Chapter 16 - THE BROTHER WHO REFUSED TO DIE
My dead brother was alive and sitting thirty feet away from me.
For one suspended second, the courthouse, the reporters, and the shouting crowd disappeared. All I could see was Ethan’s face through the narrow opening of the sedan window.
He looked older than the brother I remembered.
A pale scar crossed his left cheek. His hair was shorter, threaded with gray near the temples. But the crooked smile was the same one he had worn as a boy whenever he knew something I didn’t.
Then I noticed the blood.
A dark stain spread beneath the collar of his black coat.
“Ethan,” I whispered.
His smile vanished.
He lifted two fingers from the door frame and pointed toward the courthouse entrance.
Behind me, the glass doors opened.
General Miller stepped outside with two military police officers and Sheriff Dominic Vance. Miller’s face was composed, but his eyes locked instantly on the black sedan.
He knew.
Vance reached beneath his jacket.
Ethan threw open the driver’s door.
“Down!” he shouted.
I hit the courthouse steps as the first gunshot cracked across the street.
The bullet shattered a stone column inches above my head. Reporters screamed and scattered. Deputies drew their weapons, unsure where to aim.
Ethan fired twice toward a parking structure east of the courthouse.
A man in tactical clothing stumbled behind the concrete barrier.
Vance shouted, “The driver is armed! Take him down!”
“No!” I roared. “He just saved my life!”
Miller seized my shoulder.
“Your brother is a traitor, Logan. Move away from him.”
Ethan crossed the street through the chaos, keeping his pistol low. Blood ran down his neck, but his steps remained steady.
“You’ve been telling him that for years, haven’t you?” Ethan called.
Miller’s jaw tightened.
Military police moved between them.
Ethan stopped ten feet away from me and pulled a metal drive from his coat. It was identical to the drive shown in the night-vision footage.
“This contains every order connected to the ambush,” he said. “Every payment. Every name.”
Sheriff Vance raised his weapon.
Ethan turned toward him.
“And yours is near the top, Dominic.”
Vance’s finger tightened around the trigger.
Before he could fire, a black SUV came racing around the corner and slammed into the courthouse security barrier.
Three masked men poured out.
May you like
They weren’t coming for me.
They were coming for the drive.
