Chapter 13
Beautiful Liars
Morning arrived with regret.
Sophia avoided Ryder.
Ryder gave her the space she silently demanded.
The kiss remained unspoken.
Which somehow made it impossible to forget.
Roman's call shattered the uneasy peace.
"We found Marcus."
"Alive?"
"Barely."
Ryder's expression hardened.
"Where?"
"An abandoned church outside Ashford County."
Sophia immediately grabbed her jacket.
"I'm coming."
"No."
She looked at Ryder.
"You've already tried leaving me behind once."
He closed his eyes briefly.
"You really know where to hurt me."
"I learned from the best."
By the time they reached the church, it was too late.
Marcus Hale was dying.
He had been bound to an old wooden chair inside the sanctuary.
One gunshot.
Professional.
Clean.
Designed to silence him forever.
Marcus struggled to lift his head.
"You..."
His eyes found Ryder.
"I never wanted..."
Blood filled his mouth.
Ryder knelt beside him.
"Who ordered it?"
Marcus's trembling hand searched desperately inside his jacket.
He pulled out an old photograph.
Two young boys.
One was Marcus.
The other...
Ryder.
They couldn't have been older than ten.
Sophia frowned.
"You grew up together?"
Ryder stared at the picture.
"He was like a brother."
Marcus coughed violently.
"He still..."
He looked toward Sophia.
"...isn't the enemy."
His hand slipped.
The photograph fell to the floor.
Marcus Hale died before speaking another word.
On the drive back, silence consumed the truck.
Finally Sophia spoke.
"You loved him."
"He was family."
"And he betrayed you."
Ryder kept his eyes on the road.
"I keep wondering when he stopped being my brother."
Back at headquarters, Victor, one of Black Venom's oldest founding members, waited inside the council room.
His weathered face looked unusually troubled.
"I recognized something in Marcus's files."
"What?"
Victor slowly placed another photograph on the table.
This one was older.
Much older.
It showed two families standing together.
Children laughing.
Parents smiling.
Sophia stared at the woman holding a little girl.
"My mother."
Ryder looked at the man standing beside her.
"My father."
Victor nodded.
"You weren't strangers."
"What are you saying?"
"Our families spent years together."
Sophia's pulse quickened.
"That's impossible."
"No."
Victor looked toward both of them.
"Someone erased your history."
The room fell silent.
Victor opened another file.
"Your fathers founded Black Venom together."
Neither Ryder nor Sophia spoke.
"The war between your families..."
Victor's voice grew heavy.
"...was manufactured."
Sophia stepped backward.
"No."
Ryder reached for her.
She moved away.
"Don't."
"This changes everything."
"It changes nothing."
Tears filled her eyes.
"We've been living inside someone else's lie."
Victor nodded slowly.
"And whoever built that lie..."
He looked toward the intelligence board.
"...is still alive."
Outside the council room, hidden inside an air vent, a tiny listening device transmitted every word.
Miles away, Bishop removed an earpiece and smiled.
"They finally know enough."
His lieutenant frowned.
"Should we stop them?"
"No."
Bishop looked at a framed photograph of two young boys.
One was Ryder.
The other...
A child no one had mentioned in decades.
"Let them keep digging."
His smile grew colder.
"The truth has always been my favorite weapon."
Because the most dangerous lies are never the ones enemies tell.
They're the beautiful lies spoken by the people you trusted enough to call family.