The world turned into a chaotic blur of screaming reporters and slamming doors.
Alexander's hand was a vice around Elara's arm, hauling her back toward the armored SUV. He didn't care about the cameras anymore; he didn't care about the narrative. His only focus was the perimeter.
"Liam! Get Marcus! Now!" Alexander roared.
Liam didn't hesitate. He dived into the crowd, his massive frame acting like a snowplow as he reached Marcus. He grabbed the gaunt man by the collar of his coat just as two men in tactical gear—FAB agents—tried to intercept him from the side of the building.
"Get your hands off him!" Liam barked, delivering a brutal elbow to the first agent's jaw.
He hoisted Marcus onto his shoulder like a sack of grain and sprinted toward the car.
"Alexander, he's hurt!" Elara cried, her voice cracking as she saw the way Marcus's head lolled. "We can't just leave!"
"We leave or we go to a black site!" Alexander shoved her into the backseat.
Liam slammed Marcus into the floorboard at Elara's feet just as the heavy glass doors of the Justice Department swung open. A dozen agents poured out, their hands on their holsters.
"Federal agents! Stop that vehicle!" a voice boomed over a megaphone.
"Drive!" Alexander commanded.
The SUV screeched away from the curb, its reinforced tires smoking as it tore through the line of press vans. A black sedan tried to block them, but Alexander's driver—a former Special Forces wheelman—rammed the back corner of the car, spinning it like a toy.
Inside the SUV, Elara scrambled off the seat and onto the floor. She pulled the hood back from Marcus's face. He looked worse up close. His skin was gray, a jagged scar ran from his temple to his jaw, and his breathing was shallow and wet.
"Marcus? Marcus, look at me," Elara whispered, her hands shaking as she cupped his face.
His eyes fluttered open. For a second, they were vacant, lost in whatever hell he had been living in for the last four years. Then, they focused on her. A weak, bloody smile touched his lips.
"Elara," he coughed, a spray of red dotting his chin. "You... you grew up. You look like Mom."
"Don't talk," she choked out, pressing her hand against his side. Her palm came back red. "Alexander, he's bleeding. He was shot before he even reached the steps."
Alexander reached over, his expression grim. He ripped open Marcus's coat, revealing a makeshift bandage soaked through with dark blood.
"He was a walking corpse when he hit those steps," Alexander muttered, his jaw tight. He looked at the rear window. Two black Suburbans were weaving through traffic behind them, their sirens wailing. "They aren't going to let us reach a hospital. Thorne knows Marcus is the only person who can tie him to the plane crash."
"We aren't going to a hospital," Liam said from the front, his eyes on the GPS. "We're heading to the docks. I've signaled the transport."
"Marcus," Elara urged, leaning close to his ear. "The ledgers. You said you had the real ledgers. Where are they?"
Marcus reached into the lining of his coat with a trembling hand. He didn't pull out a folder or a book. He pulled out a small, blood-stained locket—one that had belonged to their mother.
He pressed a hidden catch on the side. The locket didn't open to show a photo. Instead, a micro-SD card slid out.
"Thorne... he thought I burned with the plane," Marcus rasped, his voice fading. "He didn't know I survived the jump. I've been... I've been living in the vents of his own safehouses, Elara. Collecting the digital ghosts. Everything. The bribes. The murder orders for Mom. It's all there."
Alexander took the card, his eyes flashing with a lethal, cold satisfaction. He looked at Elara, then at Marcus.
"You did good, kid," Alexander said, his voice surprisingly soft. He looked back at the pursuing cars. "Now, stay alive long enough for us to make them pay."
The SUV veered off the main road, hurtling toward a private shipyard. The gates were already open, guarded by men in Alexander's private colors.
"Brace!" Liam shouted.
The SUV didn't slow down. It crashed through a final wooden barrier and skidded to a stop alongside a sleek, matte-black speed boat idling in the water.
"Out! Out! Out!" Alexander hauled Elara up.
Liam carried Marcus, and they dived onto the boat just as the FAB vehicles screeched onto the pier.
The boat's engines roared to life, a twin-turbo scream that drowned out the shouting agents. They tore out into the open water, the spray hitting Elara's face, washing away the salt of her tears.
She sat on the floor of the boat, Marcus's head in her lap. She looked back at the receding shoreline. The Department of Justice, the city, the life she had known—it was all shrinking.
She looked down at the micro-SD card in Alexander's hand.
The audit was over. The game had changed. They weren't just fighting for a company anymore. They were taking down the government.