PART 4

The ballroom doors were locked.

No one was leaving.

No one was entering.

Victoria stood beneath the chandeliers with the confidence she had carried for seven years completely gone.

The admiral looked at me.

“Captain Reynolds, answer the question.”

I swallowed.

“Yes.”

“Has anyone close to you ever asked about your assignments?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

I looked at Victoria.

Then Ethan.

“Her.”

Victoria shook her head immediately.

“I was curious. That’s all.”

The admiral’s voice became colder.

“Curiosity doesn’t explain restricted credentials.”

“I didn’t steal anything!”

One of the agents interrupted.

“Ma’am, we’re not accusing you of stealing anything yet.”

The word yet made Victoria flinch.

The agent turned to the admiral.

“Sir, we’ve completed the preliminary device trace.”

“And?”

“The access request wasn’t manually submitted.”

I frowned.

“What does that mean?”

“It was automated.”

The room fell silent.

Someone had programmed Victoria’s phone to submit the request.

Someone had prepared everything in advance.

The agent continued.

“There’s a second device involved.”

The admiral looked at him.

“Location?”

The agent checked the tablet.

“Inside the hotel.”

My heart began pounding.

“Who owns it?”

The agent hesitated.

Then looked at Ethan.

Everyone followed his gaze.

Ethan’s face went white.

“What?”

The agent held up the screen.

“The second device is registered to an account associated with Ethan Reynolds.”

Victoria stared at her son.

“No.”

Ethan shook his head.

“I didn’t do this.”

I believed him.

At least, I wanted to.

The admiral stepped closer.

“Ethan, where is your phone?”

He slowly reached into his jacket.

His hand stopped.

The pocket was empty.

“My phone…”

He looked around.

“I had it earlier.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

The agent’s tablet suddenly beeped.

He looked down.

Then his expression changed.

“Sir.”

The admiral turned.

“What?”

“The second device just connected.”

“Location?”

The agent stared at the screen.

Then looked toward the ballroom entrance.

“It’s here.”

Every person in the room turned toward the doors.

Nothing.

Then we heard it.

A vibration.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Somewhere behind us.

The sound was coming from a coat hanging near the service corridor.

An agent moved toward it.

He reached inside.

Pulled out a phone.

Ethan stared at it.

“That isn’t mine.”

The screen illuminated.

A message appeared.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

YOU SHOULD HAVE LET HER BELIEVE YOU WERE JUST AN ADMINISTRATOR.

My blood went cold.

Another message appeared.

NOW THEY KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

Then a third.

AND THEY’RE GOING TO FIND OUT WHY.

The screen went black.

The admiral looked at me.

“Captain Reynolds…”

I couldn’t answer.

Because at that exact moment, another notification appeared on the agent’s tablet.

A classified personnel file had been accessed.

My file.

But the access wasn’t coming from Victoria’s phone.

It wasn’t coming from Ethan’s account.

It was coming from somewhere else.

The agent slowly turned the screen toward me.

At the top was a single line:

AUTHORIZED USER: REYNOLDS, VICTORIA

Victoria stared at it.

“I told you,” she whispered. “I didn’t do this.”

Then the admiral looked toward the federal agents.

“Find out who is controlling that account.”

The agent nodded.

But before he could move, the ballroom lights suddenly went out.

For three seconds, everything disappeared into darkness.

Then the emergency lights came on.

Victoria was gone.

And on the floor where she had been standing…

was a small black envelope.

My name was written across it.

By hand.

I opened it.

Inside was a single photograph.

A photograph of me taken years earlier.

During one of my classified deployments.

On the back, someone had written six words:

YOU WERE NEVER THE REAL TARGET.

And beneath them was a date.

A date I recognized immediately.

The day my father died.