PART 4
“She’s your sister.”
Mom’s words struck me harder than the explosion that had destroyed our house.
I stared at the bruised woman standing in front of Dad’s vehicle.
Anna.
Her dark hair hung across one side of her face. Her wrists were bound behind her back, and a thick black band had been fastened around her neck. A tiny red light blinked at its center.
Evan stood beside me, completely motionless.
He knew her.
Not as a stranger. Not as someone he had met once.
He looked at her the way a person looks at someone they had already lost.
Dad held the remote detonator loosely in one hand.
“Put down the ledger,” he said.
Mom moved toward Anna.
Dad immediately lifted his gun.
“Don’t.”
Mom stopped.
Tears covered her face.
“Anna was my baby.”
Her voice was barely audible.
“My first daughter.”
I looked at Evan.
He was pale.
“Tell her,” Dad said. “Tell Leah what her mother never had the courage to tell her.”
Mom shook her head.
“I thought she was dead.”
“Mom,” I whispered, “what is he talking about?”
She looked from me to Anna.
“Evan wasn’t born alone.”
The alley seemed to grow silent.
Even the sirens and shouting near our burning house faded beneath her words.
“They were twins,” Mom continued. “A boy and a girl. Evan was born first. Anna came seven minutes later.”
I stared at the two of them.
Now that I knew, I could see it.
The same shape around their eyes.
The same sharp cheekbones.
The same habit of tightening their jaws when they were frightened.
“You had a twin?” I asked Evan.
He didn’t take his eyes off Anna.
“I found out three years ago.”
“Three years?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Stop saying that!”
My voice echoed between the buildings.
“For eight years, everyone has been protecting me with lies.”
Dad smiled faintly.
“Your sister is finally beginning to understand.”
Mom’s face twisted with anger.
“You don’t get to speak.”
She looked at me again.
“The doctors told me Anna had stopped breathing. I heard her cry once, Leah. I held her for less than a minute. Then a nurse took her away.”
Her hands trembled.
“Your father handled everything after that. He said I was too weak to see her body. He arranged the burial.”
Another closed casket.
Another grave.
Another child Dad had declared dead without allowing Mom to say goodbye.
“There was a funeral?” I asked.
“A small one,” Mom whispered. “Only your father and me.”
“There was no body inside,” Anna said.
Her voice was rough but steady.
Mom covered her mouth.
Dad tightened his grip on the detonator.
“Enough family history.”
Anna looked directly at him.
“Afraid they’ll learn you sold me?”
Mom flinched.
Dad’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But the smile disappeared.
“I did what was necessary.”
“You handed a newborn child to Malcolm Voss.”
“I paid a debt.”
“You paid it with me.”
Mom made a broken sound.
“You gave her away?”
Dad looked at her impatiently.
“Canyon Star was collapsing. I owed money to people who did not accept late payments. Voss offered to clear the debt and protect the company.”
“In exchange for our daughter?” Mom screamed.
“He said the child would be cared for.”
Anna laughed bitterly.
“Is that what you told yourself?”
Dad ignored her.
“If I had refused, all of us would have suffered.”
“No,” Mom said. “You would have suffered.”
She stepped closer despite the gun.
“You sacrificed her to save yourself.”
Dad raised the weapon toward Mom’s chest.
Evan lifted his own gun.
“Point that at her again and you die.”
Two of Dad’s men moved behind Anna.
One held a gun against her back. The other watched the street.
Dad glanced at the flashing lights beyond the alley.
“We don’t have time for this.”
He nodded toward the blue ledger in my hands.
“Bring it to me, Leah.”
I tightened my grip.
“What happens after I give it to you?”
“We leave.”
“And Anna?”
“She comes with me.”
“No.”
Dad sighed.
“You’re not in a position to negotiate.”
I looked at the black band around Anna’s neck.
The blinking light had become faster.
“What is that?”
“A little insurance,” Dad said.
Anna held my gaze.
“Explosive collar.”
Mom gasped.
Evan’s gun shook.
“You put a bomb around her neck?”
Dad lifted the remote.
“If my thumb leaves this button for more than ten seconds, the device activates.”
Miles, still lying on the ground beside us, coughed weakly.
