Anna Pierce refused to trade herself for another hostage. She and Victor Hale returned to a hostile takeover meeting on the top floor of Hale Group 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 Anna Pierce's life from childhood to the previous night. Someone had planned every loss with patient precision. At the center, a line connected her to Victor Hale, then continued toward a sealed record neither of them had seen.
Victor Hale reached it first. The evidence proved the truth neither of them was ready to trust: Victor accepted the divorce to protect Anna from a debt collector who was actually her biological father. It also showed why he had been tied to the conspiracy long before he met Anna Pierce.
Footsteps filled the corridor. Victor Hale reached for his weapon, but Anna Pierce 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 Anna Pierce'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 Victor Hale, or bury it and become the woman who betrays him.”
Anna Pierce took Victor Hale's hand instead.
The stranger smiled and pressed a remote. Behind them, the archive began counting down from ten.