Chapter 69 HALF THE TRUTH
Lea ran, branches snapping under her feet, lungs burning, heart pounding like war drums in her chest. The night air slapped against her face, cold and sharp, but she hardly felt it, all she heard was gunfire behind them.
Billy’s gun.
Billy taking the fight alone.
Billy buying them seconds with his blood.
George pulled her deeper into the trees, hand locked around hers with a grip like iron. He didn’t speak, didn’t have to. Every step was a command. Every breath: stay alive.
The forest swallowed the tunnel entrance behind them until the only thing left was sound, distant, ragged gunfire, then shouting, then silence too quick and too final.
Lea stumbled. “George”
“Don’t stop.” His voice was low, fierce, ragged. “If you stop, he died for nothing.”
The words hit her like a blade.
Billy was back there. Alone. Fighting men who would shoot first and never ask questions. And she, she was running.
“George,” she whispered, voice breaking, “we can’t just leave him.”
“He chose it.” George didn’t slow. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”
“But he’ll die!” she said, voice splintering in her throat.
George finally turned, grabbing her shoulders. His breath came in clouds, his eyes burning with something raw and aching beneath the control.
“He knew the risk,” he said. “He made his choice. Now we have to make ours.”
She shook her head, tears burning. “I can’t just leave him.”
“You already did.” His voice wasn’t cruel, just honest, too honest. “And if we go back, we die with him.”
Something inside her cracked.
Gunshots echoed again, but distant now. Fading. A memory of violence rather than the violence itself.
George softened, just barely. He brushed a strand of wet hair from her cheek, fingers trembling.
“I know you care about him,” he said quietly.
Lea froze.
She hadn’t said it aloud. Not once. But he saw it, in her recoil, in her tears, in the way her voice shook more for Billy than for herself.
“You care,” George repeated, eyes unreadable. “I see it. He sees it. And whether you want it or not, Corin will use that.”
Her heart clenched. She didn’t deny it.
Because the truth was messy, painful, real.
She did care.
For Billy.
For George.
For both of them in different, impossible ways.
And now one of them was in a tunnel of gunfire while she ran with the other through the dark.
George released her shoulders, chest rising hard. “We move. Now.”
She nodded, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve. The grief didn’t fade, it hardened, settling into something sharp. Something determined.
They ran.
Branches tore at her legs, roots grabbed at her feet. The forest was endless, black trees like rib bones, wind like whispered threats. But after minutes that felt like years, the trees broke, revealing a frost-glazed clearing and, beyond it, the faint outline of abandoned industrial buildings.
George slowed, scanning the area. His eyes were all edges and calculation.
“There,” he said, pointing to a low concrete structure half-sunk in vines. “Old transit station. No power. No surveillance. We hide until sunrise.”
Lea followed him in. The station smelled of rust and dust, forgotten history. George wedged a metal grate shut behind them and swept the interior, gun steady in his hand.
Only when he was satisfied did he slide down the wall and exhale.
Lea sat across from him, arms wrapped around her knees. Her body trembled now that adrenaline was fading. Her mind replayed the moment Billy disappeared behind them like a wound that wouldn’t clot.
George watched her, too quietly.
Finally, she met his gaze.
“I need to know,” she whispered. “What’s in my file.”
George’s jaw flexed.
He looked away, not because he didn’t want to answer, but because answering hurt.
“You were not supposed to be involved in this world,” he said. “But you were tracked before you ever met me.”
Lea blinked. “Tracked? Why?”
His gaze returned to her slowly, heavy with something she couldn’t yet interpret.
“Because you’re not random,” he said. “You’re connected to Corin.”
The floor felt like it dropped out beneath her.
“What?” she breathed.
George nodded, once, sharply.
“You are not a target by accident, Lea. You are a variable Corin has been trying to locate for years. The dossier just accelerated it.”
She shook her head. “But I don’t know him. I’ve never met him.”
“Not him,” George corrected. “His brother.”
Lea’s blood froze.
“What brother?”
“His name,” George said, each word careful and heavy, “was Adrian Vale.”
Vale.
Her pulse staggered. Her vision blurred. The name hit something deep and buried inside her, something she didn’t remember but somehow recognized.
George leaned forward, voice low.
“Adrian Vale was your biological father.”
Lea stopped breathing.
The words didn’t make sense. They rattled in her skull like loose glass.
“That’s impossible,” she whispered. “My parents...”
“Weren’t yours,” George finished gently. “The file confirms it. You were adopted as an infant. Corin has been searching for his brother’s child ever since Adrian died.”
The world spun.
Her life, her memories, her identity, none of it was real. None of it belonged to her.
“I’m…” She felt dizzy. “I’m his niece.”
George nodded.
“But why does he want me dead?”
George’s eyes darkened.
“He doesn’t want you dead,” he said softly. “He wants you controlled.”
She stared at him, throat tight.
“Corin wants to rebuild Adrian’s empire. And he wants the one living blood heir to legitimize it. With you under his hand, he could control everything.”
Lea felt cold down to her bones.
“And if I refuse?”
George didn’t answer.
He didn’t have to.
She already knew.
Corin would kill her before letting her walk free.
Her life wasn’t collateral damage.
It was currency.
She pressed her palms into her eyes. “So I’m not here by chance.”
“No,” George said, voice low and steady. “You were born into this. And I’ve been trying to keep you out of it.”
She looked up, broken, furious, terrified.
“And Billy?”
George’s expression sharpened.
“Billy knew first,” he said. “His mission was to retrieve you alive.”
Lea’s heart pounded.
“And instead he protected me.”
George nodded. “He betrayed Corin to save you.”
She swallowed, chest aching.
“And now he’s dying in a tunnel for us.”
George’s gaze softened, barely. Pain flickered there too.
“We will go back for him,” he said. “But first, you need to decide who you are.”
She stared at him.
“Corin’s heir,” George said quietly. “Or the woman who brings him down.”
Lea’s breath trembled in her throat.
Gunfire still echoed faintly in her memory, Billy’s last stand.
She wiped the tears from her jaw.
Then she lifted her chin.
And for the first time since this nightmare began, her voice did not shake.
“I’m the woman who ends him.”