Chapter 12 - Raymond's Last Bargain
Raymond survived.
Barely.
He woke handcuffed to a hospital bed beneath federal guard.
His first request wasn't an attorney.
It was Jonah.
Mara refused.
Raymond asked again.
“He says he'll only discuss the missing people with you present,” she told Jonah.
Lucas stood beside him.
“No.”
Jonah looked at him.
“You don't go near that man.”
“Lucas—”
“He lies.”
“I know.”
“He manipulates.”
“I know.”
“He used us.”
“I know.”
Lucas's voice cracked.
“And he may have killed my brother.”
Jonah remained silent.
Lucas turned away.
“Don't give him another chance to get inside your head.”
Stella sat nearby.
“What if he knows where the third person is?”
Lucas closed his eyes.
That was the problem.
Raymond still possessed information.
And information kept buying him time.
Jonah went.
Stella didn't.
This conversation belonged to a family before it belonged to an investigation.
Raymond looked smaller in the hospital bed.
For the first time in Jonah's life, his uncle seemed old.
“You came.”
“You're talking about Michael Trent.”
Raymond smiled faintly.
“No hello?”
“No.”
“Your father had better manners.”
“My father warned me about you.”
Raymond's expression changed.
“You found the letter.”
“Yes.”
“He was sentimental.”
“He was right.”
“Sometimes.”
Jonah sat.
“Michael.”
Raymond looked toward the guard.
“Alone.”
“No.”
“Then we're done.”
Jonah stood.
Raymond sighed.
“Sit.”
Jonah remained standing.
“I didn't kill Michael.”
“Who did?”
“Dean's father.”
Jonah froze.
“Patrick Calloway?”
“Yes.”
“He died nine years ago.”
“Convenient.”
“Why?”
Raymond looked tired.
“Michael discovered money moving through Meridian.”
“Your company.”
“Yes.”
“He confronted me.”
“And?”
“I offered him money.”
Jonah's jaw tightened.
“He refused.”
“Lucas's family always had an irritating moral streak.”
“Then what?”
“Patrick panicked.”
Raymond looked toward the ceiling.
“He thought Michael would go to police.”
“What did you do?”
“I told Patrick to scare him.”
Jonah's eyes became cold.
“What happened?”
“He went too far.”
“You buried him.”
Raymond closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Jonah felt something inside him shift.
Not explode.
Shift.
Like a building settling after structural damage.
“You lied to Lucas.”
“Yes.”
“You let him believe his brother left.”
“Yes.”
“You recruited him afterward.”
Raymond finally looked ashamed.
“Keeping him close seemed safer.”
Jonah stood very still.
“You comforted him.”
“Yes.”
“You helped him look for Michael.”
Raymond whispered, “Yes.”
Jonah understood then why Raymond frightened him more than Dean.
Dean's cruelty was obvious.
Raymond could destroy someone while embracing him.
“Samuel Ortiz?”
Raymond nodded.
“Patrick.”
“Karen Webb?”
“Vale arranged that.”
“The third?”
“Michael.”
“You said three murders.”
“Three people.”
“So where's Karen?”
“River.”
Jonah closed his eyes.
“And Samuel?”
“The property.”
“Two bodies.”
“Yes.”
Michael and Samuel.
Jonah turned toward the door.
“Wait.”
Raymond's voice changed.
Almost frightened.
“Somebody poisoned me.”
Jonah looked back.
“That's what I've heard.”
“You need to find who.”
“No.”
Raymond blinked.
“They'll come for you next.”
“Maybe.”
“Jonah.”
For the first time, Raymond didn't sound controlling.
He sounded afraid.
“You're all I have.”
Jonah stared.
There it was again.
Love weaponized as obligation.
“No.”
His answer was quiet.
“You had all of us.”
Raymond's face fell.
“You had my father. Me. Lucas. Victor. People who trusted you.”
Jonah opened the door.
“You chose power every time.”
He left.
Outside, Lucas waited.
One look at Jonah's face gave him the answer.
“Michael?”
Jonah nodded.
Lucas sat heavily.
“Where?”
“The property.”
Lucas covered his face.
