Chapter 10 - The Woman in Green

Mara knocked Nadine sideways. The bullet struck the pillar, sending sparks through the sprinkler rain. Ethan dragged Lily behind a forklift while Olivia crawled toward the fallen remote.

"Don't touch it!" Mara shouted. "We don't know what triggers it."

Nadine pressed a hand to her bleeding shoulder. "It's Vale," she gasped. "He doesn't leave witnesses."

Another bullet cracked a window. Ethan saw the muzzle flash on the office roof. He rammed the forklift forward, raising its steel mast to block the line of fire. Mara and Olivia hauled Nadine toward the exit.

The warehouse doors were chained. Olivia used the guard's pistol to shoot the padlock. A security alarm blared as they escaped into a row of shipping containers.

Police cruisers finally arrived. Ethan recognized none of the officers and trusted none of them. He made them call an ambulance but refused to hand over the drive until a federal investigator arrived.

Nadine gave him a name: Agent Sofia Reed, Department of Justice. "She's been digging into Harbor for years. Her number's in the case liner."

Mara peeled back the lining. There it was, written in grease pencil.

At a safe clinic, a physician bandaged Nadine's shoulder and examined Olivia's concussion. Olivia sat beside Ethan, her ring catching pale daylight.

"I know you don't forgive me," she said.

"I don't know what I feel." He looked at her. "But I know what I saw. You stood in front of a little girl while someone threatened to blow us up."

"So did Mara."

Mara, sitting nearby with Lily asleep against her side, pretended not to hear.

Nadine described the Amber Protocol. It wasn't one drug but a chain of falsified trials. A harmless-looking marker dye made unregistered doses recognizable to staff. The syringe in the ballroom had likely been planted to frame the maid after the bride's collapse.

"Why target Olivia?" Ethan asked.

"She got a sample and a copy of the patient ledger," Nadine said. "Your father needed both."

Ethan's phone buzzed: an unknown number, a photo attachment. It showed his family home, the ballroom empty except for one chair beneath the chandelier.

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His mother was tied to it.

The message read: Come home, Ethan. We have things to discuss.