Blood covered most of his shirt.
“That’s not how it works,” he whispered.
Dad looked down at him.
Miles forced himself onto one elbow.
“You never understood the equipment.”
“Be quiet.”
Miles looked at Evan.
“The button arms it. It doesn’t stop it.”
Dad’s eyes hardened.
“Miles.”
“You press the button twice,” Miles continued. “Then there’s a sixty-second delay.”
Anna’s expression changed.
Dad pointed his gun toward Miles.
“I said be quiet.”
Miles smiled weakly.
“You should have killed the mechanic before using his devices.”
Dad fired.
Mom screamed.
The bullet struck the pavement inches from Miles’s hand.
Evan moved forward, but Anna shouted, “Don’t!”
Dad’s thumb remained on the remote.
The red light around Anna’s neck continued blinking.
Miles looked at me.
“Blue ledger,” he gasped. “He can’t leave without it.”
I understood.
The ledger was more valuable to Dad than any of us.
Maybe even more valuable than his own life.
I held it over a metal trash container beside the alley wall.
Flames from the burning house had thrown glowing debris into the container. Paper and dry leaves smoldered inside.
Dad’s face tightened.
“Don’t be foolish.”
“One step toward us and I burn it.”
“You don’t know what you’re holding.”
“I know Senator Voss’s symbol is inside.”
The two men behind Anna exchanged a glance.
Dad noticed.
“Eyes forward,” he snapped.
I opened the ledger and held one page above the flames.
“This contains every name, route, payment, and false identity connected to your operation.”
“It contains nothing you understand.”
“Then you won’t mind watching it burn.”
I lowered it closer.
The edge of the page curled in the heat.
Dad’s calm expression finally disappeared.
“Stop.”
“Release Anna.”
“No.”
“Then the ledger burns.”
“She is not your concern.”
“She is my sister.”
“You met her thirty seconds ago.”
“And that was long enough to care more about her than you ever did.”
Dad aimed his gun at me.
Evan aimed at Dad.
The man behind Anna aimed at Evan.
The second guard aimed at Mom.
Every person in the alley seemed connected by the barrel of a weapon.
One wrong movement would kill us all.
Then Anna looked at Evan.
She tapped her right foot twice against the pavement.
Evan’s expression remained unchanged, but I saw his eyes move toward the vehicle behind her.
Anna tapped again.
Twice.
A signal.
They had done this before.
Evan slowly shifted his weight.
Dad noticed.
“Don’t try it.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You were always a bad liar.”
Dad glanced at Anna.
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
He moved the remote closer to her face.
“Perhaps I should test Miles’s explanation.”
“Richard,” Mom pleaded, “please.”
Dad pressed the button.
Once.
The light on Anna’s collar turned solid red.
A small digital screen illuminated.
00:60
Mom screamed.
The countdown began.
00:59
Dad looked at Miles.
“You were right.”
00:58
He pressed the button again.
Nothing happened.
Dad pressed it repeatedly.
The timer continued.
00:56
“What did you do?” he shouted.
Miles gave a weak laugh.
“You armed it.”
Dad threw the remote onto the pavement as though it had burned him.
Evan moved.
He fired at the guard behind Anna.
The bullet struck the man’s shoulder, spinning him backward.
Anna dropped to her knees.
Mom lunged toward the second guard and shoved his arm upward as he fired. The bullet shattered a window above us.
I threw the ledger into the metal container.
Dad screamed.
“No!”
He ran toward the flames.
I grabbed the ledger again before it fell completely inside. The outer cover caught fire, but the pages remained mostly untouched.
Dad collided with me.
We fell against the wall.
The ledger slipped from my hands.
He struck me across the face.
Pain flashed through my head.
“You stupid girl!”
He reached for the book.
I kicked his knee.
He stumbled.
Evan fought with the wounded guard near the vehicle. Anna rolled beneath the open rear door while the countdown continued.
00:39
The second guard grabbed Mom by the throat.
She clawed at his hands.
Miles dragged himself forward, leaving a trail of blood across the ground.
He seized the guard’s ankle and pulled.
The man fell.
Mom grabbed his dropped gun.
She had never held a weapon before.
Her hands shook violently.
