Chapter 9 - THE FINAL CONFRONTATION
The boat wasn't an attack,
it was a messenger.
A man rowed to the shore,
carrying a letter with a seal Sadie hadn't seen in years.
It was from her father.
He was alive,
and he was being held by the people he owed.
The letter was a ransom note,
asking for Sadie in exchange for his life.
“Don't go,”
Julian said,
tearing the letter into pieces.
“It’s a trap,
Sadie.”
“They’ll kill you both.”
Sadie looked at the ocean,
her heart torn between her father and the man she loved.
“He’s my father,
Julian,”
she said.
“I can't let him die.”
“Then I’m coming with you,”
Julian said,
his voice final.
They went back to the city that night,
the dark streets of their past waiting for them.
The meeting was in an old warehouse by the docks,
the smell of salt and rot filling the air.
Sadie’s father was there,
tied to a chair,
looking older and more broken than she remembered.
The boss of the organization stood behind him,
surrounded by a dozen armed men.
“You came,”
the boss said,
smiling.
“I knew you would.”
“Now,
give us the codes to the Croft accounts,
and you can have your father.”
Sadie looked at Julian,
who was standing in the shadows,
his hands visible and empty.
“The accounts are closed,”
Julian said.
“The money is gone.”
“But I have something better.”
He held up a small device,
a digital ledger that contained every secret of every criminal organization in the country.
“Give them the girl and the man,”
Julian said,
“or I’ll release this to the FBI.”
The boss hesitated,
the threat of the government more terrifying than any gun.
“You wouldn't,”
he said.
“Try me,”
Julian replied.
In the silence that followed,
Sadie’s father looked at her,
his eyes filled with a sudden,
sharp regret.
“Run,
Sadie!”
he shouted.
And then the world exploded.
The warehouse was filled with the sound of gunfire and the smell of smoke.
Julian grabbed Sadie,
pulling her behind a stack of crates,
as his men burst through the windows.
Titus was there too,
having jumped from the car,
his massive body a blur of motion as he attacked the men.
Sadie saw her father fall,
his body slumping in the chair.
“No!”
she screamed,
trying to reach him.
But Julian held her back,
his arms a cage of steel.
“He’s gone,
Sadie!”
he shouted over the roar of the fight.
“We have to go!”
They fought their way out of the warehouse,
the fire rising behind them.
As they reached the car,
Sadie looked back at the burning building,
the final connection to her old life vanishing in the flames.
May you like
She was free.
But at what cost?
