A single gunshot cracked through the rain.
Daniel pulled me down behind the ambulance.
Another shot followed.
Then glass exploded outward.
The tactical team entered through the smoke.
For half a minute there was only noise: shouted commands, breaking wood, the hiss of fire, the pounding rain.
Martin stumbled out first, coughing. An officer dragged him behind a cruiser.
Richard appeared in the doorway behind him.
He had one hand around Martin’s collar and a pistol pressed against his ribs.
The other hand held a metal box.
The blue cabinet’s contents.
His suit was streaked with ash. Blood ran from a cut above his eye. The man who had stood over me in the helicopter was gone, replaced by someone stripped of every performance except desperation.
“Drop your weapon,” Mara ordered.
Richard looked at me.
“Tell them.”
I stepped out of the ambulance.
“Amelia,” Mara warned.
I stopped at the edge of the open door.
The rain soaked my hair within seconds.
Richard’s gaze dropped to my stomach.
For the first time, something like uncertainty passed across his face.
“That child is mine,” he said.
“The child is not property.”
“I’m the father.”
“You tried to kill the mother.”
“I lost control.”
“No. You revealed it.”
Martin sobbed beneath Richard’s arm.
“Please,” he whispered. “He’s going to kill me.”
Richard tightened his grip.
I looked at Martin.
He would never have protected me. He had signed the transfer papers, lied to the board, and told Richard where I kept my private correspondence.
But he was still a man trapped by the same person he had helped empower.
“Martin,” I said, “look at me.”
His eyes found mine.
“Tell them where the backup accounts are.”
Richard’s pistol shifted.
“You don’t get to bargain.”
Martin’s mouth trembled.
“They’re in Zurich,” he said.
Richard struck him with the gun.
The tactical team moved forward.
“Tell them everything,” I said.
Martin fell to one knee.
“Numbers ending in 4419 and 9022,” he gasped. “The shell companies are registered to his mother’s maiden name. He used the foundation to route the money. Celia knows. Celia knows all of it.”
Richard stared at him.
The shock on his face was almost childlike.
“You were supposed to be loyal.”
Martin looked up through the rain.
“You never paid me enough to die for you.”
Something inside Richard broke.
He shoved Martin away and raised the gun.
A sniper’s laser appeared on his chest.
Mara shouted, “Richard, put it down!”
Richard looked at me instead.
The metal box slipped from his hand and struck the stone steps.
The lid sprang open.
Papers scattered across the wet ground.
Among them was a photograph.
I saw it before anyone else did.
