Chapter 14 - HIS BEST FRIEND HAD DIED TO SAVE HIM—EXCEPT HE HADN’T DIED
Nobody spoke while the video played.
Eli looked thinner than I remembered.
A bruise covered half his face.
“The mission was compromised before we landed,” he said. “Mercer sold the route. I found out too late. When the ambush started, I changed positions with Jack. The round meant for him hit me.”
My hands went cold.
I remembered carrying Eli.
I remembered the helicopter.
I remembered a medic telling me to get back.
After that, everything blurred.
Eli continued.
“I survived surgery. Mercer moved me before Jack woke up. He needed a dead man.”
Sarah covered her mouth.
“Why?” Mia whispered.
The video answered.
“Because dead men don’t testify.”
Documents appeared on screen behind him.
Diversions of military equipment.
Fake losses.
Convoy routes sold to armed groups.
Enough corruption to destroy careers and send people to prison for life.
Then Eli said the part that hurt most.
“I stayed hidden because Mercer threatened Jack’s family.”
Sarah looked at me.
I couldn’t look back.
“He promised that if I surfaced, Jack would die first. Then Sarah.”
The video ended.
I sat completely still.
Eight years of grief shifted inside me.
Not vanished.
Changed.
Eli was alive.
And he had stayed away to keep us alive.
“So why is he working with Mercer now?” Cole asked.
That was the question.
Sarah clicked another folder.
A spreadsheet opened.
Payments.
Names.
Ash Creek dates.
One line had today’s timestamp.
WARD, E. — COMPLIANCE FAILURE.
Another:
TRANSFER SUBJECT TO KENNEL.
I looked at Rex.
“Kennel.”
Lauren’s face went pale.
“There’s a place outside town. They called it that.”
“What kind of place?”
“Training compound. Dogs. Guards. People who didn’t cooperate.”
Cole grabbed his keys.
“Where?”
Lauren gave directions.
We arrived just before dawn.
The property looked like an abandoned boarding facility surrounded by chain-link fence.
Rex started whining the moment we stepped out.
Dozens of dogs barked inside.
We cut through the fence.
The kennel building smelled like disinfectant and fear.
Empty cages lined both walls.
At the far end, a steel door stood partly open.
Behind it, someone groaned.
I pushed inside.
Eli lay chained to a pipe.
Alive.
His face was bloody.
His left leg bent wrong.
Rex reached him first.
The dog pressed his head into Eli’s chest and made a sound I had never heard before.
Eli opened his eyes.
He touched Rex’s ear.
“Hey, partner.”
Then he looked at me.
“Jack.”
I couldn’t breathe.
Eli’s expression changed.
“Don’t untie me.”
“What?”
He looked toward the ceiling.
“Because Mercer wired the room to the chain.”
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