Chapter 1 - The Echo in the Receiver|
The receiver pressed against my ear felt ice-cold, transferring a chill straight down my spine. The woman’s voice—Elena—was steady, unhurried, and dripping with a calm that terrified me far more than panic ever could.
"Audrey? Are you still there?" she asked softly.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat, forcing my voice to obey me. "Who are you? How did you get this number?"
"Your father thinks he erased every trace of us when he retired," Elena replied, ignoring my second question entirely. "He built a quiet life for you, wrapped you in a bubble, and let you believe your mother succumbed to a peaceful illness in her sleep. But lies have a habit of decaying, Audrey. Eventually, the floorboards rot through."
My hands trembled so violently that the papers from my father's hidden folder rattled in my lap. The document bearing my mother’s name sat right on top, the ink dark and authoritative, contradicting every childhood memory I possessed.
"My mother was sick," I whispered, though my own words sounded hollow to my ears. "She was in the hospital for weeks."
"She was in protective isolation," Elena countered sharply. "Because the men Daniel crossed didn't just target him. They targeted his legacy. You were sixteen, Audrey. You were too young to see the guards outside her room. You were too wrapped up in your own grief to notice that your father vanished for six months right after her funeral."
My breath caught in my chest. I remembered those six months. Dad had sent me to stay with my aunt in Vermont, claiming he needed time to process his grief alone in the empty house. I had spent twenty years believing he was mourning.
"What did he do?" I asked, my voice barely audible.
"He finished the job," Elena said. "Or at least, he thought he did. But one of them survived. And three weeks ago, when your car went off that embankment... do you really believe that was an accident, Audrey?"
The room spun. The memory of twisted metal, screaming tires, and the sudden, blinding flash of high beams behind me surged back with violent clarity.
"What are you saying?" I gasped.
"I'm saying your husband wasn't the only one waiting for you to die in that hospital room," Elena murmured. "Look at the bottom of the fourth page in that folder. Read the name of the logistics firm that insured your car."
My shaky fingers fumbled through the papers until I hit page four. At the bottom, under corporate underwriting, sat a single, stylized logo: Aegis Global Operations.
The same logo stamped on the military duffel bag my father had carried into my hospital room three days ago.
"Now," Elena said, her voice dropping to a low whisper, "ask yourself why your father's 'retired' unit is still paying your medical bills."
May you like
Before I could demand an answer, the line went dead.
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