Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Friday
The penitentiary infirmary was quiet—nightshift calm, the kind of stillness that made secrets feel safe. But not for Pratt, the med tech.
He stood just outside the supply closet, phone pressed to his ear, his voice barely above a whisper. “They were here,” Pratt said. “Marcel and Killian. They questioned Dr. Fields. They know about Elias. They know Charlotte Everhart visited Ward.”
A pause.
“They put it together, Monroe. Marcel’s not guessing anymore. He knows.”
The voice on the other end was calm. Too calm. “You spoke to no one else?”
“No, ma’am,” Pratt said quickly. “Just you.”
Another pause.
“Good,” Monroe said. “Thank you, Pratt.” She ended the call.
There was a beat of silence, then she pressed some buttons: “Send the order,” Monroe said. “Take Marcel.”
Somewhere in the world, Alex Marcel was already walking into a trap.
The cell tower light blinked red in the distance as Monroe stood alone in her high-rise office, the city a blurred sprawl behind her. The phone in her hand was silent now, her other hand already moving to the secure tablet on her desk.
She keyed in the authorization code with practiced ease. The order was clean, surgical: Priority Delta – Contain Marcel. No public disruption. No trace.
Across the screen, the message sent. The confirmation blinked once.
It was done.
Alex stepped out of his black SUV into a dimly lit parking garage in Pierre.
Charlotte had dropped him at his car parked at her house before heading back to Sophie’s.
The concrete echoed under his boots. He tugged his jacket tighter as he moved toward the elevator, unaware of the eyes tracking his every step.
Brad had split off three hours earlier to check in on Mara. Alex had set up a meeting with an old contact—a former militia member who owed him too many favors to say no.
The garage was silent. Too silent.
Alex paused. A feeling—sharp, instinctual—twisted in his gut. He turned just slightly, his hand brushing against the holster at his side.
A whisper of movement behind a pillar. A shadow where none should be.
“Hey, Stanton,” Alex said sharply. “You there?”
No answer.
Then—too late—he saw it: the glint of a suppressed weapon sliding up from the dark.
The first shot hit the wall beside him, a silenced pop that echoed like a cough. Alex ducked behind a support beam, drew his weapon, breath ragged.
“Not a good idea,” he muttered, scanning the shadows.
Another figure emerged from the other side, flanking him. Two.
They were coordinated. Clean. Trained.
He fired a shot. One went down hard.
But the second…
A flash of movement, a sharp strike to his ribs, the sound of his gun skidding across the concrete. A knee to his back. He hit the ground hard.
A voice, muffled behind a mask, spoke coldly in his ear, “You weren’t supposed to look this deep.”
Alex twisted, catching a glimpse of the attacker’s eyes—flat, unreadable.
Then darkness swallowed him.
The room was cold. Not just cold—clinical. Engineered. Every surface sterile, every corner too smooth to leave a mark. It wasn’t a cell. It was a container.
Alex came to slowly, the dull throb in his head pulsing with every heartbeat. Naked. His wrists were cuffed behind him, ankles bound. Metal restraints, not zip ties. Professional. This wasn’t improvisation.
His mouth was dry. Blood. A cut at the corner of his lip.
He opened one eye and squinted against the stark white light overhead. A camera in the corner blinked red constantly. The other eye was swollen. He’d fought.
They wanted him awake. His voice was hoarse. “This how you treat guests?”
No answer. Only the faint hum of electricity. The low click of a vent fan. Somewhere, something dripped, slow and deliberate.
He tested the cuffs. No give. Ankles were cinched tight. No room to kick, no leverage to stand.
They didn’t ask questions when they took him. They didn’t need to. This was about silencing.
He remembered flashes—two men, military posture, civilian clothes. Professional. The inside of a van. A needle in his neck. Then nothing.
Alex swallowed, his throat raw. Footsteps echoed beyond the door. Not hurried. Not heavy. Someone confident.
