Chapter 4 - The Betrayal Inside The House
They found twelve cameras.
Three microphones.
Two hidden transmitters.
And one encrypted laptop buried beneath the restaurant's liquor inventory.
That laptop nearly cost Tatum her life.
She found it inside a false compartment under the storage room floor.
Declan was kneeling beside her when they opened it.
The screen required a password.
Tatum frowned.
"What does Briggs know about your people?"
Declan thought.
Then typed:
Everything he shouldn't.
Elena arrived with a flash drive.
Marcus followed her.
Tatum immediately noticed something.
Marcus had blood on his cuff.
Not much.
Just a thin dark line.
Declan noticed too.
Marcus saw them both looking.
"Traffic accident."
Tatum almost laughed.
"You don't get blood from traffic accidents on your cuff."
Marcus's eyes narrowed.
Declan stepped forward.
Marcus raised his hands.
"Easy."
Declan signed sharply.
Elena translated.
"He says the password."
Marcus stared.
"I don't have it."
Declan wrote:
You're lying.
Marcus's jaw tightened.
Then the lights went out.
Total darkness.
Tatum heard a gunshot.
She dropped.
Glass shattered.
Someone shouted.
Declan grabbed her and pulled her behind the storage shelves.
Another shot.
Elena screamed.
Then silence.
The emergency lights came on.
One gunman was down.
Another had escaped through the rear exit.
Marcus was gone.
Tatum stared at the empty doorway.
"Where did he go?"
Declan didn't answer.
He was looking at the blood trail.
It led toward the back.
They followed it.
The trail stopped at Marcus's car.
There was no Marcus.
Only his phone.
Declan picked it up.
A message was open.
YOU HAVE SIX HOURS.
Beneath it was a photograph.
Maya.
Standing outside her school.
Tatum felt the world tilt.
"No."
She grabbed the phone.
"That's my daughter."
Declan's face became stone.
He took the phone from her.
Then he looked at Elena.
Signaled.
Elena's face turned pale.
"What?"
"What did he say?"
Elena swallowed.
"He says Marcus isn't working for Briggs."
Tatum stared.
"What?"
"He says Marcus is working for someone higher."
"There is nobody higher than Declan."
Elena shook her head.
"Inside the Collective, maybe not."
She looked toward the laptop.
"But outside it?"
Tatum understood.
"Another syndicate."
Declan nodded.
The real war had just started.
They moved Maya to a secure house outside the city.
Tatum wanted to object.
Declan refused to let her.
For the first time, he became openly angry.
He slammed his palm against the table.
The vibration traveled through the wood.
Tatum flinched.
He immediately stepped back.
His expression softened.
He wrote:
I'm sorry.
She stared at the note.
Then at him.
"You love like someone who is afraid to lose."
He froze.
Tatum regretted the words.
Declan wrote:
Everyone I loved became a weakness someone used against me.
She whispered, "And me?"
He looked at her.
Long enough that she stopped breathing.
Then he wrote:
You are becoming something else.
"What?"
He didn't answer.
The laptop finally opened.
Inside were transaction records.
Bribes.
Shipping routes.
Police names.
Judges.
City officials.
Restaurant owners.
But one file stood out.
MORROW SUCCESSION.
Tatum opened it.
A list of names appeared.
Every person capable of replacing Declan.
Every person loyal to him.
Every person who could be manipulated.
At the bottom was one name.
Tatum Hale.
She went cold.
"Why am I on this?"
Declan didn't move.
She looked at him.
"You knew?"
He shook his head.
The file contained details of her life.
Her address.
Maya's school.
Her work schedule.
Her mother's death.
Her father's name.
Tatum stared.
Her father's name was Arthur Hale.
Dead twelve years.
But beside it was a note.
ARTHUR HALE DID NOT DIE IN THE WAREHOUSE FIRE.
Tatum stopped breathing.
"My father died."
Declan looked at the screen.
Then at her.
He wrote:
That's what everyone believed.
Her hands began to shake.
The warehouse fire had destroyed her childhood.
She had been told her father was trapped inside.
She had watched the funeral.
She had spent twelve years believing she was alone.
Now the laptop claimed he was alive.
Tatum whispered, "Where is he?"
Declan typed four words.
WITHIN THE COLLECTIVE.
Then he looked at her.
May you like
For the first time, Tatum realized something much worse than betrayal.
Her entire life might have been built on a lie.
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