Suddenly, Julian popped into the room. “She’s here!” He wiped the tears from his eyes. “Brianna Rose Hamilton is here!”
We all walked over and hugged him tight.
“How’s Laurel?” I asked.
“She’s great. She was such a warrior. Come meet your niece.” He grinned.
Paige
“I think I’m ready, Gabriel,” I said as I stood in his office.
“Well, damn.” He smiled. “It’s only been a month.” His words were filled with sarcasm. “Are you sure about this, Paige? Because once you do this, there’s no turning back.”
“I know.”
He reached over and handed me a file folder. I opened it as my chest tightened, staring at the photographs.
“Christopher Healy and Henrick Schofield run a ‘mental health’ facility in California, which we know is a cover for Hearthstone and Project Nightfall. You need to shut it down. Not just for the innocent people they are hurting, but for yourself, so you can get the closure you desperately need.”
Two men. Ordinary faces. Expensive suits. Controlled expressions. Men who looked like they belonged in a boardroom or at a charity gala. Not behind the creation that stripped people down and rebuilt them into weapons.
“They worked for the CIA. I remember seeing them around a few times,” I said. “Watching.”
“They went off the grid for a few years after Hearthstone shut down,” Gabriel spoke. “But with my relentless digging, I was able to find them again.”
“Where in California?” I asked.
“Big Sur Mountains. It’s remote and very inaccessible. You must be more careful than you ever have been. It’s a six-hour drive from there to L.A. When you’re finished, go to Parker.” He smiled. “Make things right.”
From a distance,the facility looked less like a hospital and more like a private estate built for hiding people they never wanted found. Nestled in the forest, without any other building or business in sight, there was no sign alerting anyone as to where they were. High electric fences wrapped around the estate with a large black wrought iron gate at the entrance, a booth, and a guard, watching anything that moved.
Gabriel shut off the power to the building, and I had less than one minute to get inside. I stepped in through a service door around the back, holding my gun up, and carefully making my way through the place without being noticed. I turned the corner, and a woman in a white doctor’s coat walked a few feet in front of me. Quietly stepping up behind her, I wrapped my arm around her neck, covered her mouth with my hand, and dragged her into a utility closet, where I put her to sleep.
I took her coat and put it on, clipped her badge to the front pocket, and turned it around so no one would notice her picture. Picking up the clipboard she was holding, I held it as I walked down the corridor and kept my head down.
“Make a right, Paige. Christopher Healey’s office is the third door on the right.”
“Got it.”
I approached the large wooden double doors, grabbed my gun from my back, and slowly opened them. The man sitting behind the large mahogany desk stared at me, his eyes wide.
“My God. It can’t be,” he said. “Victoria?” His brows furrowed.
I didn’t say a word as I stared him straight in the eyes.
“You’re dead.”
“You should be so lucky.” I pointed my gun at him. “Stand up. Hands where I can see them.”
“So, you went rogue,” he said.
“Something like that.”
I circled him, my gun never leaving the proximity of his head.
“You were our first. Our lab rat. I had doubts that the conditioning wouldn’t hold forever.”
“Conditioning?” I repeated. “That’s a nice word for what you did to us.”