Page 427 of Black Reign

I sit again.

“Give me another twenty minutes.”

Senior looks at the screens.

“For what?”

“To make sure your twenty-six-year sleeper didn't leave friends behind.”

This time when I ask for access, he gives it without arguing.

Progress.

Glinchesvsky talks the next morning.

Not to me.

Xavier won't let me near him.

We argue about that for twenty-three minutes.

I lose.

Marriage is imperfect.

The evidence does the work anyway.

Glinchesvsky had been recruited as a young intelligence asset near the end of the Soviet era, moved through networks that later became connected to Russian foreign intelligence, then embedded himself deeply enough inside Blackwell security that nobody ever questioned why the perfect protector always seemed to be exactly where he needed to be.

Papa questioned it.

Papa discovered the hidden access into ARGUS.

He created the second key to preserve evidence outside the system Glinchesvsky controlled.

Glinchesvsky revoked Papa's access.

Then arranged the boating accident.

My father died because he found the ghost hiding inside Blackwell.

For years, I blamed the building.

The name.

The family.

The wrong ghost.

I don't cry when Xavier tells me.

Not immediately.

I sit beside him in the dark room where Papa's hidden audit layer still glows across the screens.

My hands remain folded in my lap.

“So he killed him.”