“Get in! Now!” she screamed.
As we tore away from the estate, I looked back. The house sat silent on the hill.
“Did you get it?” Julia asked, her hands shaking on the wheel.
I held up the file. “Everything. The names, the bank accounts, the proof of the Saint Helena fire. It’s all here.”
“What do we do now? Go to the police?”
I looked at the file. The first name on the list of “Helena Circle” members was the current State Governor. The second was the Chief of Police.
“No,” I said, a cold, hard clarity settling over me. “The police won’t help. Robert was right about one thing—this is about family. And it’s time I introduced the world to mine.”
I opened my laptop. The signal was back. I didn’t send the video to Julia this time. I uploaded the entire Project Phoenix folder, the recording of Robert’s confession, and the live footage of the secret vault to every major news outlet, every whistleblower site, and every social media platform simultaneously.
“We aren’t going to the police,” I told Julia. “We’re going to the hospital. I need to tell my mother that the silence is over.”
As the sun began to rise over the Connecticut skyline, my phone began to explode with notifications. The “decent gentleman” was trending. The Saint Helena Case was reopened.
I touched the scar on my neck. It no longer felt like a brand. It felt like a badge of war.
Robert thought he had spent twenty years grooming a victim. He didn’t realize he had spent twenty years training his replacement.
The vault was open. But the secrets inside weren’t his anymore. They were mine.
