Chapter 7
I met Cole and Miller at a twenty-four-hour diner on the edge of town.
The kind of place where the coffee was always hot, the pancakes were always too big, and no one paid any attention to two FBI agents and a woman in a black suit sitting in a back booth at midnight.
I told them everything.
About the Kandahar mission. About the letter I’d written Eric. About his call. About the ultimatum.
I didn’t leave anything out.
When I was done, Cole was quiet for a long time. He stirred his coffee, slow, stared out the window at the empty parking lot.
Miller was the first to speak.
“Off the books mission in Kandahar,” he said. “Twelve years ago. High-value target. No official record. That’s the one they called Operation Nightfall, isn’t it?”
I froze.
“You know about it?”
Cole nodded, turned back to me.
“We know everything, Clara. The FBI, the CIA, the Pentagon. Everyone at the top knows what happened that night. You and your team did the country a favor. You took out a man who was responsible for the deaths of seventeen American soldiers. You saved eight hostages. The Army disavowed it for political reasons, but there’s not a single person in Washington who thinks you did the wrong thing.”
He leaned forward across the table.
“That letter Eric has? It’s worthless. If he releases it, the Pentagon will put out a statement saying it’s a forgery. That Operation Nightfall never happened. That Eric is a bitter, disgraced ex-husband making up lies to get back at you. No one will believe him. No one important, anyway. And we’ll make sure any reporter who touches it gets their career ruined. You’re protected, Clara. You have been since the day you came home.”
I stared at him.
All that fear. All that panic. All those hours I’d spent thinking my life was over.
And it was all for nothing.
I laughed. A loud, shaky, relieved sound that made the guy at the next booth glance over.
“You’re serious?”
“One hundred percent,” Miller said, smiling. “Eric has no idea who he’s messing with. He thinks he’s holding a nuclear bomb. It’s actually just a water gun. Filled with warm water.”
I leaned back in the booth, closed my eyes, and let out a breath I felt like I’d been holding for twelve years.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. Good. So what now?”
“Now,” Cole said, sliding a small black device across the table to me. “We stick to the original plan. You wear this tomorrow. You meet Eric. You get him to talk about Dubai. About the blueprints. About the five million dollars. We get it on tape. We arrest him tomorrow night. And it’s over.”
I picked up the wire. It was tiny. No bigger than a dime.
“Where do I meet him?”
“He called you at midnight, right?” Miller said. “He’ll call again tomorrow morning. Tell him you’ll meet him at the old warehouse on 4th Street. The one your company owns. The one you were going to turn into lofts. No cameras. No people. Private. He’ll go for it. It’s the kind of place guys like him go to make deals they don’t want anyone to see.”
I nodded.
I knew the warehouse.
Big. Empty. Echoey.
Perfect.
“One more thing,” Cole said. “We’re arresting your parents tomorrow at noon, like your lawyer asked. We’ve got the warrants. We’ll be gentle. They’re old. We’ll book them, get them a bail hearing, let them out until trial. Unless they try to run. Then all bets are off.”
“Fine,” I said. “I don’t care what happens to them anymore.”
I paid for the coffee, said goodbye to the agents, and drove home.
The sun was starting to come up by the time I got there. Pink and orange light painting the sky over the roof of my house.
I didn’t sleep.
I couldn’t.
I sat on the porch swing with a cup of coffee and watched the sun rise.
For the first time in months, I felt light.
Like a hundred-pound weight had been lifted off my chest.
Eric had nothing on me.
The letter was worthless.
The FBI was on my side.
I was going to win.
All of it.
---
Eric called at nine the next morning, exactly like Cole said he would.
His voice was tight, impatient.
“Did you think about it?”
“I thought about it,” I said. I made my voice sound tired. Scared. Defeated. “I’ll do it. I’ll give you the money. I’ll drop the charges. I’ll sign whatever you want. Just... promise me you’ll burn the letter. After.”
Eric laughed. The sound made my skin crawl.
“Of course I will, baby. I always keep my promises.”
He didn’t.
He never had.
“Where do you want to meet?” I asked.
“The old warehouse on 4th,” he said. “One hour. Come alone. No cops. No lawyers. No Grant. If I see anyone else, I release the letter before you even get out of your car. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“One more thing,” he said. “Bring the ten million. Wire it to the account while I’m there. I want to see it hit the screen before I give you the letter.”
“Okay.”
I hung up.
I texted Cole: He’s in. Warehouse in one hour.
He texted back: We’re ready.
I got dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt—something casual, something that said I was scared, I was giving up, I wasn’t a threat. I taped the wire to the inside of my bra, exactly like Cole had showed me. I grabbed my laptop—for the wire transfer—and walked out the door.
I got to the warehouse ten minutes early.