“Stay down!” she shouted.
The guard looked at her and laughed.
“You won’t shoot.”
Mom pointed the gun toward his leg.
“I buried two living children because of men like you.”
The laughter disappeared.
Dad reached the ledger.
Before he could pick it up, I stepped on his hand.
He looked up at me.
For a second, he wasn’t a criminal mastermind or a murderer.
He was my father.
The man who had taught me to ride a bicycle.
The man who had carried me upstairs when I fell asleep on the couch.
The man who used to cut the crusts from my sandwiches because I hated them.
Then I remembered my prepared death certificate.
The fake psychiatric reports.
The explosion he intended to use to kill Mom and me.
I pressed harder against his fingers.
“You were going to burn us alive.”
His expression remained cold.
“You were already a liability.”
Something inside me broke.
Not my heart.
That had broken earlier.
This was the final thread connecting me to the person I had believed he was.
“You don’t have daughters,” I said. “You only have evidence you failed to destroy.”
His free hand reached beneath his shirt.
I saw the knife too late.
Miles shouted my name.
Dad lunged.
Miles threw himself between us.
The knife entered his side.
Dad ripped it free.
Evan fired.
The bullet struck Dad’s upper arm.
He spun backward and crashed against the vehicle.
The gun fell from his hand.
Miles collapsed in front of me.
“Dad!” Anna shouted.
For one confused moment, I thought she meant Richard.
Then she crawled toward Miles.
She held his face in both hands.
“Stay with me.”
Miles looked at her.
His eyes softened.
“Little bird.”
Anna began crying.
“You promised.”
“I know.”
“You promised you would see the ocean with me.”
“I lied.”
“No.”
“I’ve lied about many things.”
“You’re not dying here.”
Miles tried to smile.
“I should have taken you back to your mother twenty-nine years ago.”
Mom stared at him.
“You knew?”
Miles looked toward her.
“I drove the car.”
The countdown continued.
00:21
Evan dropped beside Anna.
“The collar.”
Anna pulled her hair away from the black band.
“There’s a release beneath the light.”
Evan examined it.
“No latch.”
“Because it’s wired internally.”
00:17
Miles lifted one shaking hand.
“Yellow wire.”
“There are three yellow wires,” Evan said.
“The one marked with black.”
00:12
Evan reached for the knife beside Miles.
Anna grabbed his wrist.
“If you cut the wrong one—”
“I know.”
00:09
Evan inserted the blade beneath the collar.
I held Anna’s shoulders.
Mom knelt behind her, whispering words I couldn’t understand.
Prayers.
Apologies.
Twenty-nine years of love spoken in seconds.
00:06
Evan found the wire.
00:05
He cut it.
The screen went dark.
No explosion came.
For one second, none of us breathed.
Then Anna tore the collar from her neck and threw it across the alley.
Dad was gone.
His vehicle remained, but the driver’s door stood open.
A trail of blood led toward the street.
“He escaped,” I said.
Evan searched the darkness.
“We have to move.”
Police sirens grew louder.
The officers who had surrounded our house would soon discover the tunnel.
Dad’s two guards were injured but alive. One had crawled behind the vehicle. The other remained on the pavement beneath Mom’s gun.
Miles was fading.
Anna pressed both hands against his wound.
“We need a hospital.”
Miles shook his head.
“No hospitals.”
“You need surgery.”
“I need time.”
“You don’t have time!”
He reached into his jacket and removed a key attached to a wooden cross.
He placed it in Anna’s hand.
“Saint Gabriel’s.”
Evan looked at him.
“The abandoned church?”
“Daniel’s room.”
Mom leaned closer.
“My brother had a room there?”
“He built a safe place beneath the chapel.”
Miles struggled to breathe.
“The memory cards will open the files. The key opens the door.”
“What files?” I asked.
“The children.”
Anna looked at him sharply.
“The seventeen?”
Miles nodded.
“They weren’t sold.”
“Where are they?”
“Everywhere.”
“What does that mean?”
“They grew up.”
His eyes moved toward the burning sky.
“Voss raised them for positions. Police. Courts. Military. Government.”
A chill ran through me.
The children Dad transported years ago had not disappeared.
