Chapter 6 - The Blackwood Blood DebtTarget Six was named Thomas Cross.
Gabriel’s younger brother.
Unlike Gabriel, Thomas had never worked intelligence.
He was a priest.
Sophia stared at the photograph on her phone while Julian’s jet climbed above Massachusetts.
Thomas Cross wore a clerical collar.
Blood stained his forehead.
Behind him hung a wooden cross.
Beneath the photograph were coordinates.
Philadelphia.
Twenty-three hours remained.
Gabriel sat alone near the back of the cabin.
He had not spoken for thirty minutes.
Sophia moved across from him.
“Tell me why your brother is on the list.”
“He shouldn’t be.”
“But he is.”
Gabriel looked out the window.
“Thomas wasn’t part of the operation.”
“Then why target him?”
“To hurt me.”
Sophia studied him.
“Or because you’re lying.”
Gabriel turned.
Julian glanced over from the opposite side of the cabin.
The tension sharpened.
“You think I put my own brother in danger?”
“I think every person connected to my father has lied to me at least once.”
Gabriel absorbed that.
Fair.
Finally he said, “Thomas helped hide Damien.”
Silence.
Sophia leaned forward.
“What?”
“After the Ninth Circle compound fell, Silas refused to kill Damien. We needed somewhere to keep the boy until we could decide what to do.”
“You gave him to your brother.”
“For three weeks.”
“Then?”
“Damien disappeared.”
“How?”
Gabriel rubbed his face.
“We never knew.”
Julian spoke.
“Maybe Thomas helped him.”
Gabriel’s eyes snapped toward him.
“He wouldn’t.”
“You said he hid him.”
“On Silas’s orders.”
“Still means he knew the boy.”
Sophia looked again at the picture.
Something troubled her.
The wooden cross behind Thomas.
Architecture.
Stone wall.
Colored glass.
Not a basement.
A church.
“He’s not being held secretly.”
“What?”
“The picture was taken inside a church.”
Gabriel looked.
Sophia zoomed in.
“Stained glass reflection. Stone. Public building.”
Julian understood.
“Damien wants us to walk in.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn sat at a laptop across the aisle, decrypting the recovered drive.
“I have something.”
Everyone turned.
“There are payments tied to Philadelphia.”
“Who?”
“Saint Michael Relief Foundation.”
Gabriel’s face tightened.
“That’s Thomas’s charity.”
Sophia moved beside Evelyn.
“Amounts?”
“Thirty-seven million over twelve years.”
Julian whistled.
“That’s a lot of soup kitchens.”
Evelyn opened another file.
“Money came from shell companies connected to Lucien Vale.”
Gabriel stood abruptly.
“No.”
Sophia watched him.
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
The plane descended through clouds.
Julian called Victor.
“Have local people surround Saint Michael’s. Nobody enters until Sophia says so.”
Gabriel snapped, “My brother is inside.”
“And if Damien has explosives?”
“We don’t wait.”
Sophia stepped between them.
“Enough.”
They both stopped.
That was one thing Sophia had discovered about being Julian Blackwood’s partner.
She now had authority over men who had never taken orders from anyone.
Sometimes all it required was tone.
“We go small,” she said. “Me, Julian, Gabriel.”
Julian shook his head.
“No.”
Sophia looked at him.
“No?”
“You nearly died last night.”
“So did you.”
“Exactly.”
“Wonderful. We’re compatible.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“But you do not put me in a glass box because someone is hunting me. That would make me what I spent five years trying not to be.”
Julian stared at her.
Afraid.
Not of her.
For her.
That fear softened something inside Sophia.
She touched his hand.
“We go together.”
Julian nodded once.
“Together.”
Saint Michael’s Church stood in a poor neighborhood in North Philadelphia.
Its doors were open.
No guards.
No visible vehicles.
The sanctuary was empty.
Candles burned near the altar.
Thomas Cross sat in the front pew.
Untied.
Alive.
Gabriel ran.
“Thomas!”
Thomas turned.
He looked exhausted but unharmed.
Gabriel embraced him.
Sophia did not relax.
“Where is Damien?”
Thomas looked at her.
“You’re Sophia.”
“Yes.”
“He said you’d come.”
Julian scanned the balcony.
“He?”
“Damien.”
“Where?”
“Gone.”
Gabriel pulled back.
“Did he hurt you?”
Thomas smiled sadly.
“No.”
The answer was wrong.
Sophia saw it instantly.
Not fear.
Guilt.
“What did you do?”
Thomas looked at her.
“I saved a child.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“You helped him escape.”
“Yes.”
