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The flash of Special Agent Miller’s beige trench coat finally vanished down the driveway, followed by the rumbling departure of the federal transport vans. The quiet that returned to the mountain was broken only by the steady dripping of the rain from the eaves.
We all looked at each other, our faces flushed with victory. Then a thought struck me, the first real bit of sense I’d made since this whole fiasco started.
“Jules! I need to tell her about what happened. We need to get a move on submitting the evidence.” I turned to the men. “Can I borrow one of your trucks? I’m sure once word gets out that their little clean-up crew has been apprehended, the big bosses will try to get ahead of the data breach.”
“I’m coming with you,” Nate said immediately, already pulling out his keys. I looked back at Ethan and Deacon, who were already pulling on their work gloves and grabbing crowbars to clear the mud-choked entryway.
“You guys are already back on the job?” I asked incredulously.
“You know what Nate says. We’re exceptionally thorough,” Deacon said, winking at me.
I shook my head. Ethan stepped over a broken truss to give my hand a brief, firm squeeze that carried all the warmth of his earlier confession. “Go. Make the call. We’ll start on the kitchen excavation. Send Jules our love, alright?”
I nodded, giving him a kiss straight on the lips. He grinned at me, and I stepped over to kiss Deacon too. Then I turned back to Nate. He watched us with a look of peace on his face, not an ounce of jealous tension written anywhere in his expression.
He held a hand out to me. “Ready?”
“Yeah.”
We walked hand-in-hand to his truck. The drive down the mountain trail was a slow, gritty crawl. I sat close to the center console, my boots still caked in dirt, my fingers tapping against my phone screen. We didn’t talk much on the descent. The shared adrenaline of the siege was still cooling in our veins, replaced by a protective focus.
The moment the truck crossed the old iron bridge into the valley town, my phone buzzed in my lap. The single, hollow bar of signal jumped to three solid lines of connectivity.
Nate pulled the truck off to the side of the gravel road, keeping the engine idling beneath the heavy, dripping canopy of a massive weeping willow. He shifted into park, turned his torso toward me, and rested his large forearm over the steering wheel, his dark eyes locking onto mine with quiet intensity.
“Do it,” he murmured. “Let’s finish this.”
I didn’t waste time. I pressed the speed dial.
The line rang three times before her breathless, frantic voice cut through the receiver.
“Ava? Oh my god, Ava, tell me you’re alive,” Julia gasped, her voice tight with a panic that made my chest constrict. “I saw a brief security alert loop through the executive floor last night. The grid coordinates pointed right to the lake house. Did they find you?”
“They found us, Jules,” I said, my voice steadier than I expected, though it carried the raw exhaustion of the day. “But it’s over. They launched a full siege on the cabin, and the guys... they took care of it. The police and the Feds just left. The fixers are in handcuffs.”
A relieved exhale rushed through the line, followed by what sounded like Julia sinking into an office chair. “Thank God. Nate and the others? Are they—?”
“Hey, Jules,” Nate cut in, leaning across the console so his voice was close to the phone. The hard line of his jaw softened at the sound of his sister’s voice. “I’m right here. Everyone’s in one piece. Bruised up, but we’re okay.”
“You idiot,” Julia breathed, a tear-filled laugh coloring her words. “You almost gave me a coronary. What’s the play now? If the board catches wind of the valley arrests, their high-priced corporate lawyers will have a non-disclosure operation active before lunch. They’ll buy their way out of a local sheriff’s charge.”
“Not this time,” I said fiercely, locking eyes with Nate as he gave me an encouraging nod. “Before we left the ridge, I hit send on an encrypted data drop. I bypassed the standard channels and sent the entire financial ledger, the offshore routing numbers, and the executive text logs directly to a tier-one investigative journalist I vetted. By tomorrow morning, it’s gonna be a front-page global expose.”
Julia let out a low, sharp whistle through the speaker. “A public leak on that scale will trigger an immediate Department of Justice investigation. The SEC won’t have a choice. They’ll have to slap a federal asset freeze on the firm’s accounts to protect the investors.”
“Exactly. Their dirty billions are gonna be useless by midnight,” I explained, leaning back against the passenger seat as the reality of our counter-strike settled in. “The journalist is framing it as a racketeering and corporate espionage case. The board members who authorized those fixers are looking at federal RICO indictments, not a slap on the wrist. But Jules, this means the Feds are going to raid the main headquarters next. You need to be safe.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Julia said, a fresh note of confidence in her voice that made me incredibly proud. “I already have my personal files packed. If the FBI is coming, I’m not waiting for a subpoena. I’m going straight to the local field office with a whistleblower proffer. I’ll hand over the internal memos linking the CEO directly to the security firm they hired to hunt you. That legally insulates me as a federal witness.”
Nate’s brow furrowed, his protective big brother instincts flaring up. “Jules, a whistleblower proffer means an FBI security detail. They’re going to put you on a secure line. Are they going to cut you off from us?”
“Temporary safe house, Nate. Not a permanent vanishing act,” Julia clarified quickly, her voice softening to soothe his worry. “The Feds are already setting up the security proffer for me, so I’ll be under an FBI detail until the grand jury wraps up. I can still call you and Ava, but I’ll be broadcasting from an encrypted federal line for a while. They actually want us communicating so our statements stay aligned when the DOJ freezes the assets.”
A wave of relief washed over me, the tight knot in my stomach finally beginning to unravel. “Thank you, Julia. For everything.”
“Save the thank yous for when this grand jury wraps up and I can finally drive up to the lake to see your new place,” she said, her voice bubbling with genuine warmth. “Tell Ethan and Deacon to keep holding down the fort. I’m turning into the federal building plaza right now. The company is iced, Ava. For good.”
The line went dead with a soft click. I lowered the phone to my lap, looking over at Nate. The suffocating fear that had dictated every breath for the last few months was totally gone. He reached across the console, his warm hand wrapping over mine, his thumb rubbing a comforting circle against my knuckles.