Jonah sat beside him.
For a long time neither spoke.
Then Lucas whispered, “I would've forgiven him for almost anything.”
“I know.”
“He helped me search.”
“I know.”
Lucas lowered his hands.
“Tell me exactly.”
Jonah did.
Every detail.
No softening.
No protecting.
When he finished, Lucas cried.
Not loudly.
Jonah had seen him break ribs without changing expression.
Now the largest man in the hallway cried like a boy who had spent fifteen years waiting for a brother who had never left voluntarily.
Jonah remained beside him.
Stella received the news later.
She cried too.
Not because she'd known Michael.
Because she understood what it meant to have reality rewritten by somebody you trusted.
That afternoon, remains were confirmed.
Michael Trent.
Samuel Ortiz.
Mara personally told Lucas.
Then she arrested Patrick Calloway's former associate, who had helped bury them.
The investigation widened.
Raymond began cooperating.
Not from repentance.
From survival.
Someone had poisoned him with medication delivered during transport.
Only a limited number of people had access.
One was a corrections nurse.
Another was an officer named Daniel Price.
Mara knew Price.
He had served with her father.
“Price is in the ledger,” Reed said.
She checked.
One payment.
Ten thousand dollars.
Purpose: SPECIAL SECURITY.
“He's Janus cleanup,” Jonah said.
“Possibly.”
Price disappeared before arrest.
Another man hiding.
Another loose end.
But Dean remained in custody.
For once, Stella slept almost six uninterrupted hours.
When she woke, she found Jonah sitting outside the apartment in the hallway.
Not inside.
Outside.
“What are you doing?”
He looked up.
“Lucas is with his family. Security rotation changed.”
“You're acting as hallway security?”
“Temporarily.”
She leaned against the doorframe.
“You own security companies.”
“I do.”
“And yet you're sitting on a folding chair.”
He looked down at it.
“Apparently luxury has limits.”
Stella smiled.
No rib pain this time.
They were healing.
“Coffee?”
Jonah hesitated.
“Inside?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
That question.
Always.
Are you sure?
She was beginning to understand how rare it had been in her life.
Jonah entered.
Lily was staying with a friend for the morning.
The apartment felt quiet.
Stella poured coffee.
“You confronted Raymond.”
“Yes.”
“Did it help?”
“No.”
“Do you feel better?”
“No.”
She handed him a mug.
“What do you feel?”
Jonah looked surprised.
People asked him what he intended.
What he knew.
What he wanted.
Rarely what he felt.
“Angry.”
“Anything else?”
“Tired.”
“Anything else?”
He looked at her.
“Afraid.”
Stella paused.
“Of what?”
“That Raymond built more of me than I realized.”
She understood immediately.
“Dean made me wonder the same thing.”
Jonah waited.
“For months I've wondered whether I'm still doing something because I want to or because he trained me to.”
She sat across from him.
“Maybe the question isn't who built parts of us.”
“What is it?”
“What we choose to keep.”
Jonah looked at her.
That sentence stayed.
Later, when Stella walked him to the door, he stopped.
“Thank you.”
“For coffee?”
“For that.”
She smiled.
Then, impulsively, kissed his cheek.
Jonah froze.
Stella immediately stepped back.
“Sorry.”
“Don't apologize.”
“You looked surprised.”
“I was.”
“Bad surprised?”
His mouth curved.
“No.”
For one brief moment, the world felt ordinary.
Then Jonah's phone rang.
Mara.
Officer Daniel Price had been found.
Dead inside his car.
A typed confession sat beside him claiming responsibility for everything.
Northline.
The poison.
The murders.
All of it.
Too convenient.
Jonah knew immediately.
“It's staged.”
Mara agreed.
Which meant Raymond wasn't the final architect.
Price wasn't the cleanup man.
Dean wasn't the center.
Someone else had been using all of them.
And on Price's phone was a draft text never sent.
It contained only four words:
ASK STELLA ABOUT HAWTHORNE.
Stella read the message twice.
Then went completely still.
Jonah noticed.
“You know the name.”
She looked at him.
“Yes.”
May you like
“Hawthorne was the company Dean told me never to open.”
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