They had been placed inside the institutions that were supposed to protect us.
“How do we know who they are?” Evan asked.
“Daniel knew.”
Miles coughed, and blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.
“His recording.”
Mom took his hand.
“You tried to save him?”
“I was too late.”
“Did he know Anna was alive?”
Miles nodded.
“He spent years looking for her.”
Anna closed her eyes.
“He found me?”
“He found Voss’s compound. He couldn’t get inside.”
Miles looked toward Mom.
“He never abandoned you.”
Mom began to sob.
Dad had stolen her daughter, murdered her brother, staged her son’s death, and spent years convincing her that each of them had chosen to leave.
Miles squeezed her fingers.
“Daniel loved you.”
Then his hand went limp.
Anna shook him.
“No.”
Miles’s eyes remained open, but there was nothing behind them.
“No,” she repeated.
She pressed her forehead against his.
“Wake up.”
Evan placed a hand on her shoulder.
“We have to go.”
Anna shoved him away.
“He raised me.”
Mom stared at her.
Anna continued holding Miles’s face.
“When I escaped Voss’s people, Miles found me. He hid me. He taught me how to survive.”
“He was part of the operation,” Evan said softly.
“I know.”
“He helped Dad watch us.”
“I know!”
Her scream echoed through the alley.
“He did terrible things. But he was the only person who ever came back for me.”
Mom knelt beside her.
For a moment, I wasn’t sure whether Anna would allow her to come closer.
Then Mom wrapped both arms around her.
Anna froze.
Mom held her the same way she had held Evan inside the burning house.
“I would have come for you,” she whispered. “Had I known, I would have torn the world apart looking for you.”
Anna’s face crumpled.
“I waited.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I waited for years.”
“I’m sorry.”
Anna turned into Mom’s arms and began to sob.
We left Miles beneath the alley light.
There was no time to bury him.
No time to call for help.
No time to mourn.
We took Dad’s vehicle because Evan’s car would already be known to the police.
Anna drove.
Her hands were steady despite everything that had happened.
Mom sat beside her in the front seat, watching her as though she feared Anna might disappear if she looked away.
Evan and I sat in the back with the damaged ledger and backpack of evidence.
Behind us, our neighborhood burned.
Police vehicles raced past in the opposite direction.
Anna turned off the main road and entered a series of narrow industrial streets.
“Where have you been?” Mom asked.
Anna stared ahead.
“Many places.”
“Did you know about us?”
“Not at first.”
“What did they tell you?”
“That my parents were dead.”
Dad had told all of us the same lie.
He had told Mom her children were dead.
He had told Anna her parents were dead.
He had told us Uncle Daniel had abandoned us.
Death was Dad’s favorite weapon because dead people couldn’t challenge his version of the truth.
“Who raised you?” I asked.
“Different people. Different names.”
Anna glanced at me through the mirror.
“I was Anna Voss first. Then Amelia Price. Sophie Garland. Rachel Dean. Every few years, they changed my identity.”
“Why?”
“To teach me how.”
“How to do what?”
“Disappear.”
She touched the raw skin around her neck.
“Voss raised children inside what he called the Phoenix Program. Some were orphans. Some were taken from families. Some were declared dead after accidents that never happened.”
“The seventeen children,” Evan said.
“I was the first.”
Mom gripped the edge of her seat.
“What did they do to you?”
Anna didn’t answer immediately.
“They taught us languages, surveillance, document forgery, computer systems, weapons, and how to become whatever identity was needed.”
“You were children,” Mom whispered.
“That made us easier to train.”
“Why did they need you?”
Anna looked toward the road.
“To place us near powerful people. A child adopted by the right family can grow into a police officer, a prosecutor, a campaign employee, a military analyst.”
“The missing children became operatives,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Working for Voss?”
“Most of them don’t know who they’re working for. They receive instructions through intermediaries.”
“And you escaped?”
“When I was nineteen.”
“How?”
“Miles helped me.”
That explained why she had called him Dad.
“He had delivered children to the program for years,” Anna continued. “Then he began to understand what Voss was creating. When I asked him who my real parents were, he searched the old files.”
“He found our names,” Evan said.
“He found Mom’s.”