I parked out front, left the engine running, and waited.
Five minutes later, Eric’s beat-up old SUV pulled in behind me.
He got out.
He looked terrible.
His clothes were wrinkled. He hadn’t shaved in three days. His eyes were bloodshot, his face puffy from drinking. He had a gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.
I saw it the second he moved.
My hand went to the door handle. Ready to run.
Then I remembered: the FBI was everywhere. In the buildings across the street. In the vans parked down the road. Snipers on the roof. If Eric so much as pulled that gun an inch out of his pants, they’d shoot him before he could get a finger on the trigger.
I got out of the car, held my hands up so he could see I wasn’t holding anything.
“Easy, Eric,” I said. “I’m alone. Just like you asked.”
He nodded, jerked his head toward the warehouse door.
“Inside.”
He unlocked the big metal door, pulled it open, and waved me in.
The warehouse was dark. Cold. The only light came through the dirty windows high up on the walls. Dust motes danced in the sunbeams. The air smelled like old wood and rust.
Eric locked the door behind us.
“Laptop,” he said.
I set it on an old wooden crate in the middle of the floor, opened it, turned it on.
“Account number,” I said.
He rattled off a long string of numbers. I typed them in, entered the amount: $10,000,000.00.
I hovered my finger over the TRANSFER button.
“First,” I said. “The letter.”
Eric smiled. He pulled a crumpled envelope out of his jacket pocket, waved it in the air.
“Right here. All three pages. Your handwriting. Your signature. Every gory little detail.”
“Let me see it.”
He shook his head.
“Uh-uh. Transfer first. Then you get the letter.”
I stared at him.
The man I’d married.
The man I’d loved for ten years.
The man who’d stolen from me, cheated on me, lied to me, sold secrets to the enemy, and now was trying to blackmail me out of ten million dollars.
I didn’t feel sad anymore.
I didn’t feel angry.
I just felt nothing.
Empty.
Like he was already dead to me.
“Before I transfer,” I said, “I need to know one thing. The Dubai trip. The blueprints for the Qatar barracks. Did you really sell them to Iran?”
Eric froze.
The smile slid off his face.
“How do you know about that?”
“Answer the question, Eric.”
He stared at me for a long second. Then he laughed. A dark, bitter sound.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I did. So what? It’s not like anyone was going to get hurt. Those blueprints were just paper. And five million dollars? That’s more money than I’ll make in ten years at this stupid company. You always held all the power, Clara. You always ran everything. For once in my life, I wanted something that was mine. Something you couldn’t take away.”
He leaned in close, his breath hot on my face.
“Now press the damn button, Clara. Or I send the letter to every news outlet in the country in the next ten seconds.”
I smiled.
I took my finger off the mouse, closed the laptop, and stepped back.
“No.”
Eric blinked.
“What?”
“No,” I repeated. “I’m not transferring you a single cent. And that letter you’re holding? It’s worthless. The Pentagon already knows about it. They’ll say it’s a forgery. No one will believe you. You have nothing, Eric. Nothing.”
His face turned red. Then purple.
He reached for the gun in his waistband.
“You bitch—”
“FBI! DROP THE WEAPON!”
The words boomed out of the rafters, loud enough to make the windows rattle.
A dozen agents in black tactical gear poured out of the shadows, their rifles trained on Eric’s chest.
Cole was in front, his gun aimed right between Eric’s eyes.
“Drop it, Bennett! Now!”
Eric froze.
He looked at me. At the agents. At the door.
He knew.
He knew he’d been played.
He knew it was over.
His hand went to the gun again.
“Eric, don’t—” I screamed.
Two shots rang out.
Loud. Sharp.
Eric’s head snapped back.
He fell to the concrete floor, hard.
Blood pooled under his head, spreading fast across the dust.
I ran over, dropped to my knees beside him.
His eyes were open. Staring at the ceiling. Not moving.
Cole was there a second later, his hand on my shoulder, pulling me back.
“Clara, don’t. He’s gone.”
I stared at Eric’s body.
At the man I’d spent ten years of my life with.
At the man who’d tried to destroy everything I loved.
He was dead.
Just like that.
Two bullets.
Over.
I didn’t cry.
I didn’t feel sad.
I just felt... free.
Cole pulled me to my feet, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders.
“You did good, Clara,” he said. “We got everything on tape. The Dubai confession. The blackmail. All of it. It’s over. You’re safe now.”
I looked around the warehouse.
At the agents securing the scene. At Eric’s body being covered with a white sheet. At the door, where the sun was streaming in, bright and warm and new.
It was over.
Eric was dead.
Liam was in jail.
My parents were about to be arrested.
Natalie was next.
May you like
I’d won.
So why did it feel like I’d lost everything?
