Chapter 9
Clara kept her weight balanced on the balls of her feet, her hand tightening around the handle of the cast-iron skillet while her eyes remained glued to the frosted glass of the front door. "If you're Julian," she called out, her voice cutting sharply through the quiet of the cabin, "tell me what you buried beneath the root cellar of our first house in Portland." A heavy pause stretched across the porch, the silence of the surrounding pine forest pressing inward against the thin wooden walls. A second later, Julian’s muffled voice answered without hesitation. "A rusted toolbox containing my grandfather’s pocket watch and the divorce papers you never signed."
The exact truth. Clara exhaled a breath she didn't realize she was holding, dropped the skillet onto the counter, and unlocked the deadbolt with trembling fingers. She pulled the door open, expecting to pull her husband into a desperate embrace. Instead, she found Julian standing in the dim porch light with his hands raised, his grey button-down shirt torn at the shoulder and smeared with dried blood, flanked not by emptiness, but by a second figure stepping out from the shadows of the porch pillar. It was an older woman with sharp, observant gray eyes, wearing a weathered utility jacket and holding a silenced automatic pistol pointed casually toward the floor.
"Lower the iron, sweetheart," the older woman said smoothly, stepping past Julian into the cabin with the air of someone who owned the property. "If we wanted you dead, you wouldn't have made it past the logging road." Clara backed away, her eyes darting between Julian and the uninvited guest. "Julian, who is this?" she demanded, panic rising in her chest. Julian stepped inside, locking the door behind them and pulling the wool blankets back over the windows. "This is Director Vance," Julian said quietly, gesturing toward the woman. "The former head of internal oversight for the witness protection program. The woman Viktor spent the last ten years trying to assassinate."
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Director Vance walked over to the kitchen table, her gaze immediately locking onto the tiny black flash drive resting on the wood. A grim, appreciative smile crossed her weathered face. "You actually got the core drive out of the terminal vault," Vance said, looking up at Clara with undeniable respect. "Most trained field agents would have folded under Viktor's interrogation methods in the first two minutes. You have iron in your spine, Clara." Clara crossed her arms defensively, refusing the compliment. "Save the flattery. You people created the monster that destroyed our lives. Why shouldn't I hand this flash drive to the highest bidder or burn it right now?"
Vance walked over to the wood-burning stove, warming her hands against the cast iron before turning back to face them. "Because burning it ensures Viktor wins, and handing it to the highest bidder makes you no better than him. That drive contains the encryption keys to dismantle the shadow syndicate operating inside our own government. But more importantly, it contains the names of every sleeper agent Viktor has planted across the civilian sector—including the person who betrayed us from inside your local precinct." Julian looked at Clara, his expression heavy with sorrow. "The betrayal is closer than you think, Clara. Viktor didn't just track us to our house; he had help from someone we shared coffee with every single Tuesday."
