The Mole
The cliff edge blurred in the headlights. Cole’s hands locked on the wheel, his eyes narrowed, calm in the way that felt more terrifying than panic. The other car pressed closer, its bumper slamming against us again, jolting my body against the seatbelt.
“Hold on,” Cole snapped, his voice flat, controlled.
The tires screamed as he jerked the wheel. Our car swerved left, throwing the other vehicle wide. For a heartbeat, I saw its headlights tilt, flashing against the black sky, before it screeched back onto the road behind us.
Cole floored the gas. The engine roared, the ridge narrowing into a tunnel of stone and trees. We shot through, gravel spitting from beneath the tires. My breath came in sharp gasps, my fingers clawing at the seat.
The lights behind us flickered, then vanished. Cole didn’t slow. Not until the road bent down again, spiraling off the ridge into thick forest. Only then did he ease off the gas, his chest rising and falling hard.
“They peeled off,” he muttered.
I twisted in my seat, my throat raw. “Why? They had us.”
Cole’s eyes stayed on the road, his voice low. “Orders. They never meant to kill us there. Just remind us the edge is always waiting.”
The words sank into me, heavy as stone.
We drove in silence for another hour, the road winding deeper into countryside. No lights. No houses. Just fields broken by patches of trees, the horizon empty under a sky scattered with stars. The isolation pressed around us until it felt suffocating.
Finally, Cole turned off the main road, guiding us down a dirt path lined with old fences. At the end stood a farmhouse, weathered but solid, its white paint peeling in places. A single lantern glowed faintly in the front window.
“This is it,” Cole said.
He parked behind the barn, killed the engine, and scanned the dark before stepping out. Every movement was deliberate, every sound measured. He checked the perimeter twice before motioning me inside.
The farmhouse smelled of cedar and dust. The furniture was simple, worn by time but clean. Cole closed the blinds, checked the locks, then dragged a chair to the front window. His gun rested across his lap as he settled in, posture stiff.
“You can sleep,” he said. “I will keep watch.”
But sleep was impossible. My nerves buzzed too sharp, my chest too tight. I sank onto the couch and pulled out my phone, its faint glow painting the room in cold light.
The fragments of Cynthia’s files still lingered. At first they were just numbers, codes, scattered names. But as I scrolled, I began to see the outline forming. Judges. Police precincts. Politicians. Entire departments linked through hidden accounts, each tied to a trade that stretched beyond drugs into everything that touched the city.
The realization hit hard. It was not just Kyle’s empire. It was the city itself. Half of what looked legitimate was built on the money bleeding from his trade.
My breath caught, my stomach turning. Publishing this would not just expose Kyle. It would set fire to every corner of power that had kept me safe. Judges, officers, leaders—people I had trusted to keep order. They were already his.
My hand shook as I clutched the phone tighter. If I put this out, I would become the biggest target alive.
Cole’s voice cut through the silence. “You see it now.”
I looked up. He hadn’t moved from his chair, but his eyes were locked on me, steady and cold.
“You publish that story, they will not argue with words,” he said. “They will erase you. Cain will smear your name until no one believes you. And when that fails, they will burn the city before they let you break their chain.”
My throat ached. “Then what do you want me to do? Hide forever? Pretend I never saw it?”
His jaw tightened. “I want you to live.”
I shook my head. “The story is the only weapon I have left. If I give that up, then Kyle already won.”
We stared at each other across the dim room, the silence thick with everything neither of us would say.
Later, when Cole finally closed his eyes in the chair, his gun still resting against his chest, I sat alone with the phone in my lap. My fingers ached from scrolling, my eyes burned, but I couldn’t stop. The files felt like a lifeline and a curse all at once.
Then a notification blinked across the screen. Encrypted transfer. My chest lurched.
Cynthia.
I opened it quickly, my hands trembling. Names poured in, more direct this time. Judges tied to accounts. Politicians linked to Kyle’s shell companies. Each name was a nail in the coffin of everything I thought this city stood for.
But as I watched, the names began vanishing. One by one, as if invisible fingers were plucking them from the screen.
“No,” I whispered, clutching the phone tighter. “No, no, no.”
Cole stirred instantly, his hand snapping to his weapon. “What is it?”
“Cain,” I choked out. “He is deleting them. He is intercepting it in real time.”
Cole crossed the room in three strides, grabbing the phone from my hands. He cursed under his breath as another line blinked out, leaving only empty space. “We cannot use open networks anymore. Every time she sends, he sees it. He owns the system.”
I grabbed his arm, desperation burning through me. “Then how do we fight him? If every piece of proof vanishes the second I touch it, how do I prove anything?”
His gaze was sharp, hard. “We stop playing his game. We take it offline. Paper. Physical copies. Anything that cannot be touched through a signal.”
I sank back onto the couch, my heart hammering. The phone buzzed again, the last fragments freezing in place. Half the names gone. The rest intact but incomplete, like a puzzle missing too many pieces.
Cole locked the screen, tossed the phone onto the table. “Enough for tonight. Sleep if you can.”
I stared at the ceiling, the weight of silence pressing down harder than before.
Morning came gray and heavy. I barely felt it, my body numb, my thoughts spinning. Cole brewed bitter coffee on the old stove, his posture tense as ever.
Then the phone buzzed once more. A new message.
This one was not from Cynthia.
Cole picked it up, his eyes scanning the text. His jaw tightened before he tossed it to me.
Tyler.
The words on the screen were blunt.
“Someone in your circle is feeding Cain.”
I froze. My circle. The word felt like a joke. I had no circle left. Cynthia, maybe. Cole, always close. Tyler, now a faint thread. That was all.
My chest tightened, the coffee in my throat turning sour. If Tyler was right, then betrayal was not out there. It was already here.
My hands trembled as I looked down at the fragments of Cynthia’s files, the last names staring up like gho
sts.
If Kyle already owned half the city, how did I know he didn’t already own the rest of my life?