Chapter 44
The gun barrel pressed against my ribs was shaking, and that was worse than if it had been steady.
Whitmore's breathing came in short, sharp bursts that fogged the SUV's window. Outside, Daniel's shout cut off mid-word, followed by the wet thud of fist meeting flesh. My grandmother's jade bracelet dug into my wrist as I gripped the door handle.
"Don't," Whitmore said. The gun barrel jabbed harder. "Don't even think about it."
"You're scared." The words came out before I could stop them. "You're terrified."
"Shut up."
Another impact sound. Daniel didn't make noise this time. My nails found the crescents they'd carved into my palms earlier and pressed deeper.
"Who took him?" I asked. "Who are you more afraid of than Richard Ashford?"
Whitmore's jaw worked. The gun trembled against my ribs, and I realized with a sick lurch that he might pull the trigger by accident, that fear made people do stupid things, that I was going to die in an SUV that still smelled like new leather and Daniel's cologne.
"Someone who's been waiting a long time," Whitmore finally said. His eyes tracked movement outside the tinted windows. "Someone who makes Richard look like a fucking amateur."
The passenger door opened.
I lunged for it, but Whitmore grabbed my hair, yanking me back hard enough that my vision sparked. The gun barrel found my temple. Cold metal. Steady now. Worse.
"Nora Chen." The voice came from outside, male, unfamiliar. "Step out of the vehicle. Slowly."
"She's not going anywhere," Whitmore said, but his voice cracked on the last word.
"You have three seconds to remove that gun from her head, or I put a bullet through the windshield and into yours. One."
Whitmore's hand tightened in my hair.
"Two."
"Jesus Christ," Whitmore whispered. The gun left my temple. "Okay. Okay, she's yours."
The pressure on my scalp released. I stumbled out of the SUV onto cracked asphalt that sparkled with broken glass. The industrial area stretched around us, all rusted loading docks and buildings with shattered windows. A single overhead light buzzed and flickered, casting everything in sickly yellow.
Daniel was on his knees ten feet away, blood streaming from his nose. Two men in black tactical gear flanked him, but they weren't looking at him. They were looking at the man who'd spoken.
He stood under the flickering light like he'd been waiting there for years.
Marcus Kim looked nothing like his sister.
I'd seen Sarah's photo in the leaked documents—soft features, round face, the kind of smile that made you want to smile back. Marcus was all sharp angles and cold calculation. Tall, lean, dressed in a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my monthly rent. Wire-rimmed glasses caught the overhead light.
"You don't know who I am," he said. Not a question.
I shook my head. My legs felt like they might give out.
"Sarah Kim was my sister." He said it the way someone might say they worked in accounting. Flat. Factual. "Six years ago, Daniel Park killed her. The Ashford family paid my parents two million dollars to stay quiet. They took the money. I didn't."
Daniel lifted his head. Blood dripped from his chin onto the asphalt. "Marcus."
"Don't." Marcus's voice didn't rise, but Daniel flinched like he'd been struck. "You don't get to say my name. Not yet."
"Let her go," Daniel said. "This is between us."
"Is it?" Marcus pulled out his phone, tapped the screen. "Because from where I'm standing, Miss Chen has been remarkably involved. Defending you. Protecting you. Even after she knew what you'd done."
"I didn't—" I started.
"You tried to stop the upload." Marcus turned the phone toward me. The screen showed security footage of me in Richard's office, my hand on the laptop. "You saw the evidence. The death certificate. The coroner's financial records. The witness statements. And you still tried to save him."
My mouth went dry. "How did you—"
"I've had cameras in Richard Ashford's office for three years." Marcus pocketed the phone. "I've been watching. Waiting. Building my case. Making sure that when the truth came out, there would be no way for them to bury it again."
"You leaked the documents," I said. "You're Morrison's partner."
"Morrison was a useful idiot who thought he was investigating corporate fraud." Marcus's smile didn't reach his eyes. "I fed him just enough to keep him digging. When Richard kidnapped him, I knew it was time to move. The FBI raid on Park Industries started twenty minutes ago. Richard Ashford is in custody. His lawyers are scrambling. And you two—" He gestured at Daniel and me. "—are going to give me what I really want."
The overhead light flickered. One of the tactical guys shifted his weight. Daniel's blood pooled on the asphalt, black in the yellow light.
"What do you want?" My voice came out steadier than I felt.
"The truth." Marcus pulled a small camera from his jacket pocket, set it on a rusted oil drum. The red recording light blinked on. "Daniel Park is going to confess. Everything. The real story of what happened the night my sister died. And you're going to make sure he doesn't lie."
"I don't understand," I said.
"You will." Marcus walked to Daniel, crouched down to eye level. "Tell her what really happened. Not the sanitized version in the documents. Not the story Richard's lawyers crafted. The truth."
Daniel's eyes met mine. Something in his expression made my stomach drop.
"And if I don't?" he asked.
Marcus stood, pulled a gun from his waistband, and pressed it against my forehead in one smooth motion.
