Chapter 8 - The Price of Survival
"Keeping us breathing?" I stood up slowly, my hands trembling with a fury that burned away all my fear. "You let us mourn a tombstone! You let your son grow up thinking he’d never feel his father's hand on his shoulder again, while you were running around playing soldier with federal shadow agencies!"
"You don't understand what was coming for us," David said, rising to his feet and taking a cautious step forward, holding his hands out placatingly, as if approaching a wounded animal. "Meridian didn't just want me out of the picture. They wanted leverage. If I hadn't faked my death, they would have used you and Ethan to break my clearance codes within twenty-four hours."
"That doesn't give you the right to disappear!" I snapped, tears of rage finally spilling over my lashes. "You could have told me! We could have run together!"
"If you had known the truth, you would have been a liability," Agent Vance interrupted smoothly, stepping between us to douse the rising fire. "The syndicate has eyes inside every level of domestic law enforcement. Any whisper of an alternate life would have triggered a kill order before you even reached the state line."
David looked at Vance, his jaw tightening. "The safehouse perimeter is compromised. Meridian's cleanup crew isn't working alone—they have local tactical support moving in from the north ridge. We have less than three minutes before they bring down this entire block."
"How did they find us so fast?" I demanded, crossing my arms defensively over my chest.
May you like
David pointed a finger toward the kitchen counter, where the tiny black tracking disc still rested beside Vance's digital scanner. "The tracker behind Ethan's ear. It wasn't just a GPS beacon. It was a localized quantum repeater. The moment Ethan crossed paths with that false barber this morning, it broadcasted our encrypted DNA signature directly to Meridian's orbital relay."
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