Chapter 413
[ 513 words ]
Chapter 413:
“Because he wanted to protect you.” Jarrod’s voice was heavy with a reluctant understanding. “He wanted to give me the choice. Whether to tell you. Whether to act on it. He knows what it will cost me to move against my own family.”
Brenna and Julian, who had been hovering near the end of the corridor, exchanged a look of stunned disbelief. Julian took a step forward, his medical instincts warring with the realization that this was far beyond his capacity to help.
Caroline pulled back, her eyes searching Jarrod’s face. “And what did you choose?”
Jarrod looked at her for a long moment. Then he lifted his hand and cupped her face, his thumb wiping away a tear she hadn’t realized had fallen.
“I chose you,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Every time. I will always choose you.”
The door to Donovan’s room opened again, and the man himself stepped out. He looked pale and fragile, the hospital gown hanging loosely on his frame, but his eyes were clear and steady. He met Caroline’s gaze with a quiet, pained dignity.
“I know you have no reason to trust me,” Donovan said, his voice hoarse. “But I made your mother a promise, years ago, that I would keep you safe. I failed her then. I won’t fail her now.”
Caroline stared at him, the stranger who had upended her life, and for the first time, she saw not an intruder, but a man carrying the same grief she was. A man who had loved her mother. A man who, like her, had been living in the shadow of a lie.
𝗕𝗲 p𝘢𝗋𝗍 𝘰𝖿 𝘰𝗎r с𝘰m𝗆u𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗒 𝗼ո g𝗮𝗹nоv𝗲𝗹𝗌.𝖼𝘰m
She didn’t forgive him. Not yet. But she nodded—a small, fragile gesture of acknowledgment.
“Tell me everything,” she said.
He held her as she trembled with rage and grief, her muffled sobs vibrating against his chest. But his mind wasn’t in the hallway. It was ten minutes in the past, on the other side of that closed door.
The air in the room was thin, heavy with the scent of antiseptic and fading life. He had walked to Donovan’s bedside, and the dying man had gestured for him to lean closer. His breath was a shallow, rattling whisper.
“Jarrod,” Donovan had said, and his first words sent a jolt through him. “Walter Thompson. Caroline’s adoptive father. His death wasn’t an accident.”
Jarrod’s pupils contracted. Every instinct he possessed as a soldier, as a commander, screamed that he was standing on the edge of a precipice.
“It was murder.” Donovan pushed the word out with the last of his strength.
He told Jarrod everything. Walter had been a cryptographer for the NSA. He had stumbled onto something, something dangerous. He’d hidden the proof, a key or a code, in a place only Caroline would know—a “secret fort” from her childhood.
“Find it, Jarrod,” Donovan pleaded, his bony fingers digging into Jarrod’s hand. “Get justice for him. Protect her.”
Jarrod’s mind was racing, connecting these new data points to the vast, shadowy network of threats he already knew existed. It was a piece of a puzzle he hadn’t even known was missing.
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