Chapter 3 - THE PRICE OF SAVING HER BROTHER
“You are not taking my mother to that warehouse.”
Sebastian stood directly in front of Olivia, blocking the library door.
She had already grabbed her coat.
“They're going to kill Daniel.”
“Cassandra wants you frightened enough to make a mistake.”
“That's easy for you to say. Your family is standing right here.”
The words struck harder than Olivia intended.
Sebastian's expression changed, but he didn't step aside.
“My father is dead. Someone tried to murder my mother. And the woman I planned to marry just kidnapped your brother. Don't tell me what I have left.”
Olivia's anger faltered.
For a moment, they simply stared at each other.
Then her phone buzzed again.
A photograph showed Daniel's left hand resting against the chair.
Two fingers were bent awkwardly.
Olivia covered her mouth.
Sebastian noticed.
“What is it?”
“He's signing.”
“Your brother knows sign language?”
“Our father was deaf. Daniel and I learned before we could read.”
She enlarged the picture.
Daniel's fingers formed a sign that looked incomplete.
Below.
Another photograph arrived.
Daniel's hand had shifted.
Car.
Olivia frowned.
“Below the car?”
Sebastian leaned closer.
“Could he mean his repair shop?”
Olivia thought about Daniel's stubborn habit of hiding important things inside the old Buick he kept on the garage lift.
Suddenly, she understood.
“He's telling us where he left something.”
Sebastian called Grant.
“Send two trusted men to Parker Auto Repair. Search beneath the Buick on Daniel's hydraulic lift. Don't announce what you're looking for.”
Grant responded immediately.
“Yes, sir.”
Sebastian turned back to Olivia.
“You and I are going to the waterfront. My mother stays here under protection.”
“Cassandra said—”
“I heard what she said. I'm not letting her decide which innocent person dies tonight.”
Margaret, who had listened from her wheelchair, raised her hand.
Take me.
Sebastian knelt in front of her.
“No.”
My mistake.
“Mom, stop.”
Margaret's eyes filled.
I trusted Charles.
Sebastian took her hands.
“So did I.”
Olivia looked away.
That was the first time she had heard Sebastian admit his own failure without blaming someone else.
Twenty minutes later, they were driving through Seattle beneath heavy rain.
Grant followed in a second vehicle with two security officers.
Elias remained at the mansion under medical supervision and armed protection.
Olivia sat beside Sebastian, clutching her phone.
“Why would Cassandra do this?” she asked.
Sebastian kept his eyes on the road.
“Money. Control. Maybe revenge.”
“You were going to marry her.”
“Yes.”
“Did you love her?”
He was silent for a long time.
“I loved who I thought she was.”
Olivia looked out the window.
“My mother used to say the most dangerous people aren't the ones who hate you openly. They're the ones who learn exactly what you need before they hurt you.”
Sebastian glanced at her.
“She sounds wise.”
“She was.”
He noticed her use of the past tense.
“I'm sorry.”
Olivia nodded.
“She died four years ago. Daniel and I took care of Dad until he passed away the following winter.”
Sebastian softened.
“Is that why you became an interpreter?”
“Dad spent half his life watching people speak over him, as though being deaf meant he couldn't think. I wanted to make sure other people were heard.”
Sebastian remembered how Cassandra had dismissed Margaret at dinner.
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
“My mother must have been trying to tell me for months.”
“Then start listening now.”
He accepted the words without argument.
At the waterfront, the warehouse stood between two abandoned shipping buildings.
A single light burned above the loading entrance.
Sebastian stopped several hundred yards away.
Grant approached his window.
“Thermal cameras show four people inside. One appears seated. Two vehicles behind the building.”
“Cassandra?”
“Possibly.”
Sebastian looked at Olivia.
“Stay behind me.”
“No promises.”
Despite everything, he almost smiled.
They entered through a side door Grant's men had opened quietly.
The warehouse smelled of diesel fuel and wet concrete.
Daniel sat in the center of the floor, still tied to the chair.
His face was bruised.
“Danny!”
Olivia started forward.
Sebastian caught her arm.
“Wait.”
A recorded voice echoed from a speaker above them.
“Good evening, Sebastian.”
Cassandra.
“I knew you couldn't resist playing the hero.”
Sebastian scanned the rafters.
“Show yourself.”
“Not tonight. I have other arrangements.”
Daniel lifted his head.
“Liv, don't come closer!”
A red light blinked beneath his chair.
Sebastian saw it first.
“Everybody back!”
Grant moved toward Daniel, but the young man shouted again.
“There's a pressure switch!”
Sebastian froze.
The chair had been placed on a concealed platform. If Daniel stood, or if someone lifted the chair, the switch could trigger an explosive device.
Olivia felt her knees weaken.
Cassandra's voice returned.
“Your mother could have made this simple. Instead, you brought an audience.”
