Page 21 of Coup De Grâce
And that started with my father.
7
LIBBY
The last door opened,allowing us to slip inside the building undetected.
For now.
We probably had five minutes, at best. This was our only opportunity to get the intel we needed. If we got out alive, we’d never get back inside. They would know within minutes who had breached security, and then they would come at us hard.
“He’s not going to keep hard files of anything,” Jack said as we rushed into the room.
“Check anyway,” Jason snapped. “We can’t afford to leave anything unchecked.”
I rushed over to the cabinets and picked the lock, then started rifling through the papers, hoping to find anything that might point us in the right direction. I vaguely heard Johnny on the computer, trying to figure out how to hack in. Thankfully, I’d convinced them to contact Rae. She was our only chance at succeeding.
“Alright, I’m in,” Johnny said.
The first cabinet didn’t have anything of use, so I moved on to the next cabinet, coming up with the same. But when I got to the third cabinet, my breath hitched in my chest at what I found.
My name was scrawled across a manila file folder tab, along with everyone else in this room. And everyone who worked at OPS. I carefully pulled out the thick file, marking where I’d taken it from. This was unreal.
Opening it, I shook my head when I saw the details of my life described so thoroughly on paper. Everything from my birthplace to where my eighth birthday party was held was detailed in black and white. It was disturbing, to say the least.
I knew they were watching us and gathering intel, but this went so much further. There was an entire section of the file dedicated to photographs, and some of them were so fucking private that my blood boiled.
“What did you find?” Jack asked, walking over to me.
When he saw what was in my hand, he snatched it up and immediately started looking through it.
“This goes beyond surveillance.”
“It’s like they were following us all along,” I murmured.
His finger followed one line. “Look at this.”
Suspected of working for another agency.
His head whipped up to look at me. “That was when we first met you.”
“All this time,” I said, shaking my head. “I assumed Rafe just caught their attention, but…”
“No, this is fucking detailed shit. They’ve been watching for years.”
He handed it back over and dug through the cabinet until he came up with another name. I assumed it would be his own, but he surprised me by pulling out Michael’s folder.
“This guy dug into Michael.”
“Because he’s part of the Shadow Government,” I surmised.
He nodded. “And he was watching Rafe from a young age. Cash, too. He’s been tracking their movements from when they were in the military.”
I shivered at the thought, wondering why they would be so interested in his kids. “Is there anything in there about other Shadow agents?”
He slid the drawer closed and opened another. But it was clear that this cabinet was dedicated to anyone related to Michael. Even spouses had their own folders. Brett was very thorough, gathering intel on anyone who came in contact with Michael or his sons.
“But if Brett knew all about Rafe and Cash, why did he allow them to continue? Why not just kill them?”