Mom reached toward Anna.
Her fingers stopped before touching her arm.
Anna noticed.
Slowly, she moved her hand from the steering wheel and allowed Mom to hold it.
“When did you find Evan?” I asked.
“Three years ago.”
Evan looked out the window.
Anna continued.
“Miles discovered that Richard had been following a man in Colorado. He showed me a photograph.”
“You recognized him?”
“He looked like me.”
Evan gave a bitter smile.
“She followed me for six weeks before introducing herself.”
“I needed to know whether he worked for Richard.”
“How did you prove you were related?” I asked.
“DNA.”
Mom began crying again.
“You knew for three years.”
Anna glanced toward Evan.
“We wanted to come home.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Voss found us.”
Evan leaned forward.
“Not directly. One of his operatives located a safe house we were using.”
“We escaped,” Anna continued. “But after that, we understood that Richard wasn’t the only threat. Even if we exposed him, Voss could erase us through the police, courts, and media.”
“That’s why you were gathering evidence,” I said.
Anna nodded.
“The blue ledger was supposed to identify the network.”
“But Miles said it didn’t belong to Dad.”
“It belonged to Daniel first.”
Mom turned toward her.
“My brother wrote it?”
“He copied the operation’s financial records into that ledger. After Harlan killed him, Richard found it.”
“Then why didn’t Dad destroy it?” I asked.
“Because it was protection. If Voss ever turned against him, Richard planned to release the names.”
Evan opened the damaged ledger.
“Blackmail.”
“Mutual destruction,” Anna said. “Everyone in the operation keeps evidence against everyone else.”
We drove for almost twenty minutes before Saint Gabriel’s appeared.
The church had been abandoned after a fire damaged part of the roof. Weeds covered the parking lot, and wooden boards sealed the front windows.
A stone angel stood beside the entrance with one wing missing.
Anna parked behind the building.
“What about the federal agent?” I asked Evan.
He removed the prepaid phone.
“I sent her a code before we left the alley.”
“You trust her?”
“She’s the only person who responded to the documents.”
Anna looked at him.
“What’s her name?”
“Elena Ruiz.”
Anna’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
“Have you met her?”
“No.”
“Spoken by phone?”
“Once.”
“What did she sound like?”
Evan frowned.
“Why?”
“Answer me.”
“Maybe forty. Southwestern accent. Calm voice.”
Anna stared at the church.
“That could be anyone.”
“She gave me case numbers connected to Voss.”
“Case numbers can be stolen.”
“She knew about Canyon Star.”
“So do hundreds of people inside the program.”
Evan put the phone away.
“We need help.”
“We need proof first,” Anna said.
Using the wooden cross key, we entered through a side door.
The chapel smelled of ash and rainwater.
Broken pews lay beneath sections of collapsed ceiling. Moonlight entered through holes in the roof.
Mom stopped near the altar.
“Daniel used to bring me here.”
“He lived beneath it during the months before he died,” Anna said.
She moved behind the altar and found a carved wooden panel.
The key fit into a narrow opening at its center.
A hidden door opened.
Stone steps descended beneath the church.
The room below had once been used for storage.
Daniel had transformed it into a private archive.
Metal cabinets lined the walls.
Old computers sat on a long table.
Maps covered one side of the room.
Names, dates, and photographs had been connected by red thread.
At the center was a picture of Senator Malcolm Voss.
Around him were judges, police chiefs, business owners, military officers, doctors, and journalists.
Some faces I recognized from television.
Others were strangers.
All of them were connected to Project Phoenix.
Mom moved toward a small photograph pinned near the corner.
It showed Daniel standing outside a diner.
He was smiling.
“He looks older,” she whispered.
The picture had been taken only weeks before his death.
Beside it was a handwritten note.
SUSAN—IF YOU FIND THIS, I’M SORRY I COULDN’T COME HOME.
Mom removed the note carefully.
Her hands shook as she read.
Evan inserted one of the memory cards into the computer.
The screen came alive.
A password box appeared.
Anna examined the wooden cross.
Numbers had been carved into the back.
“That’s not my birthday,” Evan said.
“It’s mine,” Anna whispered.
April 17, 1997.
