Chapter 11 - THE CHOICEI wanted to believe Julian was bluffing.
Then the photograph updated.
A second picture appeared.
Mason’s blood bag.
Disconnected.
Another message:
YOU HAVE ONE HOUR.
Mason read it.
“No.”
“No what?”
“I’m not letting you choose.”
“I’m not choosing.”
“We destroy the ledger.”
Agent Blake shook her head.
“If the ledger contains financial evidence, destroying it could destroy the investigation.”
Mason looked at me.
“They want the ledger more than they want us.”
Victor spoke quietly.
“They want Valerie.”
Everyone turned.
He pointed to the final page.
“The ledger is a succession document.”
“What does that mean?”
“The organization believes power can only transfer through blood.”
I stared at him.
“They think I have to choose.”
“They need you to believe that.”
That sentence changed everything.
I looked at the page again.
The wording was too theatrical.
Too deliberate.
It felt like a test.
“Julian said only I could read page 119.”
Mason nodded.
“And you can.”
“Exactly.”
I turned the page.
There was another layer.
A second message.
HIDDEN UNDER THE FALSE CHOICE.
I stared.
Then the letters shifted.
DO NOT TRUST THE POLICE.
Agent Blake raised an eyebrow.
“Interesting.”
Mason asked:
“Who wrote that?”
My mother stepped forward.
“I did.”
I looked at her.
“You knew?”
“I helped create the ledger.”
She confessed that our father had built the entire system as bait.
The criminal organization believed it was a financial weapon.
But the ledger was actually a map.
A map to every hidden account.
Every shell company.
Every corrupted official.
And most importantly...
Every person still alive.
Agent Blake looked at the pages.
“We can take them all down.”
My mother shook her head.
“Not from here.”
“Why?”
“Because the ledger is incomplete.”
“What is missing?”
“Page 120.”
I looked at Julian’s messages.
One hour.
Choose.
I suddenly understood.
The missing page wasn’t with Julian.
It was with someone else.
“Where is page 120?”
My mother looked at Mason.
“You have it.”
Mason went still.
“No.”
“Look inside your rescue cutter.”
He opened it.
A tiny folded sheet fell out.
He unfolded it.
Page 120.
There was only one sentence.
THE PERSON YOU TRUST MOST IS THE ONE WHO STARTED EVERYTHING.
Mason stared at me.
I stared at him.
Then Agent Blake’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her face drained of color.
“What happened?”
“Your team at Sterling just went silent,” the caller said.
“Send another unit.”
“We tried.”
“Why?”
A pause.
“Because the entire building has been taken over.”
By whom?
May you like
The answer came softly.
“Chloe.”
