63. Jonah
Jonah
T he second Kade says those words—
Everyone you love dies—
Sienna goes white beside me.
Not scared.
Worse.
She believes him.
That realization hits hard enough rage flashes instantly through my chest.
Because that means this bastard has made good on threats like that before.
Probably more than once.
Probably for all the years she was locked inside Oracle.
Another explosion rattles somewhere above us.
Concrete dust drifts through the flashing red emergency lights.
Lance shifts Elizabeth against his side carefully.
“She can barely walk.”
“I can walk,” Elizabeth whispers weakly.
She immediately stumbles.
Lance catches her before she hits the floor.
“Sure you can,” he mutters.
Cal’s voice crackles sharply through comms.
“You’ve got hostiles converging fast. Twelve at least. Maybe more.”
“Route?”
“Complicated.”
That’s never a good answer.
I keep my rifle trained toward the doorway while tracking Vale from the corner of my eye.
Still calm.
Still calculating.
Still dangerous as hell.
Because Sienna’s right.
Kade may be the monster in the dark—
But Vale helped build the damn cage.
And I haven’t forgotten that.
Neither has she.
“You knew he was alive,” Sienna says suddenly.
Vale looks at her carefully.
“Yes.”
The word detonates through the room.
Sienna recoils like he physically hit her.
“You told me he was dead.”
“I thought I could stop him.”
“You used me to try.”
Pain slices across her face so fast and raw it actually makes my chest ache.
Four years.
Four years this woman has been tearing herself apart trying to destroy ORACLE—
while carrying everything these people did to her.
And Vale let her believe she was alone.
Jesus Christ.
“You don’t get to stand there and act sorry now,” she says, voice shaking harder with every word. “Elizabeth was tortured because of this.”
Vale’s jaw tightens.
“I know.”
“No—you don’t.”
The fury in her voice cracks wide open now.
Real grief underneath it.
“You have any idea what they did to her because of me?”
Elizabeth makes a weak sound behind us.
“Sienna…”
But she can’t stop now.
Years of fear and guilt are pouring out too fast.
“They took her because I wouldn’t cooperate anymore!” Sienna snaps. “They broke her because I escaped!”
“No,” Vale says quietly.
The single word cuts through the room.
Sienna freezes.
So do I.
Because something in his voice changed.
Not defensive.
Not manipulative.
Certain.
Vale looks directly at Elizabeth.
And for the first time since we breached this room—
I see genuine guilt in his eyes.
“Kade took Elizabeth because of me.”
Silence crashes down hard.
Even the alarms feel distant for one suspended second.
Sienna stares at him.
“What?”
Vale exhales slowly.
Heavy.
Like a man finally running out of lies.
“You were never the primary objective.”
Cold slides down my spine instantly.
No.
No, I really don’t think I’m going to like where this is going.
Vale glances toward the dark security camera mounted in the corner of the room.
Watching us.
Always watching.
Then back to Sienna.
“Kade already had what he wanted from you.”
My pulse spikes.
Sienna shakes her head slowly.
“No.”
“He wanted control,” Vale says. “Predictive warfare. Behavioral manipulation. Global surveillance architecture.” His face hardens. “But that wasn’t the real project.”
Elizabeth starts crying quietly behind Lance.
Tiny broken sounds.
Terrified.
“Sienna,” she whispers weakly. “Don’t listen—”
But Vale keeps talking anyway.
And somehow that’s worse.
“The real project,” he says softly, “was you.”
The room goes dead silent.
Sienna doesn’t move.
Doesn’t breathe.
Doesn’t blink.
I feel her sway slightly beside me.
Like the floor just disappeared underneath her.
“No,” she whispers.
Vale’s eyes close briefly.
“When we found you… your pattern recognition scores were beyond anything we’d ever seen. Memory retention. Cognitive processing. Neural adaptation.” His voice turns rougher. “Kade became obsessed.”
Rage burns hot through my chest.
Obsessed.
Like she wasn’t a child.
Like she wasn’t human.
Jesus Christ.
“You experimented on her,” I say coldly.
Vale looks straight at me.
“Yes.”
No denial.
No excuse.
That honesty somehow makes it worse.
Sienna stumbles backward a step.
I catch her automatically.
Her entire body is shaking now.
“You said you were helping me,” she whispers.
Vale looks wrecked for the first time.
“I believed I was.”
“No,” she says again, tears finally spilling hard down her face now. “You just found a smarter way to destroy people.”
The words hit him.
Hard.
Good.
Because he deserves every second of it.
Then suddenly—
Cal’s voice explodes through comms.
“JONAH MOVE!”
Gunfire erupts outside the doorway.
Close.
Very close.
And a body in black tactical gear lunges through the broken entrance with a rifle already raised.
Right toward Sienna.