of a home invasion. Heavy boots crunching over the hardwood floor of my father’s pristine suburban house. The sickening thud of a body being thrown against drywall.
Then I heard my stepmother, Linda. She was not screaming in terror. She was screaming in fury.
“Get off him!” Linda shrieked. A moment later, the crackle of a roaring fire intensified.
“She’s burning the secondary ledgers!” an unfamiliar, gruff male voice shouted. “Grab her!”
“I’ll kill you!” Linda hissed, followed by the sound of a brutal struggle.
I stood paralyzed in my dark office, a thousand miles away, utterly impotent. My mother was alive. She was a ghost running a black-ops syndicate, and my entire life of service, honor, and sacrifice had been a meticulously engineered fraud to facilitate her treason. And now the bill had come due at my father’s house.
“Becca…” My father’s voice groaned near the dropped phone. He sounded wet, breathless. “Becca, if you can hear this…”
“Dad, I’m here! Hold on, I’m calling local PD—”
“Don’t,” a new voice interrupted.
The sound of a high-heeled boot clicking against the floorboards resonated through the phone. Someone had picked up Jason’s dropped receiver.
“Hello, Major Hale.”
The voice was cool, smooth, and chillingly calm amidst the background noise of my father bleeding and my stepbrother being zip-tied.
“Erica Whitmore,” I said, the name tasting like poison on my tongue.
“You have an excellent memory, Rebecca. It’s a shame you didn’t use it to forget about Fort Bragg when you were warned.”
“What are you doing to my family, Erica?”
“Cleaning up a mess,” she replied casually. “Your father was supposed to keep you occupied in Colorado. But you just couldn’t help playing the hero on the highway, could you? You blew open a transport truck carrying fifty million dollars in off-the-books ordnance, and you did it on national television. Your mother is… exceptionally disappointed.”
“Where is she?” I snarled.
“She’s untouchable. But you’re not. And neither are they.”
“Erica, listen to me. If you kill them, I will hunt you to the ends of the earth. I don’t care who you work for.”
Erica laughed, a dry, humorless sound. “You think your father is a victim here? Ask him how he funded his massive construction empire. Ask him where the seed money came from after your mother ‘died’.”
I felt a cold knife twist in my gut. I thought of the sudden wealth my father acquired during my teenage years. The massive house. The country club.
“And Linda?” Erica continued, her voice dripping with venom. “You think your stepmother is just a suburban housewife? Tell her, Linda. Tell your precious stepdaughter who you really are.”
I heard the sound of someone being dragged by their hair. Linda gasped in pain near the receiver.
“Tell her,” Erica commanded.
“I… I was her handler,” Linda sobbed.
The world stopped.
“What?” I whispered.
“Before she faked her death,” Linda cried, her voice breaking, “your mother needed someone to watch you. To make sure you followed the path she laid out. My real name isn’t Linda. I’m an operative. I married your father to keep the asset—you—on track.”
A wave of nausea washed over me. My childhood, my parents’ grief, my father’s remarriage. It was all a theatrical production. A cage built by my own mother, with my family acting as the wardens.
“Take the boy,” Erica’s voice echoed, directing her mercenaries.
“No! Please!” Jason screamed.
