Chapter 210: Live and Die Together
Evelyn wiped the tears from her face with a savage intensity.
She quickly dialed Bernie’s number. "Bushwick industrial district. I’ve sent you the coordinates. Bring everyone. Bring the heavy weapons. Ryan is still inside."
After hanging up, she didn't run. She wrapped the bundle of evidence in her bulletproof jacket and tucked it deep into a roadside drainage pipe. Then, she picked up a rusted steel pipe from the ground and turned back toward the burning factory.
Ryan wanted her to live, but a world without him was a world not worth living in.
The perimeter was a chaotic mess of smoke and sirens. Evelyn avoided the main gate, using the memory of the sketches in her mother’s journal to navigate toward the sewage outlet at the rear of the building. It was the other end of the secret passage—and Ryan’s only chance for an exit.
Thick smoke billowed out, the acrid scent of burning chemicals making it impossible to breathe.
"Ryan!" Evelyn screamed into the dark tunnel.
There was no answer, only the roar of flames devouring wood. Just as she prepared to dive into the black smoke, a blood-stained hand reached out from the darkness, gripping the edge of the concrete pipe.
A battered figure stumbled out. Ryan’s high-end suit was shredded and scorched. A piece of shrapnel was embedded in his left arm, and blood had turned half his body a dark, wet crimson. But his hand still gripped his empty pistol with a death grip.
"Ryan!" Evelyn dropped the pipe and lunged forward, catching his collapsing frame with her own body.
Ryan looked up with effort. Shock flickered across his soot-covered face, followed immediately by fury. "I told you to leave..." He tried to push her away, but he was too weak from blood loss. "What are you doing back here! Do you want to die!"
"Shut up!" Evelyn roared back, tears streaming down her face even as she efficiently tore a strip from her hem to tie a tourniquet above his wound. "I told you, we live or die together. Don't you dare leave me behind again."
Ryan looked at the woman before him—covered in grime, eyes fiercer than a wolf's. His forced anger vanished, replaced by a weary, profound love. He let his weight settle against her, his bloody lips curling into a weak smile. "Since you won't leave... help me out. I can't walk on my own."
Gritting her teeth, Evelyn threw his good arm over her shoulder and used every ounce of strength to drag the tall man away from the heat of the fire.
They had just reached a safe distance when several armored SUVs smashed through the fence, followed by a dozen police cruisers. Bernie leaped out of a vehicle, his face turning pale when he saw the state of his boss.
"Boss!"
"Forget about me! Lock down the site!" Ryan shoved away the medics trying to help him. "Dead or alive, don't let a single one of them escape."
Chief Connor and the SWAT teams stormed the burning ruins. The sound of gunfire lasted less than five minutes before the night fell silent again.
Half an hour later.
Ryan sat on the bumper of an ambulance, his torso wrapped in thick bandages. Evelyn sat beside him, clutching the recovered evidence bag.
Connor approached, dragging a man wearing a half-mask. It was the leader of the Twin Snakes hit squad. Both his legs were broken, and he was tossed onto the pavement like a stray dog.
"He's a tough nut. Won't say a word," Connor said, wiping blood from his hands. "But it doesn't matter. We found a mission brief on his terminal."
Connor handed a tablet to Ryan. The screen showed a nautical chart with a dashed red line cutting through the Atlantic to several key ports in South America.
"These are the overseas energy routes controlled by the Lawrence family," Ryan narrowed his eyes. "This was the goal?"
"Not just energy," the leader on the ground laughed, spitting blood. "That... that is the key to the 'New World.' Your mother died because she found out what was being moved along those routes."
Evelyn stood up abruptly, grabbing the man’s collar. "What was being moved? Speak!"
"It was..." Before the man could finish, his eyes glazed over. Black blood leaked from the corners of his mouth. He went limp.
Cyanide in the teeth. The lead was dead.
Ryan’s face darkened as he pulled Evelyn back to his side. "Easy. The dead don't talk, but the living do." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a blood-stained micro-cassette. He had grabbed it from the basement at the very last second.
"This is the backup your mother left. It was hidden in a false back in the filing cabinet."
Evelyn’s hands shook as she placed the tape into a portable player Bernie provided. The hiss of the tape filled the quiet night.
"I know I can't escape. Richard found my records. They’ve even infiltrated the family’s Council of Elders..." Madeleine’s voice was exhausted, but it held the fierce resolve of a mother.
"The route they want isn't for oil. It’s a core channel for smuggling weapons and laundering the money of the underworld. Control the route, and you control the world’s shadow economy. The key... the key to the database... I didn't destroy it. I hid it in the safest place I know."
The voice on the recording softened, becoming infinitely tender.
"It is in the iris ring. My child, it is your protection, and the blade that can destroy them all."
"The iris ring..." Evelyn looked down at her left hand.
On her finger sat a plain, antique silver ring. The pattern on the face was a blooming iris, with a tiny, unremarkable diamond set in the center. It was the only thing she had left of her mother. She had worn it since she was a child, never taking it off, not even when she was at her poorest.
"Let me see," Ryan said, taking her hand. He used a pair of fine tweezers from the first-aid kit to gently nudge the metal prongs holding the diamond.
Click.
The silver petals of the iris slowly unfurled like a lotus, revealing a microscopic line of laser-etched code.
"This is the key," Ryan said, his expression becoming grave. He immediately snapped the petals shut and pushed the ring back onto her finger, gripping her hand tight.
"No one can see this ring," Ryan whispered, his voice tense. "If they find out the key is on you, the hunt will become ten times more insane than tonight."
Evelyn felt a wave of cold dread.
"But... Camilla knows," Evelyn whispered, her face turning pale. "She’s seen it. She mocked me for wearing such a 'cheap' ring when she was trying to humiliate me. She and her father are the moles... they must have reported every detail about me to the organization!"
Ryan snapped his head toward Bernie. "Where is Camilla now?"