Page 38 of Wraith: Lethal Impact

He took the M4 and vanished into the tree line to scout the perimeter of the Consortium compound. He told me to keep the doors locked, my hand on the pistol, and to shoot anything that moved in the brush.

I stare into the shadows. The silence is maddening. The jungle is alive with a thousand tiny, unseen movements. The hum of insects. The slow drip of water falling from the canopy onto the metal roof of the truck. The creak of the rusted suspension shifting in the mud. Every sound is a threat. Every shadow is a mercenary stepping out of the tree line.

I need to focus and prepare myself for what happens when he returns. We're going to walk up to that concrete wall, breach a compound guarded by professional killers, and end lives to get Andrea back.

My fingers trace the cold metal of the pistol grip. The crosshatching bites into my skin, grounding me.

The pristine ballet studio in Chicago feels like a distant hallucination. The girl who worried about pirouettes, perfect posture, and curtain calls died on the floor of the Grand Solarium. The woman sitting in this truck is an accomplice to a fugitive.

I need to know the layout of the compound so I don't become a liability in the crossfire. I can't let him protect me. If he protects me, he divides his focus. If his focus divides, he dies.

I reach across the cab. The canvas duffel sits on the driver's seat, smelling of gun oil and wet canvas.

I pull the zipper back. The encrypted field pad sits on top of the spare magazines, a sleek square of matte black technology out of place in the rusted truck. He was reviewing the compound schematics before he left. The screen is still unlocked, abandoned in his rush to shift into the hunter's headspace.

I pull the pad from the bag. The glow of the monitor casts pale light over the dashboard.

A map of the compound fills the screen. I study the perimeter walls, memorize the guard towers, and trace the path from the biometric gate to the primary holding facility.

A sidebar runs down the left edge. Five callsigns, four of them with arrival times beside them. WRAITH. HAMMER. ROOK. BRONCO. CIPHER. Somebody has drawn a small mark beside HAMMER in the same hand that annotated the guard towers.

Men are coming. He didn't tell me that either.

My finger brushes the edge of the screen. The display registers the gesture.

The tactical map vanishes.

A wall of text replaces the schematics. A massive spreadsheet. Rows upon rows of financial data. Routing numbers. Offshore bank accounts. Corporate identification codes.

I stare at the green text. The characters blur for a second. It's the data the hacker pulled in the relay den. The financial trail that led us to this miserable patch of jungle.

I try to swipe back to the map. My thumb catches on a column header. The screen zooms in on a holding company registered in the Cayman Islands—the shell corporation that owns the deed to the compound sitting a half-mile away. The company that pays the guards. The company that buys the weapons.

I read the name of the primary authorized signatory listed on the corporate charter, and the air leaves my lungs in a rush.

Arthur Masters.

I blink. The green text remains.

Arthur Masters.

The glow of the screen sears the letters into my brain. The hum of the truck engine fades to a dull roar in my ears. Numbness starts in my fingertips and races up my arms to close around my throat.

It's a mistake. It has to be a mistake. There are a thousand men named Arthur Masters in the world. It's a coincidence.

I scroll down the ledger, my thumb shaking so badly I keep tapping the wrong cells. The transactions line up. Millions of dollars routed through dummy corporations in Macau, Zurich, and the Caymans. Payments for automated security systems. Payroll for private military contractors. Bribes for Bangkok police precincts.

I pull up the authorization forms attached to the wire transfers.

It's his signature.

The sharp, angular A. The looping, precise M. The same signature that signed my report cards, endorsed my tuition checks, and sealed the lease on my ballet studio.

My stomach hollows out. The world tilts. I grip the edges of the data pad, knuckles white, trying to find an anchor in a reality disintegrating around me.

He didn't work for a boring, mid-level accounting firm. The paranoia. The sudden relocations during my childhood. The locked steel briefcase in his study, the one he forbade me from ever touching. The weekends at the shooting range, standing behind me, his hands adjusting my grip, demanding I learn to clear a jam and fire under pressure.

He wasn't preparing me for a random home invasion. He was preparing me for the monsters he worked for.