Chapter 9 - The Empty Factory
By noon, nobody would tell me anything useful.
“There has been a change.”
“We’re assessing.”
“Please remain here.”
I hated professionals who turned terror into nouns.
Finally Agent Molina entered.
“Edward reached the plant.”
“And?”
“He entered.”
“And?”
“We lost the transmitter.”
My stomach dropped.
“Why?”
“Signal interference.”
“Is he alive?”
“We don’t know.”
Jamie was in another room with Claire.
I lowered my voice.
“You promised surveillance.”
“We have aerial coverage, but the facility has multiple underground structures.”
Margaret Keene entered.
“Victor knows the building.”
Everyone looked at her.
“He supervised renovations in the nineties. There are service tunnels not shown on modern plans.”
Molina swore quietly.
Margaret opened old blueprints.
Then pointed.
“There.”
A rail tunnel.
Agents moved.
I refused to stay behind.
Molina tried to stop me.
“No.”
“You cannot enter an active operation.”
“I’m not asking to enter.”
I drove with Claire to the perimeter.
That was as far as they allowed us.
The old factory stretched across several acres.
Rust.
Broken windows.
Weeds growing through concrete.
This was where Whitmore money came from before glass headquarters and private jets.
Men building bridges.
Steel.
Rail.
A working-class history Edward had ironically chosen as his disguise.
Gunshots sounded in the distance.
Claire grabbed my arm.
Then radios erupted.
“Suspect down.”
“Second suspect moving east.”
“Whitmore located.”
I stopped breathing.
“Condition?”
Static.
“Whitmore located.”
“Condition?”
Then:
“Alive.”
My knees gave out.
Edward emerged twenty minutes later.
Blood covered one side of his shirt.
I ran.
Agents tried to stop me.
I ignored them.
“Edward!”
He turned.
The blood wasn’t his.
He caught me.
For several seconds, I held him so tightly I could feel his heart.
“You came.”
“I said—”
“Don’t.”
I almost laughed and cried simultaneously.
Behind him, agents brought out an elderly man in handcuffs.
Victor Sloane.
He was seventy-six.
Thin.
Ordinary-looking.
That disturbed me most.
For seventeen years, Edward’s fear had turned him into a monster in my imagination.
But monsters often look disappointingly human.
Victor saw Edward holding me.
He smiled.
“You gave everything up for this?”
Edward looked at him.
“No.”
Victor laughed.
“You could’ve ruled half the industry.”
Edward’s arm tightened around me.
“I spent twelve years pretending I didn’t.”
“You wasted your inheritance.”
Edward shook his head.
“You’re still confused.”
Victor sneered.
“You hid in a little house. Worked like a laborer. Married some librarian.”
I felt Edward go still.
Then he smiled.
“Yes.”
Victor frowned.
Edward continued.
“And those were the happiest years of my life.”
I looked at him.
He turned toward me.
“Even while I was ruining them.”
That sounded more accurate.
Agents took Victor away.
Inside the factory they found records linking him to the original kidnapping attempt.
The recent threats.
The compromised guard.
Thomas’s drugging.
Everything.
The danger that began before I met Edward was finally over.
But solving that danger did not solve our marriage.
That evening, back at the estate, Edward entered my room.
“What happens now?”
I knew what he meant.
Us.
I looked at the man in front of me.
I loved him.
I also didn’t trust him.
Both things could be true.
“I’m going home.”
His face fell.
“With Jamie?”
“Yes.”
“Are you leaving me?”
“I don’t know.”
He nodded slowly.
“I’ll give you space.”
“No.”
He looked surprised.
“You don’t get to disappear again.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to come home too.”
Hope flashed across his face.
I stopped it.
“Separate room.”
“Okay.”
“Therapy.”
“Yes.”
“All financial records.”
“Yes.”
“Every trust. Every account. Every property.”
“Yes.”
“Every family secret that affects Jamie.”
“Yes.”
“And if I discover one more major lie—”
“You leave.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You leave.”
Edward swallowed.
Then nodded.
“Fair.”
May you like
Two days later, the billionaire chairman of Whitmore Infrastructure returned to our three-bedroom house.
Jamie made him carry his own suitcase.
