51. Mya
51
“Not identical, but she’s your twin. Her name is Adelina. She moved to the U.S. for college, and she’s been living in the States ever since.” His words pounded through me. That was it. The knockout punch, and I went down.
Oliver dropped next to me as I crumpled like a piece of paper, balled up and ready to be thrown out.
Panic set in. Quick breaths. Gasping for air as I wrapped my arms around my knees, trying not to faint as I finally saw the complete puzzle of my life. The final piece was in place.
Not just taken from my parents, I’d been separated from my twin.
I truly believed twins were linked in a special way. I’d spent thirty years of my life without my family, deprived of the bond that my subconscious knew was out there. That I’d been constantly searching for . . .
“I know you hate me, and I’m so sorry, but I promise I’ll make this right. I’ve only ever tried to protect you, knowing I’d tell you the truth once the time was right to take down The Collective.”
I slowly lifted my head, barely able to see through the haze of my tears as he removed the ring from his finger.
“Get this to your people.” He held the ring up, the cuffs clinking against the table in the process, the sound jarring in the small room, but cutting through more of my daze. “Snap this apart, and inside you’ll find a small microchip.” He rattled off a nine-digit encryption code next. “There’s over a hundred and fifty names on the file. High-level people who work with or for them. There are now ten families left in The Collective since you wiped out the Sorens, and they’ve yet to replace the last family recently taken down before that. But there’s never more than twelve at a time.”
“Like the hands on a clock,” I murmured, unsure where that foggy thought came from. “You’re not part of the twelve?”
“No, my family has been linked to them since the very beginning but doesn’t sit at the table,” he explained.
And Meryl wanted that. Ugh.
“The Collective doesn’t know I have this intel on them, but they’ll try and stop you from getting to something else,” he went on, his tone grave and serious.
I freed my knees and shifted back to rest on my heels as Oliver rubbed my back, continuing to remain a quiet, steady presence. I knew he’d decided to let me handle this my way instead of hijacking the conversation with warnings or threats. I appreciated that.
“The ring. Will you take it from him?” I asked Oliver while looking at him. “It’s okay, you can leave my side for a second,” I added at the sign of his hesitancy.
“What do you do for them?” I finally asked as Oliver stood to retrieve the ring.
I’d circle back to the fact I was kidnapped later. We had a world of families to save from evil, not just mine.
“The Collective has been around for hundreds of years, and they’ve gone relatively unnoticed by others, untouchable until your people came after them.” A hint of a smile, as if impressed or proud, ghosted his lips. “It wasn’t until recently they started taking out their own families, claiming it was to protect what they considered to be the greater good of both the organization as well as the world.”
His shoulders slumped, the pride fleeting, more than likely as his own role in all of this began sinking in.
“My family has been in charge of protecting any tangible objects they don’t want to be destroyed. While the Sorens have historically handled messaging for the group, my family has been in charge of simply protecting their organization’s history. The artifacts.”
AKA our evidence.
“You could consider us the Vatican Archives of The Collective.” He met my eyes and started sharing more details at rapid speed. “The vault is in Lake Como. It requires two people to access it. Myself and another member of The Collective. The code to unlock it changes with each visit, and the second person who shows up with me to unlock it each time is picked at random from one of the other families. I never know who is selected, or what the code will be, until I arrive. I only visit when called upon to store something.”
“Like the nuclear football,” Oliver mumbled, speaking for the first time as he sat back alongside me. “Will they destroy this vault now that your family has been compromised?”
“I was told by that blonde woman,” he said, presumably referring to Jessica, “that the President is hoping word gets out I was killed on the island, along with Meryl. I don’t think The Collective will take any chances, and they’re probably already voting to destroy the vault to protect themselves,” he explained steadily, his tears now gone. “If you try and crack the safe, assuming you can get there before they do, it’ll self-destruct. You’ll need the best of the best out there if you have a chance of accessing it. I can’t help you on my own, or I would.”
“A safecracker. The best of the best,” Oliver said under his breath as if he had an idea. I was too keyed in on Tony to play catch-up with his thoughts and figure out who he was considering.
“You should hurry.” Tony lifted his chin, reminding us of the limited time we had. “They won’t have time to empty it, but they have the means and incentive to issue a drone strike and blow up the vault if they believe your people will get there before they do. Just like they did with the help of someone tonight on that island.”
The French naval vessel. Right.
“That file I gave you also has details on the people they’ll contact from Italian Intelligence for an assist to take out the vault. If you hurry, you can stop them before they have a chance to do that.”