Sebastian spoke toward the speaker.
“Cassandra, this is between us.”
“It became everyone's business when your mother started asking about RENA.”
“Then tell me what you want.”
“I want what your father stole from mine.”
Sebastian stared upward.
“Your father?”
Cassandra laughed.
“You really never asked why Preston Whitmore lost his waterfront investments eight years ago?”
The connection hit him.
Robert Hawthorne had transferred several properties into a housing trust shortly before his death, blocking a luxury development Preston Whitmore had spent years assembling.
Cassandra's father had suffered a financial collapse afterward.
Preston later disappeared from public life.
Sebastian had believed the families were merely business acquaintances.
“You approached me because of those properties.”
“I approached you because you're predictable. A lonely man with too much power and a mother he would do anything to protect.”
Olivia felt sick.
The speaker crackled.
“Give me the original Hawthorne trust documents before nine tomorrow morning. Otherwise, Daniel stays exactly where he is.”
The recording ended.
Grant examined the platform from several feet away.
“We need the bomb squad.”
Daniel shook his head.
“She's set a timer too.”
A digital display beneath the chair showed eleven minutes.
Sebastian looked toward his security director.
“Get them here.”
Grant made the call.
Olivia moved closer to her brother.
“Danny, look at me.”
He was trembling.
“I'm sorry, Liv.”
“For what?”
“They came into the shop because I asked questions about the Hawthorne accident.”
Sebastian frowned.
“Why were you investigating it?”
Daniel swallowed.
“Three months ago, a man brought an expensive German sedan into my shop. Said he needed the brake system inspected off the books.”
Olivia went still.
“Mrs. Hawthorne's car?”
“I didn't know whose car it was. I found a cut hydraulic line and a disabled electronic warning sensor. The guy paid cash and drove away before I could report anything.”
“Who was he?” Sebastian asked.
Daniel looked directly at him.
“Your uncle.”
Sebastian closed his eyes.
Elias had lied again.
Daniel continued.
“I kept the diagnostic record. When Olivia told me who she was interpreting for, I checked the old files.”
Sebastian understood the message beneath the Buick.
“That's what you hid at the shop.”
Daniel nodded.
“And something else.”
He glanced at the blinking timer.
“Seven minutes,” Grant warned.
The bomb squad was still several minutes away.
Sebastian studied the platform. A heavy chain ran from its underside to a support beam.
“We can brace it,” he said.
Grant shook his head.
“Too dangerous.”
“Do you have another idea?”
Olivia crouched in front of Daniel.
“Remember when Dad made us practice emergency signs?”
Daniel nodded, tears sliding down his cheeks.
“He said if we couldn't speak, we could still help each other.”
She held his gaze.
“Keep signing what you see.”
Daniel carefully moved his fingers.
Wire. Left. Red.
Grant looked beneath the platform.
“Red wire on the left.”
Second switch.
Grant found it attached to the chair's rear support.
Olivia translated every movement Daniel described while Sebastian and Grant followed the bomb technician's instructions over the radio.
At forty-three seconds, the technician ordered them to stop.
“The timer and pressure switch share a trigger. Don't touch anything else.”
The display dropped to thirty seconds.
Sebastian looked at Olivia.
“Get behind the concrete wall.”
“No.”
“Olivia!”
“I'm not leaving him.”
Sebastian stared at her for one second.
Then he turned toward the chain.
“Grant, brace the platform. I'm cutting the chair loose.”
The next twenty seconds passed in a blur of metal, shouting, and Daniel's terrified breathing.
At six seconds, Sebastian lifted Daniel out of the restraints while Grant held the switch assembly motionless.
“RUN!”
They sprinted behind a concrete divider.
The explosion shook the warehouse.
A wall of heat roared overhead.
Olivia fell, dragging Daniel beneath her as debris struck the floor.
For several moments, she heard nothing but ringing.
Then Sebastian's voice reached her.
“Olivia!”
She lifted her head.
Daniel was alive.
Sebastian was kneeling beside them, his forehead bleeding.
“You're both okay,” he said.
Olivia threw her arms around her brother.
But Daniel gripped Sebastian's sleeve.
“There's something you need to see.”
From inside his torn jacket, he removed a small photograph.
It showed Margaret Hawthorne's damaged car beside a wooded road.
Standing near the open passenger door was a woman wearing a red scarf.
Sebastian stared.
“Who is she?”
Daniel looked frightened.
“That picture came from the car's diagnostic camera. It was taken seconds before the crash.”
Olivia turned the photograph over.
Someone had written a name on the back.
RUTH BELL.
Sebastian remembered Elias claiming Ruth had disappeared years earlier.
Daniel swallowed.
“There's one more thing. The woman in that picture wasn't trying to get out.”
“What was she doing?” Olivia asked.
May you like
Daniel's voice dropped.
“She was trying to stop someone from getting into your mother's car.”
