Eva Lane refused to trade herself for another hostage. She and Marcus Sterling returned to the private maternity floor of Sterling Medical before midnight, using the key from the ambush to enter the archive their enemy had tried to keep buried.
Inside were recordings, legal files, and a wall tracking Eva Lane's life from childhood to the previous night. Someone had planned every loss with patient precision. At the center, a line connected her to Marcus Sterling, then continued toward a sealed record neither of them had seen.
Marcus Sterling reached it first. The evidence proved the truth neither of them was ready to trust: Marcus ordered no procedure—the pregnancy was engineered by the woman trying to steal his company. It also showed why he had been tied to the conspiracy long before he met Eva Lane.
Footsteps filled the corridor. Marcus Sterling reached for his weapon, but Eva Lane stopped him. Running had brought her here. This time she would make the person hunting them speak.
The archive door opened. The intruder removed a hood, and Eva Lane's breath caught. The face belonged to someone whose funeral she had attended—and the hostage video had been playing from an empty room.
“You finally found the truth,” the stranger said. “Now choose: expose it and destroy Marcus Sterling, or bury it and become the woman who betrays him.”
Eva Lane took Marcus Sterling's hand instead.
The stranger smiled and pressed a remote. Behind them, the archive began counting down from ten.