Chapter 8 - THE VOICE FROM THE ABYSS
-8-
The audio recording played in the quiet, expansive foyer of the KANE estate, the raspy, broken voice echoing off the marble walls like a specter returning from the dead.
"Elena... if you're listening to this, it means the Sterling brothers finally ran out of road," the voice wheezed through the tablet speakers, coughing violently before continuing. "You probably thought I abandoned you back in ninety-eight. You probably thought I was just another casualty of the corporate purge. But I was locked away, El. Locked away in a black-site medical facility funded by Arthur’s slush fund, drugged and silenced so I couldn't expose how they engineered our parents' 'accident'."
Mom’s hands flew to her mouth, a choked, terrified sob escaping her throat. She stumbled backward, nearly losing her footing before Julian caught her by the elbows, steadying her against his chest.
"No..." Mom whispered, shaking her head frantically. "No, that's impossible. He's dead. We buried him!"
"Who is that, El?" Vincent demanded, his voice trembling with a raw, intense fury as he stared at the tablet. "Who is speaking on that recording?"
"It's... it's our older brother, David," Mom choked out, tears streaming down her face. "David Kane. He disappeared six months before our parents' car crash. Arthur told us he took a payoff and fled the country to escape gambling debts. We never saw him again."
Julian’s face darkened into a mask of pure, unadulterated ice. He looked down at Tommy, his tone dropping into a lethal register. "Trace that signal, Tommy. Right now. Where in the federal holding facility did that transmission originate?"
Tommy’s fingers blurred across the tablet screen, his eyes wide with concentration as he bypassed the prison's internal firewalls. "Routing... tracing the IP... Boss, it didn't come from the general inmate population block. It came from the medical quarantine wing on Sub-Level 3—a restricted area managed entirely by private federal contractors, not regular correctional officers."
"Private contractors," Vincent repeated, his jaw clenching so tightly a muscle ticked along his cheek. "Sterling Enterprises didn't just control the city council and the police; they had private medical holding cells where they could quietly warehouse people who knew too much."
"He's still alive," Mom said, her maternal and sisterly instincts igniting like wildfire. She looked at Vincent and Julian, her eyes blazing with absolute, unyielding resolve. "After all these years... he's alive, and he's locked in a medical cage under the control of Arthur’s remaining loyalists. We have to get him out."
"We are going to get him out, El," Julian promised, stepping forward and pulling her into a fierce, protective embrace. He turned his gaze toward Vincent. "Vinny, assemble the tactical team. We're going visiting."
"Wait," I interrupted, stepping out from the shadows of the staircase where I had been listening to every word, holding my red hoodie tight. "You can't just storm a federal holding facility with a private security detail. That’s an act of war against the government. They’ll brand us domestic terrorists before we even reach the parking lot."
Vincent looked down at me, a grim, razor-sharp smile touching his lips. He crouched down to eye level, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder.
"We aren't going to storm the prison, Rory," Vincent explained softly. "We're going to execute a legally sanctioned rescue mission backed by an emergency federal writ of habeas corpus. We just need the right judge to sign it."
"And who is going to sign a midnight habeas corpus writ for a ghost prisoner who was officially declared dead twenty-five years ago?" Julian asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Judge Katherine Sterling," a new voice echoed from the front doors.
We all whipped our heads toward the entrance. The heavy oak doors pushed open, and Marcus Vance stepped into the foyer, holding a leather briefcase and wearing a calm, confident grin.
May you like
"Marcus," Vincent said, standing up. "What are you doing here?"
"I was tracking the exact same digital ping Tommy just intercepted," Marcus said, walking over to the coffee table and tossing a fresh set of federal court documents onto the surface. "As it turns out, Judge Sterling has spent the last year secretly investigating the illegal medical detention camps funded by Arthur’s shell corporations. She’s been looking for a whistleblower inside the system. And your brother David... is the master key to blowing the entire corrupt judiciary wide open."
