Chapter 10 - THE SISTER WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
Z
Victoria was brought into the secure interview room at Fort Liberty just before midnight.
She looked exhausted.
Her coat was wrinkled. Her face was pale. She had clearly been crying for hours.
When Genevieve entered, Victoria stood immediately.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” she said.
“I asked to be here.”
Victoria’s eyes moved toward the folder in Genevieve’s hands.
Then she saw the name printed across the cover.
STERLING NETWORK: VICTORIA VOSS STERLING.
Her face collapsed.
“No,” she whispered.
Genevieve sat across from her.
“Your name is in the ledger.”
Victoria shook her head.
“I didn’t know anything about Cross. I swear to you.”
“Your name appears beside three transactions.”
“I signed paperwork Raymond gave me. Tax documents. Business forms. He said it was for the foundation.”
Genevieve stared at her sister.
“Did you read them?”
Victoria looked down.
“No.”
“Did you ask questions?”
“No.”
“Did you care where the money came from?”
Victoria’s silence lasted too long.
Then she began to cry.
“I cared about feeling important,” she admitted. “Raymond made me feel like I mattered. Dad always treated me like I was special, but only when I agreed with him. Raymond promised I would have a real life. A bigger life.”
“You had a life.”
“I know that now.”
Genevieve leaned back in her chair.
For years, she had seen Victoria as cruel.
And Victoria had been cruel.
But now Genevieve could see something beneath it.
Fear.
The same fear that had shaped Eleanor. The same hunger for validation that had driven Harrison. The same emptiness Raymond had learned to exploit.
“It doesn’t erase what you did,” Genevieve said.
“I know.”
“It doesn’t erase the way you treated me.”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t erase Marcus.”
At Marcus’s name, Victoria covered her face.
“I loved him,” she whispered. “Not the way you did. But he was good to me. He always remembered my birthday. He helped Raymond get that first office lease. He told me once that I was smarter than the people I was trying to impress.”
Genevieve’s throat tightened.
That sounded exactly like Marcus.
“He knew Raymond was using you,” Genevieve said.
Victoria looked up.
“What?”
“Marcus suspected Raymond was using your name for transactions. He tried to warn you.”
“I thought he hated Raymond.”
“He was trying to protect you.”
Victoria’s tears fell harder.
“I failed him,” she said.
“Yes,” Genevieve replied honestly.
The truth hurt.
But truth had become the only thing that could save any of them.
An agent entered the room and handed Genevieve a new report.
“Captain,” he said, “we traced Cross’s emergency communications. He has an accomplice inside federal contracting. Someone with access to protected witness locations.”
Genevieve’s body went cold.
“Amelia,” she said.
“We moved her again. She’s secure.”
“Who is the accomplice?”
The agent hesitated.
“Dr. Samuel Reed.”
Genevieve recognized the name immediately.
He was the director of a civilian defense consulting agency. He had attended Marcus’s funeral. He had stood beside her mother, placed a hand on Genevieve’s shoulder, and said he was sorry for her loss.
He had looked into her eyes.
He had known exactly what Marcus’s death meant.
Victoria saw the horror on Genevieve’s face.
“What is it?”
“Reed was there,” Genevieve said. “At Marcus’s funeral.”
Victoria looked sick.
“Then he knew where all of us were.”
“Yes.”
A new message appeared on Genevieve’s secure phone.
UNKNOWN SENDER: THE LEDGER WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING. BRING IT TO THE OLD HOUSE AT MIDNIGHT, OR YOUR DAUGHTER WILL NEVER KNOW HER FATHER.
Genevieve read it twice.
Then a second message appeared.
A photograph.
The blue nursery wall.
Taken only minutes earlier.
Victoria gasped.
“They were in your house.”
Genevieve stood.
“Lock down every location,” she ordered.
The agents moved quickly.
But Genevieve remained still for one second, staring at the photograph.
Cross was not asking for the ledger.
He was trying to pull her back to the house.
Back to the place where Marcus had left his secrets.
Back to the place where her family had tried to break her.
Miller entered, already armed and prepared.
“We have a tactical team,” he said. “You do not have to go.”
Genevieve looked toward Victoria.
Her sister was shaking.
“I have to,” Genevieve said.
Miller’s expression was grim.
“It could be a trap.”
“It is a trap.”
“Then why walk into it?”
Genevieve thought about Amelia.
About Marcus.
About every person who believed fear could control her.
“Because they keep making the same mistake,” she said.
Miller waited.
“They think I’ll come alone.”
At midnight, Genevieve returned to the old house.
The lights were off.
The street was empty.
The blue wall waited inside the nursery.
May you like
And someone was already there.
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