The door opened with a hiss, the kind that only came from airlocked seals. A woman stepped in. Black suit, tablet in hand, not a blonde hair out of place.
Her eyes landed on him like a scalpel. “You’re not as subtle as you think, Assistant U.S. Attorney Marcel,” she said coolly.
Alex grinned through the pain. “And you’re not as invisible as you like to believe, Director…”
“Monroe.” She gave the faintest smile. “I’m not here to debate procedures.”
“No,” he said. “You’re here to clean up.”
Monroe circled him slowly, tablet in hand. “You weren’t supposed to go to the prison. You weren’t supposed to speak to Fields. And you sure as hell weren’t supposed to start connecting Elias Ward to Charlotte Everhart.”
Alex didn’t flinch. “He’s alive.”
She stopped walking. “That depends on your definition of ‘alive.’”
He looked up at her. “What is he, Monroe? A ghost? A weapon? Or a loose end you can’t tie?”
Monroe leaned in, voice soft. “He’s something far worse than a loose end. He’s proof of how badly we miscalculated. And now that you’ve seen it too…” She tapped the tablet. The restraints tightened around his wrists with a mechanical click. “…you’re a liability.”
Alex met her eyes, steady. “So what now?” he asked. “You gonna disappear me?”
Monroe’s expression didn’t change. “Not yet.” She turned to the door. “But you’ll wish I had.”
The door hissed closed behind her, and Alex was alone again—with nothing but the hum of the lights, the burn in his muscles, and the chilling truth: This wasn’t about Elias anymore. It was about him.
Alex breathed through his nose, slow and measured. Monroe’s footsteps faded away, swallowed by the artificial silence of the place. He was sweating now—not from fear, but from the clarity that always came right before a storm. They weren’t going to kill him. Not yet. This would be worse.
He looked up at the camera, the little red eye blinking steadily in the corner like it was counting down to something.
Surveillance wasn't about monitoring—it was about control. Psychological pressure. He knew the playbook. Hell, he’d written versions of it for interrogation protocol.
But this wasn’t protocol. This was personal.
Another hiss—the door again. Two men entered. Larger, suited up in matte black tactical gear, no insignias. Anonymous. One carried a small case, silver with latches. The kind used for medical tools or field interrogation kits.
The other man spoke first, voice muffled behind a comms mic. “Orders are to keep you talking.”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “I’m chained to a chair in a government black site. You really think I’m feeling chatty?”
The first man knelt beside him and opened the case. Inside: syringes, vials, scalpels, ampoules of clear liquid, other restraints, and a few tools Alex recognized from field survival training—none of them used for survival in this context.
The second man pulled up a stool and sat directly in front of him. “You’ve been asking a lot of questions,” he said. “Ward. Everhart. Elias.”
Alex stared. “Which one bothers you the most?”
The man didn’t flinch. “The fact that you’re still asking.”
He nodded to his partner, who drew up clear liquid into a syringe.
“This is for clarity,” the seated one said. “Not pain.”
The needle went into Alex’s neck fast, sharp. Burned.
“Tell me what you know about Elias Ward.”
Alex let out a breath through clenched teeth. His mind was already spinning, not from fear—but from the drug. Fast-acting. Truth serum? Sedative? Something experimental? His vision blurred around the edges but sharpened in the center.
“What I know,” he said slowly, “is you’re all afraid of him.”
A pause.
The seated man tilted his head. “Why would we be afraid of a dead man?”
“Because you can’t control him,” Alex said, his tongue thick but his voice holding steady. “And… you know who his father is.”
Silence.
Then the seated man stood. “We’ll try again in a few hours. Once the serum settles in.”
They turned to leave, locking the door behind them. Alex slumped in the chair, sweat now beading on his forehead, his heart racing.
Whatever Monroe and her shadow unit were hiding—it wasn’t just a project gone wrong. It was a legacy they couldn’t bury.
Alex was one of the last people alive who could expose it. If he could survive long enough to get out.