PART 2 - THE CASUALTY RECORD OPENED BEFORE THE AMBUSH

The call ended.

I stared at the black screen.

Maya whispered, “She knew Lena was there.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

I looked toward the pistol.

Then toward my laptop.

The photograph taped to the grip had been taken that morning. Whoever had taken it had known exactly when Lena entered the warehouse.

That meant Victoria had surveillance.

Or help.

Military help.

I opened the video again.

The unknown officer sat across from my mother in a hotel restaurant three months before my deployment. His face was partially turned from the camera, but his uniform was unmistakable.

My unit.

My insignia.

On his shoulder, a small scar disappeared beneath the collar.

I froze the image.

Maya moved beside me.

“You know him.”

“I might.”

“Who?”

I enlarged the frame.

The image pixelated.

But the scar was enough.

Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Vale.

My former commanding officer.

The man who had signed my deployment order.

The man who

had personally recommended me for the mission that nearly killed me.

The man who had shaken my hand when I came home.

I sat very still.

Memory rearranged itself.

The convoy route that changed twenty minutes before departure.

The intelligence report that later disappeared.

The vehicle assigned to me because another officer had suddenly become “ill.”

The explosion that tore through the road ten seconds after my truck passed.

An accident, they called it.

Bad intelligence.

Wrong place.

Wrong time.

Except perhaps it had been exactly the right place.

For someone.

Maya touched my arm.

I flinched.

Her hand withdrew instantly.

The shame of it burned.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She shook her head. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“Yes, I do.”

I turned toward her.

“For the first night. For asking if you were seeing someone. For coming into this house and looking at you like you had to

prove yourself to me.”

Her eyes filled.

“You didn’t know.”

“I should have known you.”

That hurt more than anything Victoria or Julian had done.

For months Maya had survived inside our house while the people sharing my blood dismantled her piece by piece.

And when I returned, my first instinct had been suspicion.

She looked down at her wrists.

“I thought if I told you immediately, you’d kill Julian.”

“I wanted to.”

“I know.”

“And Victoria.”

“I know.”

I gave a humorless smile.

“You know me too well.”

“No,” she whispered. “I knew the old you.”

That sentence landed harder than a punch.

The old me.

Before deployment.

Before the convoy.

Before six months of watching roads for buried explosives and rooftops for rifles.

Before coming home to discover the enemy had been eating breakfast in my kitchen.

I took the pistol from her using a handkerchief and placed

it inside a plastic evidence bag.

Then I called the one person I still trusted inside the system.

Captain Aaron Cole.

We had served together for eight years.

He answered on the second ring.

“Daniel?”

“Need a favor.”

“You sound awful.”

“Can you access personnel travel records?”

A pause.

“What kind?”

“Off-book meetings involving Vale.”

Another pause.

Longer.

“Why?”

“Can you do it?”

“Give me twenty minutes.”

“Ten.”

“You still think you outrank everybody.”

“I’m charming.”

“You’re unbearable.”

The line went dead.

For the first time that night, Maya almost smiled.

It vanished quickly.

“What happens at midnight?”

“We go to the warehouse.”

Her face drained.

“No.”

“Maya—”

“She said to bring me because Julian wants me there.”

Her voice trembled, but she kept speaking.

“I know how he looks when he thinks nobody can stop him.”

I stepped closer, stopping before touching her.

“You’re not bait.”

“Neither is Lena.”

That silenced me.

Maya took a breath.

“I spent six months being scared because everyone kept deciding what was best for me. Victoria decided. Julian decided. The lawyers decided.”

She raised her eyes.

“You don’t get to decide now just because you love me.”

I had no answer.

Because she was right.

So instead, I asked, “What do you want?”

“To finish this.”

At 11:38 p.m., we drove toward the warehouse.

Maya wore a small recording device under her coat.

I carried a folder containing copies of the deed, several useless encryption cards, and one authentic authentication key.

Not the company key.

Something better.

A military evidence access token Aaron had delivered nineteen minutes earlier.

Along with bad news.

Vale had accessed deployment scheduling files for my unit eleven times before my mission.

Worse, Aaron discovered something else.

Someone using Vale’s credentials had opened my casualty record forty-eight hours before the convoy attack.

My casualty record.

Before I had been injured.

Before anything had happened.

According to the system, someone expected me to die.

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