Chapter 18 - The Chase Below Chicago
The bullet had grazed Damian’s ribs.
It hurt enough to make breathing difficult, but it had not entered his chest.
Tessa pressed a napkin against the wound.
“Stay down.”
Damian looked toward the service door Adrian had used.
“No.”
“Damian, for once in your life -”
“He’s heading to the parking tunnel.”
Grant and federal agents were already in pursuit.
Damian stood anyway.
Tessa swore and followed.
The tunnel beneath the foundation connected three buildings and an old freight station. Adrian knew it from childhood.
So did Damian.
They found Grant near a locked gate.
“He went through.”
Damian entered a code.
Invalid.
Again.
Invalid.
Tessa stared at the keypad. “He changed it.”
Damian looked at the wall.
“The old mechanical release is behind that panel.”
They forced it open and entered the freight corridor.
A train horn sounded somewhere beyond the concrete.
Then Adrian’s voice echoed through the dark.
“Still chasing ghosts, Damian?”
Damian followed the sound.
They reached an abandoned platform.
Adrian stood near the edge with a gun in one hand and a flash drive in the other.
“Stop,” Damian said.
Adrian laughed. “Do you know what’s on this?”
“The archive.”
“The names of everyone who paid your father. Senators. regulators. hospital directors. Half your respectable world.”
“Then give it to the agents.”
“And destroy everything?”
“It’s already destroyed.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“I gave my life to that family.”
“You gave other people’s lives to it.”
Adrian aimed at him.
Tessa stepped forward.
“My father had children.”
Adrian looked at her.
“My sister had plans.”
“Tessa,” Damian warned.
She ignored him.
“You made decisions from rooms they were never allowed inside. Then you called their deaths necessary.”
Adrian’s hand trembled.
For the first time, Damian saw not power but exhaustion.
Sirens approached from above.
Adrian looked toward the tracks.
Then at the flash drive.
Then at Damian.
“You’ll lose everything.”
Damian nodded.
“Maybe.”
Adrian smiled faintly.
“You finally sound like your mother.”
He turned toward the tracks.
Damian lunged.
They hit the ground as a freight train roared past inches away.
The gun skidded across the platform.
Tessa kicked it away.
Grant and Agent Brooks arrived seconds later.
Adrian stopped fighting.
But when Brooks searched him, the flash drive was gone.
Damian looked at the tracks.
Adrian smiled through blood on his lip.
“You still don’t have the list.”
Tessa reached into her coat pocket.
“Yes,” she said. “We do.”
May you like
She held up the drive.
Adrian’s face finally broke.
