Chapter 8 - MY FATHER FINALLY CHOSEAt 4:02 A.M., an explosion hit the secure facility.
Not large enough to destroy the building.
Large enough to kill power and disable part of the communications network.
The device had been planted in a maintenance vehicle hours earlier.
Victor’s men had planned it before his capture.
During the blackout, someone opened Diane’s holding room.
Not from inside.
From the security corridor.
An accomplice.
By the time emergency power returned, Diane was gone.
My father was gone too.
At first, we assumed she had taken him.
Then security footage showed something else.
Dad followed her voluntarily.
I stared at the screen.
“No.”
Patel replayed it.
Diane ran down the corridor.
Dad appeared behind her.
He could have shouted.
Could have turned back.
Instead, he followed.
Marcus looked at me cautiously.
“What if he’s trying to stop her?”
“Then why didn’t he alert anyone?”
Nobody had an answer.
Victor refused to talk.
Kyle was transported to surgery.
The bullet passed through his shoulder without hitting an artery.
Rachel and Noah were brought under protection.
At 6:20 A.M., my father’s phone switched on.
Patel tracked it.
A warehouse district south of Colorado Springs.
Then it switched off.
We arrived forty minutes later.
The warehouse had once belonged to a military surplus supplier.
Inside were shelves of old electronics, shipping containers, filing cabinets.
No Dad.
No Diane.
But there was blood.
My father’s.
At least according to rapid testing.
I stared at the drops leading through the building.
Marcus touched my shoulder.
“Emily.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I know.”
That was enough.
We followed the blood to an office.
On the desk sat my father’s phone.
Beside it was a handwritten note.
Emily—
I know you may never forgive me, and I have no right to ask. Diane contacted someone from inside the facility. I followed because I believed she would lead me to the last evidence and because after everything I failed to do, I could not stand by again.
Do not follow me.
I laughed angrily.
“Of course he wrote that.”
Marcus understood.
“The one time he decides to protect you, he still thinks protection means making decisions for you.”
“Yes.”
Patel took the note.
“There’s more.”
At the bottom, Dad had written coordinates.
Not exact coordinates.
A military grid fragment.
Caldwell recognized the region.
Pueblo Chemical Depot outskirts.
Old private storage sites.
We moved.
This time I didn’t argue about joining.
Patel simply looked at me and said, “You stay behind me.”
“Deal.”
We found the site near noon.
An abandoned freight depot surrounded by scrubland.
Dad’s truck sat outside.
Door open.
Blood on the steering wheel.
Inside, voices.
Diane.
My father.
We approached through a side entrance.
I could hear them clearly.
“You ruined everything,” Diane screamed.
Dad answered, “No. You did.”
“I gave you a life!”
“You stole one.”
“You were nothing after Sarah.”
“I was grieving.”
“You needed me.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then Dad said something I never expected.
“And you needed me weak.”
Diane laughed.
“You think Emily made you strong again?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“My daughter stopped needing me.”
His voice cracked.
“That’s what finally made me see what I’d become.”
I closed my eyes.
For years, I had wanted him to understand.
Now that he did, it didn’t magically erase anything.
But something shifted.
Not forgiveness.
Possibility.
Diane’s voice became soft.
“You loved me.”
“Yes.”
That surprised me.
Dad continued.
“I did love you. That’s what makes what I allowed even worse.”
A metallic click.
Gun.
Patel signaled.
We moved closer.
Diane said, “Tell Emily to bring me Sarah’s laptop.”
“She won’t.”
“Then you die.”
“Maybe.”
My chest tightened.
“But before you shoot,” Dad said, “you should know something.”
“What?”
“The laptop isn’t with Emily.”
Silence.
“Where is it?”
“With federal investigators.”
Diane cursed.
“You’re lying.”
“I spent my whole marriage believing your lies. I learned a few things.”
Then a gunshot.
I stopped thinking.
We entered.
Dad lay behind a crate.
Diane stood twenty feet away holding a pistol.
She fired toward the doorway.
Agents returned controlled fire.
Diane ducked behind machinery.
I reached Dad.
Blood soaked his thigh.
“Dad.”
His eyes opened.
“Emily?”
“Yes.”
“You followed me.”
“Apparently stubbornness is genetic.”
He almost smiled.
Then Diane shouted.
“This is your fault, Emily!”
I looked across the warehouse.
“No.”
Her head appeared.
“This family was fine before you started digging!”
“No, Diane.”
I stood behind cover.
“You were fine when everyone else was silent.”
“That’s what families do. They protect each other!”
“Protecting a family doesn’t mean protecting the person hurting it.”
She fired again.
Metal sparked above us.
Dad grabbed my sleeve.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not going after her.”
He looked relieved.
A younger version of me would have.
The current version knew revenge and courage were different things.
Patel’s team surrounded Diane.
“Weapon down!”
Diane screamed.
“You think Robert will love you now?”
I said nothing.
“You think medals make you better than me?”
Nothing.
“You’re still that unwanted little girl!”
That one almost landed.
Almost.
Then my father shouted from the floor:
“No, she isn’t.”
Diane froze.
Dad’s face twisted with pain, but his voice was clear.
“She was never unwanted.”
My throat tightened.
“I made her feel that way.”
Diane raised the gun toward him.
Patel fired.
The bullet struck Diane’s weapon hand.
The pistol fell.
Agents tackled her.
It was over in seconds.
Diane screamed my name while they cuffed her.
I stayed beside my father.
He looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“No excuses.”
“Good.”
“I should have believed you.”
“Yes.”
“I should have protected you.”
“Yes.”
“I should have—”
“Dad.”
He stopped.
“Survive the ambulance ride first.”
He laughed weakly.
Then his expression became serious.
“Emily?”
“What?”
“I’m proud of you.”
I had imagined hearing those words for most of my life.
I thought they would heal something instantly.
They didn’t.
Healing, I would learn, was slower than that.
But for the first time, the words didn’t sound like a reward I had earned.
They sounded like something he should have said years ago.
As medics carried him out, Patel approached.
“We found something.”
“What?”
She held up a black encrypted drive recovered from Diane’s bag.
“Victor’s insurance.”
“What’s on it?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Behind us, Diane suddenly stopped fighting.
Her face changed.
Real terror.
May you like
And I understood.
Whatever was on that drive scared her more than prison.