The date Dad had erased from our family.
She entered it.
The computer unlocked.
Hundreds of folders appeared.
PROJECT PHOENIX.
TRANSFER RECORDS.
IDENTITY REPLACEMENTS.
BLACKBIRD OPERATIVES.
DANIEL HALE—FINAL STATEMENT.
Mom pressed a hand against the screen.
“Play it.”
Evan opened the file.
Daniel appeared on the monitor.
He sat in the same underground room, looking exhausted and frightened.
He stared directly into the camera.
“My name is Daniel Hale. If anyone is watching this, Richard Bennett has probably discovered what I know.”
Mom touched the screen.
Daniel continued.
“Project Phoenix began as a witness-relocation operation outside legal government channels. Malcolm Voss claimed it was designed to protect people the official system could not.”
Anna stood completely still.
“But Voss discovered that a false identity was worth more than protection. It could hide criminals, create loyal officials, move money, influence investigations, and erase anyone who became inconvenient.”
Daniel lifted several documents.
“Richard became one of his transporters. Detective Harlan provided accident reports, death certificates, and police protection.”
He looked down.
“My niece Anna was the first child Richard gave to Voss. Susan was told the baby died. I learned the truth only after finding Anna’s original hospital bracelet inside Richard’s safe.”
Mom’s knees weakened.
I caught her arm.
Daniel’s voice shook.
“Susan, I am sorry. I should have told you sooner. I thought I could bring Anna home before breaking your heart.”
Anna turned away from the screen.
Daniel continued.
“There were seventeen more children after Anna. Their identities were erased. They were raised inside the program and placed into new families.”
A list appeared on the video.
Names and photographs.
Small children became teenagers.
Teenagers became adults.
Police officers.
Lawyers.
Campaign workers.
Military personnel.
One face belonged to a local television reporter who had covered Evan’s supposed death.
Another belonged to a forensic technician who signed the burned-body report.
“They were everywhere,” I whispered.
Daniel continued.
“Some of the Phoenix children know what they are. Others do not. Each was given a trigger phrase, a symbol, or a person they were taught to obey.”
The black bird surrounded by seventeen stars appeared on the screen.
“Voss calls them Blackbirds.”
A floorboard creaked above us.
Evan paused the recording.
Everyone fell silent.
Another creak.
Someone was inside the chapel.
Anna drew the gun she had taken from Dad’s guard.
Mom stepped behind her.
Evan turned off the computer monitor.
Footsteps crossed the broken floor above.
Then a woman’s voice called down.
“Evan?”
He looked at Anna.
The voice came again.
“It’s Agent Ruiz.”
Anna raised one finger to her lips.
Evan moved toward the stairs.
“How did you find us?”
“You activated the emergency code.”
“I didn’t send our location.”
“No, but the code told me to trace your phone.”
Anna shook her head.
Evan continued.
“Come down slowly. Keep your hands visible.”
A woman appeared at the top of the stairs.
She was tall, with dark hair pulled behind her head. She wore jeans, a black jacket, and a federal badge attached to her belt.
Her hands were raised.
“Elena Ruiz,” she said. “Department of Justice.”
She descended one step at a time.
“I came alone.”
Anna watched every movement.
Agent Ruiz reached the bottom and looked around the archive.
Her expression changed when she saw the files.
“My God.”
“You believe us now?” Evan asked.
“I believed you after the first shipment manifest.”
“Then why didn’t you approach me?”
“Because Senator Voss sits on the committee that oversees my division.”
She looked toward Mom and me.
“You must be Susan and Leah.”
“How do you know our names?” I asked.
“They’re in Evan’s messages.”
Anna kept her gun raised.
Ruiz noticed her.
“You’re Anna.”
Anna said nothing.
Ruiz lowered her hands slightly.
“I’ve read about you.”
“There are no records of me.”
“Daniel created records.”
“Where?”
“In a protected federal archive.”
Anna’s expression remained hard.
“What was the file number?”
Ruiz hesitated.
Only for a second.
But Anna saw it.
“So did I,” she said.
Ruiz lifted her hands again.
“I don’t remember every number.”
“You said you read the file.”
“I did.”
“What was Daniel’s classification?”
