Chapter 6 - The Watcher in the Mist
Back at the main estate, the rain had settled into a steady, gray deluge that blurred the boundaries between the lawns, the gardens, and the dark wall of the forest.
Adrian sat at the head of the long oak dining table, his tactical field jacket still damp, staring down at a set of intelligence printouts detailing recent maritime traffic along the northern Oregon coast.
Across the table sat Hannah, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her face pale.
"So let me get this straight," Hannah said, her voice trembling slightly with a mixture of disbelief and simmering anger. "The man who has been lurking outside my cottage for three weeks—the man who was whispering to my four-year-old son through a baby monitor—is your older brother? The one the family thought burned to death eighteen years ago?"
"Julian is alive," Adrian confirmed, his tone clipped and matter-of-fact, though his eyes revealed the internal earthquake he was desperately trying to keep contained.
"And you expect me to just accept that?" Hannah slammed her hand down on the mahogany table, making the crystal water glasses rattle. "Mr. Cross—Adrian—he’s a stranger! He’s been hiding in a wartime bunker in the woods like a wild animal! What if he’s unstable? What if he hurts Noah?"
"He won't hurt Noah," Adrian said firmly, leaning forward, resting his forearms on the table. "Julian was the one who kept me alive when we were kids. He’s the reason I survived the fire. If he’s been watching your son, it’s because he was protecting him from the real threat."
Hannah’s jaw tightened. "What real threat?"
Before Adrian could answer, the heavy double doors of the dining room swung open, and Victor Dane—Adrian’s senior enforcer and head of security—stepped inside, water dripping from the brim of his fedora.
"Boss," Victor said, nodding respectfully to Adrian before glancing warily at Hannah. "We ran the plates on that black sedan parked down by the old fish cannery road off Highway 101. It belongs to a shell corporation tied directly to Marcus Vance out of Seattle."
Adrian stood up so fast his chair screeched loudly against the hardwood floor.
"Vance," Adrian growled, the name tasting like ash in his mouth. "He’s making his move sooner than I calculated."
"It gets worse," Victor added, pulling a folded manifest from his coat pocket and handing it across the table. "One of our dock foremen down at the Astoria harbor found a wire transfer slip dropped by one of Vance’s shipping brokers. They didn't just buy off our local municipal inspectors... they bought someone on our inside staff."
Adrian took the manifest, his eyes scanning the numbers. The numbers didn't make sense—unless a secondary account was being used to funnel operational data straight out of the estate's main communications hub.
"Who?" Adrian demanded.
"We don't have a name yet," Victor said grimly. "But whoever it is, they have access to the secondary security relays. That’s how the south ridge perimeter sensors were disabled three weeks ago."
Hannah gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. "That’s... that’s why the baby monitor receiver was left in the main house that night. Someone wanted the line open."
Adrian turned to Victor with absolute, lethal stillness in his eyes.
"Lock down the estate," Adrian commanded. "Nobody in, nobody out. Double the patrols around the main house and the housekeeper's cottage. And Victor?"
May you like
"Boss?"
"Bring my brother in from the woods."
