Chapter 22 The Escape

Chapter 22 The Escape
Ellis's POV

The safe house is crawling with FBI agents now, and the irony isn't lost on me. We've spent weeks running from people who were supposed to protect us, only to end up protected by them when it's finally too late to matter.
Fuller is gone. Three hours before Burks's arrest, he simply vanished from his penthouse office on the forty-second floor. Security footage shows nothing. No climbing down the exterior. No rappelling equipment. Nothing. It's as if he walked into thin air and ceased to exist.
"How is that possible?" I ask Lara, studying the security monitors in the FBI's mobile command center parked outside the safe house.
"He had help," Lara says grimly. "Someone inside the federal protection detail. Someone who ensured his escape route was clear."
"The mole," I say. "He's still out there."
"We're investigating," Lara says, but there's frustration in her voice. Frustration and something that looks dangerously close to resignation. "Fuller's resources are vast. His network is deep. The man has had decades to prepare contingencies for exactly this scenario."
I move to the window and look out at the forest surrounding the safe house. Somewhere out there, Anderson Fuller is running. Somewhere out there, he's already making calculations about how to survive, how to rebuild, how to come back stronger.
Isla enters the command center, and I see immediately that she hasn't slept. Dark circles shadow her eyes, and there's a brittleness to her movements that wasn't there before.
"I want to testify," she says without preamble. "Against Lloyd. Against Burks. Against everyone. I want to walk into that courtroom and put my father's death on the record."
"That's going to take time," Lara says carefully. "The trial process—"
"I don't care about time," Isla interrupts. "I care about truth. I care about my father's name being cleared. I care about making sure that what happened to him, what happened to Ellis's father, what happened to all the people Lloyd and Burks destroyed—I care about making sure it matters."
There's a ferocity in her voice that makes something in my chest clench. This is what love looks like, I think. This is what fighting for justice looks like when you've already lost everything that matters.
"Okay," Lara says. "We prepare you for testimony. We build an airtight case. And we make sure that when you walk into that courtroom, everyone who needs to hear your voice is listening."
Over the next week, we prepare. Lara brings prosecutors and legal experts. Brandon provides his testimony—reluctant, painful, but thorough. He describes the threats against his mother, the coercion, the way Lloyd used leverage to turn him into a tool of his operation.
And slowly, methodically, we construct a narrative that even the shadow committee's lawyers will have difficulty dismantling.
But on the eighth day, everything changes.
I'm alone in the study when Lara finds me. Her face tells me before her words do.
"Lloyd's dead," she says quietly. "Heart attack. In custody. Medical examination shows it was natural causes, but—"
"But it was them," I finish. "They killed him in prison because he was about to testify."
"We don't have proof of that," Lara says. "But yes. I believe that's exactly what happened."
"So they're cleaning house," I say, understanding the implications immediately. "Lloyd's gone. Burks is going to trial, but her legal team will paint her as a scapegoat. Fuller is vanished. Anyone who could testify to the broader conspiracy is either dead or willing to lie."
"We still have you," Lara says. "We still have Isla. We still have Brandon."
"Witnesses die," I say bitterly. "We've seen it. We know it. How long before the mole finds us again? How long before Fuller decides that eliminating loose ends is worth the risk?"
Lara sits down heavily. For the first time since I've known her, she looks genuinely defeated.
"I don't know," she admits. "And that terrifies me more than anything else about this case."
I move to the window and watch the rain fall on the forest. My father spent seven years investigating this conspiracy. I've spent seven years continuing his work. And somehow, we're still losing.
"There has to be something we're missing," I say. "Some leverage. Some way to force Fuller into the open."
"Unless he's truly gone," Lara suggests quietly. "Unless he's already rebuilt in another country, another identity, and we're chasing ghosts."
The possibility is horrifying. The possibility that evil doesn't just die when you finally corner it. That it mutates, adapts, survives.
My phone buzzes. Text from an unknown number.
You did well. But the game isn't over. Meet me at the east district construction site. Midnight. Come alone. If you don't, I'll make sure Isla never stops running.
I show the message to Lara, and her face goes white.
"It's a trap," she says immediately.
"Obviously," I reply. "But it's also the only way to draw him out into the open."
"He'll kill you."
"Probably," I agree. "But if I don't go, he kills her anyway. At least this way, I choose the terms."
Lara reaches for her phone. "I'm sending a team—"
"No," I say. "He specified alone. If he sees federal agents, he runs. We lose him for another seven years."
"And if he kills you?"
"Then you arrest him for murder," I say simply. "And you protect Isla. You make sure she's safe. You make sure she knows the truth about everything."
Lara wants to argue. I can see it in her face. But she also understands that sometimes you have to give the devil room to reveal himself.
"I'll have agents positioned around the site," she finally says. "Close enough to move if things go wrong, far enough away that he won't spot them. And you wear a wire. I listen to everything."
"Agreed," I say.
I don't tell Isla about the message. Not yet. She's finally sleeping, finally healing from the constant state of terror we've been living in. I let her have that one night of peace.
Because tomorrow night, at midnight, I'm going to meet Anderson Fuller at the place where this all began. And one way or another, this ends.