The night smelled like old rain and gasoline as I hid inside a rundown motel outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. The neon sign outside flickered like a dying heartbeat, casting sickly light across the room. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the prepaid phone in my hands. My name was Preston Vale, once a celebrated real estate magnate who built glass towers across Chicago and Los Angeles. Now, I was a man on the run, stripped of allies, hunted by the very empire I had once commanded.
Two days earlier, I had received the call that changed everything.
“Preston.” The voice trembled. It belonged to Talia, my wife who had vanished two years ago. The entire country knew her as missing, presumed dead. My daughter too. The newspapers had turned them into tragedies. “They lied to you. They lied to everyone.”
I remembered choking on the air. “Talia, where are you. Tell me and I will come get you. I swear I will take you home.”
“No. It is too dangerous. But I will send someone. There is a boy. He has been keeping our daughter alive. He is all we have left. Please promise that you will not do anything reckless. Your only mission is to protect her. Even if you must do it from the shadows.”
“I swear on my life,” I whispered.
Now, alone in that motel, I repeated those words like a prayer.
A quiet knock sounded at the door. I rose slowly and approached, heart hammering against my ribs. Through the peephole I saw a woman wrapped in a faded shawl. Behind her stood a thin kid with sharp eyes and a hoodie pulled low.
I opened the door. The woman nodded curtly. “We need to go. I brought what you asked for.”
And then I saw her. My daughter stood half hidden behind the boy. Brielle. She looked nothing like the laughing child who once chased butterflies across our backyard in Chicago. Her cheeks were hollow. Her eyes, the color of storm clouds, were rimmed with shadows. She flinched when she saw me.
I dropped to my knees. “Brielle,” I murmured, forcing my voice to stay gentle. “It is me. It is Dad. I did not know. I swear to you. I would never have allowed this. Not if I knew.”
She stared at me, her gaze sharp like broken glass. “You really didn’t know. Are you telling the truth.”