It was what you gave. Six months passed. The world had moved on, or at least pretended to.
Washington gleamed in the spring light, its marble buildings polished and solemn, as if nothing dark had ever slithered through their halls. News anchors had found new stories to sell, and the Walker scandal—now a mandatory case study in ethics courses—was filed neatly under Resolved. But Ethan knew better.
Evil didn’t end. It adapted. Second Chances, Inc., the non-profit he’d founded with Ellis and Jennifer, had grown faster than anyone expected.
They’d helped veterans find work, funded families evicted by corporate foreclosures, and sponsored scholarships for kids from underprivileged communities, Anna’s idea. She had started third grade, thriving, fearless, still carrying her sketchbook everywhere. Yet beneath the good they built, Ethan felt a quiet hum of unfinished business.
One afternoon, he sat in his glass-walled office overlooking the Potomac, reviewing new grant proposals. Outside, the city pulsed with routine. Inside, the air felt too still.
Jennifer entered without knocking, her phone in hand, her face pale. Ethan, she said, you need to see this. He took the phone.
The message on the encrypted app was short, anonymous, and unmistakably ominous. You took one head. The body still lives.
Meet me at the old Senate Hotel, room 412. Midnight. Alone.
A friend from inside. Ethan frowned. Who sent this? Untraceable, Jennifer said.
But the phrasing friend from inside, it sounds like Torres. Ethan leaned back. Torres doesn’t do cryptic.
She’d call. Then who? Jennifer whispered. Ethan looked out the window, the sunlight glinting off the water like fractured glass.
Someone who knows what’s still buried. That night, despite every warning, his mind screamed. He went.
The Senate Hotel sat quiet and half-forgotten near Union Station, its marble lobby echoing with ghosts of politicians long gone. Ethan took the elevator to the fourth floor. The hallway smelled faintly of old cigars and bleach.
Room 412 was at the end. The door was ajar. Hello? He called softly.
A woman stepped out of the shadows. Torres. But not the confident agent he’d known this version looked hunted.
Her hair was tied back messily, and her clothes were civilian, not bureau. Close the door, she said. He did.
What’s going on? Torres handed him a flash drive. This wasn’t supposed to exist. Someone inside the task force you helped start has been leaking intel to the same offshore groups we dismantled.
They rebuilt under new shells, new names, same money. And one of the people funding them sits in the cabinet. Ethan’s stomach tightened.
Which one? Torres hesitated. The Secretary of Commerce. Harold Price.
Ethan blinked. He chaired the Ethics Task Force. Ugh.
Exactly, she said grimly. He used it to identify threats. People who could expose him.
Two journalists disappeared last month. One was looking into Price’s investments. Ethan’s pulse quickened.
Why come to me? You have the bureau. Torres shook her head. I don’t have anyone I can trust there anymore.
I’m already flagged for surveillance. You, on the other hand, you’re clean. Public trust.
Media access. If anyone can force this out into daylight again, it’s you. Ugh.
Ethan stared at the flash drive, its small, metallic body seeming to hum with consequence. What’s on it? Proof, Torres said. Contracts.
Accounts. Wire transfers. Enough to burn Price’s career, and maybe his friends with it.
Ethan looked up. How long do I have? Not long. I’m leaving the country tonight.
They’ll come for me by morning. He wanted to stop her. To demand a plan.
But she was already moving toward the door. Ethan, she said, turning back. Don’t let them win this time.
Finish it. Then she was gone. He stood there for a long moment, the flash drive heavy in his palm.
The weight of old fear settled over him again, the kind he’d thought he’d buried forever. The next day, he called Ellis and Jennifer to a private meeting. They listened in silence as he explained what Torres had given him.
Ellis whistled low. You realize what happens if this leaks? Price is tied to half the infrastructure bills in Congress. We’ll be fighting the federal machine itself.
Vuh. Jennifer’s voice was soft but steady. Then we fight smarter.
We use transparency like a weapon. Ethan nodded. Agreed.
But we keep Anna out of it this time. They set up a temporary workspace in the office basement. Ellis analyzed the data while Jennifer drafted a release strategy.
The files showed billions siphoned from federal projects into dummy corporations connected to Price’s allies. There were memos implicating defense contractors, even foreign donors. As they worked, Ethan couldn’t shake the feeling they were being watched.
That night, as he drove home through the rain, his phone buzzed. Unknown number. He answered.
A distorted voice said, You should have stayed grateful, Mr. Walker. You had your redemption. Why ruin it? Ethan’s hands tightened on the wheel.
Who is this? You don’t need to know my name, the voice replied. But you’ll know what we can do. The call ended.
A second later, his dashboard screen lit up a video feed from inside his own home. Anna asleep on the couch, Loretta folding laundry in the background. Ethan slammed the brakes, pulling onto the shoulder.
His heart roared in his chest. Then the screen went black. He drove like a man possessed.
When he reached the townhouse, the door was wide open. Loretta stood trembling in the foyer. They came, she whispered.
Men in suits, said they were from security services. They- Her voice broke. Where’s Anna? Ethan demanded.
Loretta pointed upstairs, eyes wet. Gone. They took her.
Ethan’s world collapsed into a single pulse of soundless rage. Within minutes, he was back in his car, calling Jennifer. They have Anna.
Price’s people took her. Jennifer’s voice cracked. Oh my god.
Ethan what do we do? He stared into the storm ahead. Every drop of rain like a spark of fury. We end this, he said.
Whatever it takes. Lie. And somewhere, deep in the labyrinth of power- Harold Price poured himself a glass of scotch, and watched security footage of Ethan’s empty home.
He smiled. Round two begins. The night air cut like glass.
Wind screamed across the Potomac, driving cold rain sideways as if the heavens themselves were trying to wash the city clean. Ethan stood by his car at the base of the bridge, the same bridge where, nearly two years before, he’d almost ended his life. Now he was here again, fighting to save the only life that gave his own meaning.
Jennifer’s voice crackled through his earpiece. Ethan, are you sure this is where they’ll bring her? Yes, he said, eyes fixed on the faint glow of headlights ahead. Price chose this place for a reason.
Symbolism. He wants control, wants me to see what happens when I defy him. Ellis’s voice joined in, tense and low…
