Chapter 6 - Safehouse Confessions
An hour later, the hijacked train sat abandoned on a rusty spur line three miles outside an old industrial park. Adrian, his arm draped around Gabriel’s uninjured side, supported his bleeding chief as they navigated the back alleys of an old river town, guided by Celia’s precise directions.
She led them to an unmarked brick garage tucked behind a derelict lumber yard. With three precise clicks of an electronic keypad, the heavy steel door rolled up, revealing a clean, austere workshop stocked with medical supplies, emergency communications, and a nondescript dark sedan.
Adrian helped Gabriel onto a clean workbench. Celia moved immediately, tossing Adrian a sterile medical kit. “Irrigate the wound. I’ll prepare the local anesthetic and suture kit.”
For thirty minutes, the garage was quiet except for the clinking of surgical instruments and Gabriel’s muted grunts of pain. Adrian worked with the practiced calm of a man who had seen too much blood in his life, while Celia stitched Gabriel’s torn shoulder with surgeon-like precision.
When Gabriel was bandaged, medicated, and resting under a heavy wool blanket in the back room, Adrian finally washed the dark stains from his hands at a utility sink. He looked in the cracked mirror above the basin. The polished billionaire from Manhattan was gone; in his place stood the street fighter who had clawed his way out of Hell’s Kitchen twenty years ago.
He walked out into the main garage. Celia was sitting on a metal crate, stripping down her handgun, cleaning the firing pin with methodical care.
“Tell me about your sister,” Adrian said quietly, leaning against the workbench.
Celia didn't look up, but her hands slowed. “Her name is Elena. She was an executive accountant at an offshore firm Marcus used to launder money outside of Voss Holdings. Three months ago, Elena discovered a discrepancy—over eighty million dollars funneling into private paramilitary accounts and shell companies tied to your political enemies.”
Adrian’s jaw hardened. “Marcus wasn't just planning a coup. He was buying an army.”
“Elena tried to resign,” Celia continued, her voice trembling slightly before she forced it back under control. “She knew what Marcus was capable of. That night, her car was run off the road into a ravine in New Jersey. She survived, but she’s been in a medically induced coma in a private clinic under an assumed name for eight weeks. Marcus thinks she’s dead. He hired an elite mercenary broker to finish the job on you—and through backchannels, I intercepted the contract.”
“You took the contract to get close to him,” Adrian realized.
“I took the contract because it was the only way to find out who gave the order,” she said, looking up, her eyes burning with unshed tears. “I thought you were just another ruthless monster who deserved whatever was coming to him. I was going to let the hit happen, then take Marcus down myself.”
“What changed your mind?”
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Celia looked down at the table, where the crumpled, blood-stained newspaper page from the train lay folded. “A man who sits on a quiet train, working a cheap crossword puzzle, who treats an annoying stranger with patience instead of violence... that didn't match the profile of the beast Marcus described. I realized if I let you die, Marcus would inherit your entire empire. He would become untouchable. And Elena would never get justice.”
Adrian stepped closer, reaching out to gently touch her shoulder. “He won't touch her again. I give you my word, Celia. Marcus Vance is finished.”