“Protected informant.”
“Wrong.”
Anna moved closer.
“He was never registered as an informant.”
Ruiz glanced toward Evan.
“She’s traumatized.”
Anna almost smiled.
“Richard used to say that whenever someone asked the right question.”
Ruiz’s calmness slipped.
“I risked my career coming here.”
“You came because Evan activated a code.”
“A federal emergency code.”
“No,” Anna said. “A Phoenix retrieval code.”
Evan stared at her.
“What?”
Anna kept her eyes on Ruiz.
“The sequence you sent—seven, three, black, seventeen—it isn’t federal.”
“You told me to use it,” Evan said.
“I told you it was a distress code Miles found.”
“It was,” Ruiz said quickly. “We repurposed—”
“Show me your badge.”
Ruiz reached toward her belt.
Anna raised the gun higher.
“Slowly.”
Ruiz removed the badge and tossed it onto the table.
I picked it up.
It looked real.
Anna looked at the identification number.
Then she turned it over.
A small black bird had been engraved into the metal backing.
Mom inhaled sharply.
Ruiz’s face became empty.
The warm, concerned federal agent disappeared.
Anna whispered a single word.
“Sofia.”
Ruiz looked at her.
Evan stepped between them.
“You know her?”
Anna’s gun began to shake.
“She was at the compound.”
Ruiz removed her jacket.
A pattern of old scars covered her left wrist.
Seventeen small lines surrounding a black bird.
“There were eighteen of us,” Ruiz said.
Her accent had changed.
The soft Southwestern tone vanished.
Her real voice was colder.
“You were the first, Anna. I was the seventh.”
Anna’s eyes filled with disbelief.
“I watched you die.”
“No. You watched them punish me.”
“You stopped breathing.”
“They wanted you to believe I was dead so you would never try to escape again.”
Anna lowered the gun slightly.
Ruiz smiled.
It was exactly the reaction she wanted.
She drew a weapon from behind her back.
Evan moved, but she fired first.
The bullet struck the computer beside him, showering the room with sparks.
“Drop your weapons!”
Anna aimed at her.
Ruiz aimed at Mom.
“You won’t risk her.”
The steel door at the top of the stairs slammed shut.
Locks engaged automatically.
A low mechanical hum began inside the walls.
Red lights illuminated above us.
I smelled something faint entering through the vents.
Gas.
Ruiz smiled.
“Richard said you would bring the ledger to Daniel’s archive.”
Dad had not been searching blindly.
He knew exactly where we would go.
“He sent you?” Evan asked.
“Richard is running.”
“Then who gave the order?”
Ruiz looked toward the frozen image of Senator Voss on the computer screen.
“The man who raised us.”
Anna’s face twisted.
“He tortured us.”
“He made us useful.”
“He stole our lives.”
“He gave us purpose.”
Ruiz pressed a small device attached to her wrist.
A timer appeared on the wall monitor.
04:00
Four minutes.
“What happens when the timer reaches zero?” I asked.
“The archive burns.”
Mom looked toward the cabinets.
“All the evidence?”
“Voss already has copies.”
“Then why destroy this place?”
Ruiz looked directly at Anna.
“To erase Daniel’s version of the story.”
The gas grew stronger.
My eyes began to burn.
Evan searched the walls for another exit.
Ruiz continued holding the gun on Mom.
“No one moves.”
Anna stared at her former childhood friend.
“You don’t have to do this, Sofia.”
“That name died at the compound.”
“No. They told you it did.”
“You abandoned us.”
“I escaped so I could come back.”
“You never came back.”
“I tried.”
“Not hard enough.”
The same accusation I had thrown at Evan hours earlier.
The same wound passed from one stolen child to another.
Anna lowered her weapon.
Ruiz’s expression softened.
“Kick it toward me.”
Anna placed the gun on the floor.
Then she kicked it.
The weapon slid halfway across the room.
Ruiz looked down for only a fraction of a second.
Anna rushed her.
They collided against the table.
The gun fired.
Mom pulled me to the ground.
Evan grabbed Ruiz’s wrist.
Anna struck her across the face.
Ruiz drove her knee into Evan’s stomach and threw him against a cabinet.
The timer continued.
