Chapter 12 - Thomas
I refused to believe Rebecca without evidence.
She expected that.
So she brought evidence.
Recordings.
Financial transfers.
Internal votes.
Thomas had spent thirty years inside the organization.
Initially undercover.
Then compromised.
Then powerful.
The line between infiltration and participation disappeared somewhere along the way.
Thomas controlled twenty-one votes.
He needed one more.
Margaret controlled eight.
Cross controlled six.
Others were fragmented.
Why Audrey?
Because whoever possessed the drive could identify every voting member.
Thomas believed Rebecca had hidden it with Audrey.
He ordered surveillance.
Rebecca agreed because she thought she could control who watched our daughter.
Julian was selected.
That decision became catastrophe.
“Why Julian?”
“Because Arthur was cooperating.”
Rebecca thought Arthur's son could be controlled through his father.
She was wrong.
Julian became obsessed with Audrey.
Then abusive.
Margaret exploited him.
The call Audrey made to me that night wasn't supposed to happen.
Julian had discovered Audrey's ledger and panicked.
Arthur tried stopping him.
Miriam did nothing.
Then Julian locked Audrey upstairs.
That part wasn't conspiracy.
It was Julian.
His choices.
His crime.
But afterward Margaret kidnapped him because he knew too much.
“Is he alive?”
Rebecca nodded.
Audrey said nothing.
I looked at her.
She surprised me.
“I want him alive.”
Not because she loved him.
“Why?”
“So he has to answer for what he did.”
That was my daughter.
Then Rebecca revealed where Margaret held Julian.
An abandoned municipal pumping station.
Police couldn't be trusted.
Federal agents couldn't be trusted.
So Arthur, Rebecca, Audrey and I did something insane.
We leaked the location anonymously to three competing agencies simultaneously.
State police.
FBI internal affairs.
And U.S. Marshals.
No single compromised official could quietly bury it.
The raid happened before dawn.
Julian was recovered alive.
Margaret escaped.
But Ortiz was found there too.
Alive.
And beside her was a prisoner nobody expected.
Thomas.
My brother.
Bound to a chair.
Beaten.
Barely conscious.
If Thomas controlled the network…
Why had Margaret imprisoned him?
Then Thomas opened his eyes.
Saw Rebecca.
And whispered:
“You still think I'm the one who ordered Audrey killed?”
Rebecca froze.
May you like
Thomas smiled weakly.
“Check the twenty-second vote.”
