Chapter 53
Morgan
Ruby was asleep again, curled on the couch beneath my grandmother’s old quilt. She looked younger like that—sixteen going on ten, not the sharp-eyed girl who’d just told me the one truth I’d been too afraid to say out loud.
Tell him.
The words chased me back to my desk. The laptop glowed faintly in the dark, the files still open, the breadcrumb already waiting in the code like a secret burning to be uncovered. All it would take was one keystroke to send it into Cyclone’s net.
But Ruby’s voice wouldn’t leave me. What if he finds out the wrong way? What if he doesn’t forgive you?
I pressed my palms against my eyes until stars burst behind them. Damian’s face flashed there anyway—the hard set of his jaw, the way his voice dropped when he promised, I’ll be back.
If I sent this, he’d know I hadn’t stayed out. That I hadn’t kept the promise he wanted me to keep. But if I didn’t send it… the girls trapped in this pipeline might never be found. Damian and the team might walk into the dark blind.
My hand drifted to the recorder. I thumbed the button, the red light flickering alive.
“Note: The pipeline isn’t broken. It’s one long chain—docks, industrial parks, storage farms. If they find the farmland hub, it’s not the end.
It’s the middle. If Damian’s listening to this one day…
I hope he knows I wasn’t trying to betray him.
I was trying to keep my promise in the only way I know how. ”
My throat burned as I stopped the recording. My hand hovered over the keyboard, trembling. Then I whispered into the silence:
“Please don’t hate me.”
I hit enter.
The breadcrumb vanished into the stream, carried to Cyclone’s waiting screens.
Leaning back, I let out a shaky breath, staring at Ruby’s sleeping form across the room. She’d never forgive me if this broke everything with Damian. But if it saved lives, if it saved him—then maybe that was a price I had to pay.
The recorder’s red light blinked on the desk like a heartbeat, steady and unrelenting.