Chapter 12 - The Empty Throne
The location was Vale Meridian’s original headquarters—a condemned office building near Baltimore Harbor where Victor had started the company with one borrowed desk.
Reed wanted a tactical team.
Victor wanted answers.
They compromised badly.
Victor entered wearing a tracking device while agents surrounded the building.
Celeste refused to stay behind.
Lena did too.
Inside, the lobby smelled of dust and seawater.
At the center sat Victor’s first desk.
Samuel was tied to a chair beside it.
Julian lay several feet away.
Alive.
Barely conscious.
Victor approached his brother.
“Samuel.”
Samuel raised his head.
“I’m sorry.”
Victor’s anger surfaced.
“For poisoning me?”
“For thinking I could control him.”
“Him?”
A slow clap echoed from the upper level.
An elderly man descended the staircase.
Malcolm Thorne.
Alive.
Eighty-one years old.
Elegant.
Calm.
Almost amused.
Celeste stared at the man who had approved her adoption.
Thorne smiled at her.
“My most successful placement.”
Victor stepped between them.
“She was a child.”
“She was an access point.”
Celeste flinched.
Thorne explained that Atlas had become invaluable to a private network of wealthy clients. Samuel maintained it. Nora recruited assets. Julian had been raised to enter Celeste’s life.
But Thorne had made one mistake.
He underestimated Evelyn and Denise.
Both women sabotaged Atlas before disappearing.
“Evelyn died,” Victor said.
Thorne smiled.
“Did she?”
Victor’s world stopped.
Thorne offered a trade.
Control of Atlas in exchange for the location of Victor’s wife.
Victor laughed.
Quietly.
Thorne frowned.
“You think this is amusing?”
“No.”
Victor reached inside his coat.
“I think you made the same mistake Celeste made.”
Agents tensed outside.
Victor produced nothing but the black memory card.
“You assumed the evidence was on this.”
Thorne’s face changed.
Victor dropped it and crushed it beneath his shoe.
“The card only contained a telephone number.”
“Then where is the evidence?”
Victor looked upward.
A tiny red light blinked above the room.
Lena had activated the building’s surviving cameras remotely.
Everything was streaming to Reed.
Thorne’s calm vanished.
He reached for Celeste.
She moved first.
For twenty years she had learned from Victor.
This time she used it for something other than theft.
She stepped aside, caught Thorne’s wrist, and shoved the desk between them.
Federal agents stormed inside.
Samuel began laughing.
Thorne was handcuffed.
Julian was taken into custody.
It should have ended there.
Then Thorne looked at Victor.
“You still don’t understand.”
Victor stopped.
Thorne smiled.
“Ask Lena why her mother chose tonight.”
Lena’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
A woman whispered:
“Lena?”
Her face drained of color.
“Mom?”
Denise Brooks was alive.
And she had only one message.
May you like
“Don’t let Victor open Atlas.”
Behind them, the supposedly locked server suddenly began powering itself on.
