But an empire like this didn’t rise by one man’s hands alone. Who else had helped make Eleanor’s child vanish with her?
***
Jack sat in the passenger seat of Agent Chen’s unmarked SUV as they pulled away from First National Bank, the flashing lights of emergency vehicles painting the afternoon in fractured streaks of red and blue.
He turned in his seat as far as his injured shoulder would allow and watched through the rear window as bomb technicians in heavy protective gear disappeared back into the building Annie had saved from destruction. The bank looked deceptively unchanged from the outside—brick walls still standing, windows reflecting sunlight, the flag over the entrance still stirring in the breeze. No one passing on the sidewalk would guess how close it had come to becoming a grave.
His shoulder throbbed with every movement, a deep, grinding pain that reminded him of just how close he had come to being another casualty in a long line of people who had crossed the Mitchell family. The earlier gunshot wound hadbeen bad enough. The fight with Sarah Mitchell had reopened it, twisted it, pushed it past what the doctors would have ever approved. He was almost certainly looking at surgery and months of physical therapy.
But he was alive.
Annie was alive.
And Eleanor Blackwood’s voice—nearly erased, nearly silenced forever—had finally been heard.
Jack let his head rest briefly against the seatback, closing his eyes as the adrenaline drained from his system, leaving exhaustion in its wake. For the first time since the break-in at Annie’s shop, since Uncle Eric had been found bleeding on the kitchen floor, since fire and bullets and pursuit had become their daily reality, there was nothing he needed to react to. No immediate threat. No decision that had to be made in seconds.
Only the long, slow reckoning that followed survival.
“Any word from EOD?” he asked quietly, opening his eyes again.
Agent Chen glanced at him from the driver’s seat before returning her attention to the road. “They’ve confirmed multiple charges throughout the lower and main levels. Military-grade components, remote triggers, redundant systems. Whoever built them knew exactly what they were doing. If Annie hadn’t found that override…” She shook her head once. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Jack turned, looking back at Annie.
She sat in the rear seat, her knees drawn slightly inward, both hands resting over the leather portfolio that held Eleanor’s evidence. The adrenaline had left her too, and the color had drained from her face, but there was a steadiness to her posture that hadn’t been there before. Not shock. Not fragility. Resolve. The kind that came after walking straight into terror and refusing to let it win.
She caught him watching her and gave a small, tired smile.
It hit him then—harder than any bullet ever could—that he had almost lost her. Not in some abstract, distant way, but in the most immediate sense possible. He had stood in that lobby believing he was about to watch the building collapse with her still inside. He had accepted that. Had made peace with it in the only way he knew how: by deciding that if she was going to die, he would die first.
The realization left him cold.
“What happens now?” Annie asked, breaking the silence. “With the evidence. With Sarah Mitchell. With all of it.”
Agent Chen exhaled slowly. “Now we build the case. A real one. Not just against Sarah Mitchell, but against the entire structure that’s protected her family for decades. Eleanor’s ledgers alone give us a financial trail that spans nearly a century. Money laundering, shell companies, bribery, contract killings. We’ll be opening federal investigations in at least three states by morning.”
Jack watched the road slide past the windshield, small towns and side streets blurring together. “And her people?”
“Already being picked up. Raids are underway at multiple locations. Safe houses. Business fronts. Storage facilities. The hospital assault and the bank attack gave us probable cause to move fast.”
Annie shifted slightly, her fingers tightening around the portfolio. “And Thomas.”
The name hung between them.
Thomas Blackwood Jr. A child who should have grown up heir to a family legacy. A child whose existence had been erased so completely that even Eleanor’s own descendants hadn’t known he’d lived.
“Finding him—or his descendants—is going to be difficult,” Agent Chen said carefully. “Birth records from that eraare inconsistent. Adoption registries were private, often manipulated. And if Richard Mitchell arranged for the child to disappear…”
“…then he made sure there was no trail,” Annie finished.
Jack nodded. “But Eleanor planned for that too. She preserved what she could. Names. Doctors. Financial anomalies. It’s not nothing.”
“No,” Agent Chen agreed. “It’s not.”
Jack leaned back, the motion pulling a tight breath from his chest. “If Thomas survived… if he had a family… we’re talking about people who’ve lived their entire lives without knowing who they were. Without knowing what was taken from them.”
“And if he didn’t survive,” Annie said softly, “then at least the truth will finally be known. No more erased children. No more lies.”