“Go,” I told Oliver, realizing we had no time to spare. “I’ll be okay. Please. Have it checked out, then come back.” I set my hand on his forearm, gently squeezing.
His brows drew together, then he stood tall as I scooched over on the floor to get away from the door, not ready to test my legs out yet. “If you try anything,” was all he threatened to Tony, and it was all he needed to say.
Once he left, I pivoted around to peer at the man who’d raised me as his daughter. The pieces were now all coming together. The frequent trips to Lake Como. The hypnotist in middle school suppressing my nightmares so the truth didn’t come out. The fact he hadn’t wanted me to become an investigative journalist, probably worried I’d stumbled upon the truth one day.
I had a million questions to ask him, and I had no clue where to start, or if I even should. We finally had a list of the world’s worst people at our fingertips, and we were so close to completing a mission that had felt impossible from the start.
But it is possible, because it’s going to happen. We’re going to end this war with them. And Michael will be okay. I had to stay positive. I had to get through this and find my family. My real family.
“Why?” I sniffled, setting my palm to the floor to ready myself for an attempt to push up and stand. “Why did you not want to continue working for them after generations of your family did?”
He angled his head, eyes to the floor again in that same reflective way. “I never liked that the choice wasn’t mine to make. That’s how it started, at least. The intentions and misguided musings of a rebellious nineteen-year-old, you could say.” He lifted one shoulder, lowering his cuffed hands to his lap. “But the more I got to thinking about it, the more I understood what they were doing wasn’t for the greater good. It was for their greater good. They were taking people’s free will to line their pockets and maximize their power. Not just billionaire families with trust funds, but in the past, royal families.”
Not a shocker on that last part.
“I went into law because my parents told me to, but when I became a judge and saw the system failing so many, knowing so much of what was going on had to do with The Collective and their manipulation of events and people’s free will, I decided enough was enough. It had to end with me. No more generations. No more Collective.”
His tone was firm that time. Conviction thick in his voice. I wanted to rally around what he was saying and support the fact he was after the same enemy as me. But the way in which he got there still had my stomach revolting.
“Do you ever think you can one day forgive me?”
I slowly stood, sliding my palm up the concrete wall for an assist. “Maybe I would have one day, if you’ve really been doing what you’ve said. Never her, though.”
“But?” he whispered, eyes narrowed, waiting to be disappointed.
“But you should have told me sooner. You did have a choice, and you made the wrong one.” I swallowed. “You didn’t stop Meryl from her plans with Steve, and Oliver and my friends could’ve been killed. Saving me doesn’t change the fact you didn’t try and save them. And for that, I can’t ever?—”
“But I did save your friends,” he interrupted, eyes widening now as if confused. “I thought I told you on the yacht.” He lifted his chin, zeroing in on the ceiling as if the answers were there. “The drugs were still in my system, though, maybe I didn’t tell you.”
“Tell me what?” I walked over to the table and held the back of the metal chair opposite him.
“I have to assume by now you know Alyssa Soren was trying to save her children and stop her husband as well, and I know this because I was working with her. She’s how I learned about what happened in Thailand. I had to act like I didn’t know when Stef Soren told me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The hacker who has been warning you ever since Singapore . . . he works for me,” he said steadily. “Alyssa has been relaying information she learned from her husband to me through him for over a year. I also had her keep an eye on anything relating to you once you started at FYVM. But Sylvester didn’t tell her his plans with you. She didn’t know you were in danger until you were on that plane to Singapore. Once she found out, she let me know they planned to take down the jet.”
“You’ve been saving me? Us?” I couldn’t get the words out. Was he serious?
He nodded. “I’m obviously not a cyber expert, but a man I trust has been sending you messages on my behalf. When I learned you were hunting The Collective, I knew you’d eventually figure everything out. It’s what you do. Put the puzzle together. Use the clues you have.” He tipped his head, eyes watery again. “In the meantime, I couldn’t show my hand, especially not to Meryl. No one could know I was behind keeping your entire team alive.”
“You’re why we escaped in Canada,” I whispered in understanding. And the times before. I closed my eyes, trying to wrap my head around it all. I’d convinced myself both he and Meryl were dead to me going forward, but now . . . “Why not a heads-up about the two attacks made against me on my way to Europe a few days ago?”
He scrunched his brow, leaning back in his seat. “I didn’t know about that, which means Alyssa didn’t know.”
Fair point. Sly Soren hadn’t brought Alyssa with him to Zurich, and he’d have no reason to casually mention his plans to her over a call.