03:12
Smoke began curling from the computer beneath Daniel’s recording.
I crawled toward Anna’s gun.
Ruiz saw me.
She kicked it away.
“Leah!”
Mom grabbed the wooden cross key and struck Ruiz’s arm.
The gun fell.
Anna caught Ruiz by the jacket and slammed her against the wall.
“Where is Voss?”
Ruiz laughed through a bleeding lip.
“Preparing for tomorrow.”
“What happens tomorrow?”
“You’ll see.”
Anna pressed her forearm against Ruiz’s throat.
“What happens?”
Ruiz looked toward me.
“Project Phoenix becomes public.”
I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
“Voss is announcing his presidential campaign.”
Evan’s face changed.
A man who controlled hidden identities, police officers, judges, military personnel, and media figures was preparing to seek the most powerful office in the country.
Ruiz continued.
“By tomorrow night, every Blackbird will be activated.”
“How many?” Anna asked.
“More than Daniel ever discovered.”
The timer reached two minutes.
Fire spread beneath the desk.
Evan pulled a metal cabinet away from the wall.
Behind it was a narrow ventilation shaft.
“Help me!”
Together, we tore the cover loose.
The opening was barely wide enough for one person.
“Mom first,” Evan said.
Mom shook her head.
“Leah.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You’re going first.”
Anna tightened her grip on Ruiz.
“Go!”
I crawled into the shaft.
Behind me, the fire grew louder.
Mom entered after me.
Evan followed.
Anna released Ruiz only when the timer reached forty seconds.
She ran toward the shaft.
Ruiz grabbed her ankle.
“You belong to us!”
Anna kicked free.
“No,” she said. “I belong to the family you stole me from.”
She entered the shaft.
Ruiz fired.
The bullet struck the metal beside Anna’s head.
Evan pulled her forward.
We crawled through darkness as flames consumed Daniel’s archive behind us.
The explosion threw us through a rusted grate at the far end.
We landed outside behind the church cemetery.
The ground shook.
Saint Gabriel’s windows burst outward.
Fire rose through the damaged roof.
Mom coughed beside me.
Evan helped Anna stand.
Ruiz did not emerge.
For several seconds, we watched the church burn.
Then a telephone began ringing.
The sound came from inside the backpack.
I opened it.
Dad’s phone was inside.
He must have slipped it into the bag during the fight in the alley.
The screen displayed a video call.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
Evan answered.
Senator Malcolm Voss appeared.
He sat inside a private aircraft.
Dad was beside him, his wounded arm wrapped in a bandage.
Voss looked directly into the camera.
He was older than in the photograph, but his expression was calm and confident.
“Anna,” he said. “It has been a long time.”
Anna took the phone.
“You’re finished.”
Voss smiled.
“On the contrary. Tomorrow is my beginning.”
“We have the ledger.”
“You have the ledger I intended you to find.”
Evan looked at Anna.
Voss continued.
“Daniel believed he uncovered Project Phoenix. He uncovered only the recruitment program.”
“What else is there?” I asked.
Voss finally looked at me.
“Leah Bennett.”
The way he said my name made my skin crawl.
“You were always the unexpected one.”
Dad looked away from the camera.
“What does that mean?” I demanded.
Voss reached for a file on the seat beside him.
He opened it.
Inside was a hospital photograph of Mom holding two newborn babies.
Evan and Anna.
Then he lifted another photograph.
Mom lay unconscious in a hospital bed several years later.
A nurse stood beside her holding a newborn child.
Me.
On the back of the photograph was a handwritten label.
INFANT 19—PLACEMENT COMPLETE.
Mom stared at the screen.
“No.”
Voss smiled.
“Richard never told you?”
Dad remained silent.
I looked at Mom.
“What is he saying?”
Her face had gone completely white.
Voss closed the file.
“Anna was the first Phoenix child.”
His eyes fixed on me.
“But she was not the last child placed inside your family.”
The call ended.
I stood in the cemetery with flames rising behind me.
Evan and Anna looked at me.
Mom covered her mouth.
Dad had stolen one daughter from her.
But according to Senator Voss, years later, he had brought another child home.
Me………………
LAST PART…
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 4…