"Then I kill her," he said. "And I make you watch."
The gun barrel was cold against my skin.
I'd never had a gun pointed at me before today. Now it was twice in ten minutes. Some part of my brain wanted to laugh at the absurdity, but the rest of me was too busy trying not to throw up.
"Okay," Daniel said. His voice was rough, damaged. "Okay, I'll tell you. Just—put the gun down."
"No." Marcus didn't move. "You'll tell the truth because her life depends on it. That's the only way I know you won't lie."
"Marcus, please—"
"Start talking."
Daniel's hands were shaking. Blood dripped from his nose, his lip, somewhere in his hairline I couldn't see. He looked at me, and I saw something I'd never seen before in his face.
Terror.
Not for himself. For me.
"Six years ago," he started, "I was twenty-three. Fresh out of business school. My uncle wanted me to learn the family business from the ground up, so he put me in charge of a development project in Queens. Low-income housing that we were converting to luxury condos."
"I know all this," Marcus said. "Get to the night she died."
"Sarah was one of the tenants." Daniel's voice cracked. "She was fighting the eviction. She'd organized the other residents, hired a lawyer, filed complaints with the city. She was—she was winning."
The gun barrel pressed harder against my forehead. I couldn't breathe.
"Richard told me to handle it," Daniel continued. "He said, 'Make the problem go away.' I thought he meant—I don't know what I thought he meant. Pay her off. Threaten her with legal action. Something corporate. Something clean."
"But that's not what happened," Marcus said.
"No." Daniel closed his eyes. "I went to her apartment. March fifteenth. I'd been drinking. Not drunk, but—enough that I shouldn't have been driving. Enough that my judgment was shit. I knocked on her door. She answered. We argued."
My heart was hammering so hard I could feel it in my teeth.
"She told me she'd go to the press," Daniel said. "She had documents proving we'd bribed city inspectors. She said she'd destroy my family. I—I grabbed her. Just her arm. I was trying to—I don't even know. Intimidate her. Stop her from leaving. She pulled away. Lost her balance. Fell."
"Fell," Marcus repeated. The word was ice.
"Down the stairs." Daniel's voice dropped to barely a whisper. "She hit her head on the landing. I called 911. I tried to help her. But by the time the ambulance arrived—"
"She was dead." Marcus's hand was steady on the gun. "And then what?"
"Richard showed up before the police. I don't know how he knew. He had people with him. Lawyers. Fixers. They—they moved her body. Staged it to look like a car accident. Paid off the coroner. Paid off her family. Made it all disappear."
The overhead light buzzed. A siren wailed somewhere in the distance, getting closer.
"That's the story in the documents," Marcus said. "That's what Richard's lawyers crafted. That's the lie you've been telling yourself for six years. Now tell her the truth."
Daniel's eyes opened. He looked at me, and I saw something break in his face.
"I didn't grab her arm," he said. "I pushed her."
The world tilted.
"I was angry," Daniel continued. "She was threatening everything. My family. My future. I pushed her. Hard. She went backward down the stairs. I watched her fall. I watched her head hit the landing. I watched her die. And then I called Richard, not 911. I called my uncle and I said, 'I need you to make this go away.'"
My knees buckled. One of the tactical guys caught me before I hit the ground.
"That's not—" I started, but my voice wouldn't work properly. "The documents said—"
"The documents said what Richard wanted them to say." Marcus finally lowered the gun. "The death certificate was falsified. The coroner was bribed. But the witness statements were real. Mrs. Chen from 3B heard arguing. Mr. Rodriguez from 2A heard someone say, 'You're going to regret this.' The building super saw Daniel leave twenty minutes before the ambulance arrived. All of that was real. Richard just buried it."
Daniel was crying now. Silent tears mixing with blood on his face.
"Why?" I asked. The word came out broken. "Why tell me you grabbed her? Why not just—"
"Because I'm a coward." Daniel's voice was hollow. "Because 'I grabbed her and she fell' sounds like an accident. 'I pushed her' sounds like murder. Because I've been lying to myself for so long that I almost believed it."
The sirens were getting louder. Multiple vehicles, coming fast.
"Sarah Kim didn't die in an accident," Daniel said. He was looking at the camera now, not at me. "She—"
Marcus's phone rang.
He pulled it out, glanced at the screen. His expression didn't change, but the balance tipped in his posture. He turned the phone toward us.
The screen read: FBI RAID - PARK INDUSTRIES.
Below it, a news alert: BREAKING: Federal agents storm Park Industries headquarters. Multiple arrests. CEO Richard Ashford in custody.
The sirens were close now. Close enough that I could see red and blue lights reflecting off the broken windows of the surrounding buildings.
Marcus looked at Daniel, then at me, then back at his phone.
"Well," he said. "This just got complicated."
The first FBI vehicle rounded the corner, tires screaming on wet asphalt, and Marcus raised his gun again, but this time he wasn't pointing it at me.