Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
That’s not the problem.
The problem is that I’m lying in a bed in a cabin in the woods while my brother sits in a cell somewhere, and the reason he’s there is because of me.
Render doesn’t know this yet. Nobody does, except Poe, who figured it out six months ago and buried the evidence instead of confronting me. That’s what Poe does. He protects. He absorbs the weight of everyone else’s mistakes and carries it because his love is stubborn and his instinct to shield the people he cares about runs bone-deep.
The truth is simple and ugly. I’ve been running my own secret operations against Goldenbell for months. Not approved. Not authorized. Just me, from my apartment in the middle of the night, digging into places I was never supposed to touch. I started because Poe wouldn’t let me in. Years of hearing it’s too dangerous and you don’t need to be involved. Years of watching my brother and his friends do work that mattered while I stayed on the other side of the wall he built out of love.
So I stopped asking. I taught myself. When I was good enough, I began using what I knew. I found weaknesses in Serafina’s world. I gathered information that confirmed everything the crew already suspected. I was careful at first. Then I got reckless. Effective and reckless are not mutually exclusive, and I crossed that line months ago.
Serafina noticed the disturbances. She traced them back to Poe’s network because my work carried traces that connected to the Maddox systems. My fingerprints led her to Poe. Poe led her to the crew. And now everyone’s in cells because I was too skilled to stop and too stubborn to ask for help.
Poe found out six months ago. He didn’t yell. He didn’t shut me down. He quietly built contingency plans around the possibility that my actions would blow up in all our faces. One of those plans included Render. The failsafe. The person he trusted to come get me when everything went wrong.
And now here I am, in a bed in a cabin, while Render lies on the floor and my brother sits chained somewhere, protecting the secret that I’m the reason everything fell apart.
The mattress smells like clean laundry and faint dust. The sheets are fresh, which means Render prepared this place in advance. Poe planned for this. My brother spent months expecting the disaster I created and chose to build an exit strategy instead of telling me to stop.
I can’t lie here anymore.
The thought hits me with sharp clarity. Poe’s in a cell because of me. The crew is locked up because of me. And Render, for all his loyalty and careful planning, still thinks I’m just the innocent sister who got taken as leverage. He’s got no idea I’m the cause.
He thinks I’m a victim. A package he carried out of that warehouse. If I stay here and let him protect me the way Poe’s been protecting me, I’ll only make the same mistake again. Someone else carrying the weight of my choices.
I need to go. Not away from Render. Toward Poe. I’ve got knowledge of Goldenbell’s world that nobody else does. I can find where they’re holding the crew faster on my own. I won’t have to explain how I know what I know. I won’t have to watch Render’s face when he realizes the woman he rescued is the reason his best friends are in chains.
I watch him through my lashes for several minutes. His breathing is steady and controlled. His hand rests near the gun beside him. He’s not sleeping. I can tell by the rhythm. He’s pretending, just like I am.
Slowly I sit up. The mattress springs creak softly. I freeze. Render doesn’t move.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and set my bare feet on the hard floor. I stand carefully, trying to make as little noise as possible, and take two steps toward the table where the go-bag sits. My fingers reach for it.
“The keys are in my left pocket.”
His voice comes from the floor, quiet and calm, and my whole body locks up. My heart slams once, hard, then races against my ribs.
I look down. He lies flat on his back with his eyes open now, staring at the ceiling like he’s giving me the dignity of not being caught.
“If you want to leave, I’ll give them to you,” he says in that same steady voice. No anger. No accusation. “The sedan’s got a full tank. Take a left out of the driveway, follow the gravel for half a mile, and you’ll hit a county road. Go south and you’ll reach a town with a gas station in about twenty minutes. There’s cash in the side pocket of the bag. Two hundred dollars.”