Chapter 12 - The Man I Once Called Brother
I refused to meet Andrew alone.
We met in a secure interview room with investigators watching.
He smiled when I entered.
“Gray Six.”
“My name is Daniel.”
“You got soft.”
“I became a father.”
“Same thing.”
I sat opposite him.
“Why Toby?”
“To wake you up.”
“He’s eight.”
Andrew shrugged.
That tiny movement erased the last trace of the man I once knew.
“You could have come after me.”
“You would have expected that.”
“So you used a child.”
“I used leverage.”
“No. You hurt a child because you were afraid of his father.”
His smile disappeared.
There it was.
The wound beneath all the arrogance.
Fear.
Andrew had spent thirteen years building a mythology around me.
The man who destroyed his life.
The agent who refused to die.
But I wasn’t interested in his mythology.
I wanted evidence.
So I let him talk.
For forty-seven minutes.
He bragged.
Corrected details investigators deliberately misstated.
Named accounts.
Mentioned meetings.
Confirmed relationships.
Arrogant men often confess while trying to prove they are smarter than everyone else.
When I stood to leave, Andrew finally understood.
“You used me.”
“No.”
I opened the door.
“You used yourself.”
His shouting followed me down the hallway.
Marcus waited outside.
“Useful?”
“Very.”
“How useful?”
“Ask the prosecutor.”
Marcus smiled.
For the first time in weeks, so did I.
Andrew had just connected himself directly to Project Hearth.
May you like
And he had done it voluntarily.
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