“You lied to us for fifteen years.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Thomas stood.
“Because you were debating whether to murder him.”
“We were debating how to keep him from becoming his father.”
“He was sixteen.”
“And now four hundred people belong to his organization.”
Thomas’s expression broke.
“I know.”
Sophia stepped closer.
“Tell me what happened.”
Thomas sat again.
“Damien lived here for three weeks. He barely spoke. He woke screaming every night. His father had beaten him, trained him, told him pain was education.”
Sophia thought of Silas throwing tennis balls at her while she was blindfolded.
Her training had been harsh.
But never cruel.
“Damien asked me if good men killed children.”
Thomas continued.
“I told him no.”
“And you helped him run.”
“I gave him money and a train ticket.”
“To where?”
“Montreal.”
Gabriel swore.
“You created this.”
Thomas looked devastated.
“I know.”
Sophia’s phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
She opened it.
HELLO, FATHER THOMAS.
The church speakers activated.
A man’s voice filled the sanctuary.
Young.
Calm.
Educated.
“Fifteen years ago, Father Thomas gave me something no one else would.”
Thomas whispered, “Damien.”
“A choice.”
Julian drew his weapon.
“Where are you?”
Damien laughed through the speakers.
“Not there, Mr. Blackwood.”
Sophia scanned the ceiling.
Cameras.
“You could have killed Thomas.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because Thomas is not target Six.”
Sophia froze.
Gabriel looked at her.
“Then who is?”
Damien answered.
“You.”
Julian went still.
Sophia’s heartbeat slowed.
“Why call me six?”
“Because Silas’s nine graves were not nine people. They were nine failures.”
Sophia stared upward.
Arthur had been failure nine.
Silas, failure eight.
Evelyn, seven.
Her, six.
“What failure am I?”
“Love.”
Julian’s jaw tightened.
Damien continued.
“Silas taught you never to form attachments. Yet you chose Julian Blackwood.”
Sophia said nothing.
“Your father believed attachments were vulnerabilities. He was correct.”
The church doors slammed shut.
Locks engaged.
Sophia drew her weapon.
Then gasoline began pouring from pipes hidden along the walls.
Thomas backed away.
“No.”
A flame ignited near the altar.
Fire raced across the floor.
“MOVE!”
Julian grabbed Thomas.
Gabriel kicked at a side door.
Locked.
Smoke filled the sanctuary.
Sophia looked upward.
Stained glass.
Too high.
“Bell tower!”
They ran.
Fire climbed the pews.
Heat hammered Sophia’s face.
They reached the tower stairs.
Wooden.
Ancient.
Flames already licking underneath.
They climbed.
Thomas struggled.
Gabriel carried him.
At the top, they reached the bell chamber.
Fifty feet above the street.
No exit.
Julian looked through the arch.
“We jump, we die.”
Sophia saw the bell rope.
Then the massive bronze bell.
“Not if we take the bell down.”
Everyone stared.
Gabriel coughed.
“What?”
“The support beam.”
She pointed.
“If we break it, the bell falls through the tower. It creates an exit.”
“And crushes us.”
“Only if we stand under it.”
Julian smiled.
“That’s my girl.”
They attacked the rotten beam.
Julian used a fire axe from the wall.
Gabriel kicked the brace.
Sophia shot the iron connection bolts.
The bell groaned.
“Back!”
The support snapped.
The enormous bell dropped.
It tore through the wooden floor.
Then another.
Then another.
A thunderous collapse shook the church.
Smoke exploded upward.
But below them was a vertical path through the damaged floors.
Firefighters outside saw the opening.
Ladders rose.
Five minutes later, they were on the street.
Saint Michael’s burned behind them.
Thomas watched in devastation.
“My church.”
Gabriel put a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re alive.”
Sophia’s phone buzzed again.
Damien.
LOVE MAKES PEOPLE PREDICTABLE.
Sophia replied for the first time.
YOU PREDICTED I WOULD DIE.
YOU WERE WRONG.
Three dots appeared.
Then:
NO.
I PREDICTED JULIAN WOULD SAVE YOU.
Sophia looked up.
Julian was standing beside an ambulance, speaking to Victor.
Something inside her twisted.
Damien had not been testing her survival.
He was mapping them.
Learning reactions.
Weaknesses.
Attachments.
She walked to Julian.
“We need to change everything.”
“What?”
“He knows how we behave.”
“So?”
“So we become unpredictable.”
Julian smiled slightly.
“How?”
Sophia looked toward Gabriel and Thomas.
Then toward the burning church.
“We stop defending.”
May you like
Her expression hardened.
“We attack.”