“Why’d Sly try and throw your family under the bus? Are you aware of that?” That was our assumption about one reason why Sly had set me up on the pigeon trail in the first place back in Thailand, at least.
“Alyssa said Sylvester believed our family’s role in the organization was unnecessary. He wanted to cut us out, and let the Sorens handle the vault. The only reason he didn’t convince the others was because The Collective values traditions. Sticklers for their rules.” He cursed under his breath, hanging his head. “I’m so sorry. For everything.”
“This is a lot to take in.” Like a lot a lot. “Until I know our teammate is okay, and that your file checks out, I really can’t think beyond that.”
And it wasn’t like POTUS could just go round up powerful people around the world because their name was on a list. We’d need more to go on. The evidence from the vault in Lake Como would help.
I’d also have to stay off-the-grid until this was over, which may mean postponing finding my family. My sister. God, I have a twin.
“Anything else you need to get off your chest while we’re at this?”
He looked up at me. “I think we’ve about covered it, but the man who’s been helping me has more intel that’ll expedite the process of taking down the group. That intel is thanks to Alyssa Soren.”
“How’d you two decide to work together? Know to trust each other?” I couldn’t leave a puzzle unfinished, even if I was short-circuiting from everything I’d already had to absorb. “Don’t tell me you two had an affair, and this was a between-the-sheets kind of conversation that just happened to come up.”
He closed one eye, and I dropped my head back on a long sigh. Yep, guilty-as-charged.
“I can’t even be mad, knowing my mother . . .” I winced. “I mean, Meryl, is a monster.” I was still stunned, too shocked to truly accept what she’d done.
“Who’s the hacker?”
“He’ll come to you, trust me. Well, I believe he usually reaches out to that younger girl on your team. The one with cyber skills as well?” He arched his brow. “Gwen, right?”
I nodded my acceptance, not needing to push for more yet. There was plenty of “more” all around us to still grasp.
“A lot of powerful women in this group of yours,” I shared my thoughts out loud, thinking back to those tied to The Collective we’d taken down previously. “Elected officials, too?”
“A foreign president. Prime minister, yes.”
How in the hell would we take down these people? Even with whatever we recovered from the vault?
The door opened a moment later, and Oliver re-entered the room. “The file was legit,” he confirmed.
He slipped his hand around my waist, securing me against his side. “The list is comprehensive, and there were a few names on there I wasn’t surprised to see. Some a bit more unsettling than others. They’ll be a little tougher to throw in prison.”
What about Mason’s dad? Back in Canada, I had wondered if Meryl had pushed for a marriage with Mason because his parents were in The Collective, and now I was about to find out.
He shook his head no. Always able to read my thoughts.
Thank God. I knew Mason and Connor would be relieved to hear that news.
“How do we take down leaders of other countries, though? I’ll be shocked if the CIA gets back into the business of coups for the sake of our mission. Not that they probably ever got out of it,” I grumbled.
But wait . . . I stepped back as the pieces clicked, and I reached for my lips, finding a slight smile parked there. “That’s it. I know how we take them down. And they’ll be too busy dealing with the fallout to come after us for revenge. Heck, regardless, we’ll be breaking that wheel of theirs, so they won’t be able to operate the way they did in the past.”
I took a second to build the case up in my head first before I shared my thoughts, swiveling back around to peer at the judge, at the man who’d raised me. He’d passed on a few traits to me despite not being my blood. And I was fairly certain he was on the same page with my current thought process as well.
I shared a quote with them, one I’d said to Oliver before. “‘Journalism is the protection between the people and any sort of totalitarian rule.’ We use the media how it was always meant to be used, not the way The Collective weaponized it. We expose them. All of them. I write the story. Tell the world everything. The President outed their existence in his speech last November, but we now have their identities. And soon, we’ll have evidence tying them to everything. Their house of cards will fall when people learn the truth.”
“And they can vote them out on their election days, or stop buying their products and crash their stock,” Tony said as his eyes narrowed on me, his pride evident there. “The will of the people if they unify is a force that not even The Collective can stop. Let the people be The Collective’s judge, jury, and executioner.” He nodded a few times. “That’s brilliant.”
Oliver gathered me in his arms. “Fuck, you’re so amazing,” he murmured into my ear so only I would hear.
“We’ve always held the power, haven’t we?” I lifted my chin to find his eyes, not caring we weren’t alone. “We just have to come together to fight back for what we believe in, for what’s right.”