They moved with the smooth precision of people used to this kind of work.
Jude got Sophia inside, locked the door, and killed the house light.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Through the window, they watched the men come through the gate.
Rebecca stood beside Jude, close enough for him to feel her trembling.
Then she whispered, “I know who sent them.”
“Who?”
“I’ll tell you,” she said. “If we survive the next ten minutes.”
The knock on the door was hard. Professional.
“Open the door.”
No one moved.
The knock came again, heavier this time.
“We know you’re inside.”
Jude and Rebecca exchanged a glance in the dark.
There were no good options.
Then Rebecca remembered something.
“In the bedroom,” she whispered. “Under the third floorboard by the bed. There’s a brown envelope. Everything I found. Everything I rebuilt after I vanished. Whatever happens, it cannot stay here.”
Jude went, found it, and tucked it inside his coat.
A second later, the front door exploded inward.
Three men entered. One stayed outside.
They spread across the room with trained efficiency.
A flashlight beam swept over Jude, Rebecca, and Sophia.
The man in the center smiled.
A thin, cold smile.
He took off his sunglasses.
Jude looked at his face and felt reality split open.
It was Thomas Dan.
His business partner.
His oldest friend.
The man who had stood beside him at his wedding.
The man who arranged Rebecca’s funeral.
The man who held his arm at the graveside and said, Grief doesn’t have a schedule.
Thomas looked past Jude at Rebecca.
“You,” he said softly, “should have died.”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Eleven years of trust collapsed in total silence.
Thomas held out his hand.
“The envelope, Jude.”
Jude stared at him.
“You arranged her funeral.”
Thomas’s face didn’t change.
“You stood beside me at her grave.”
“I was fond of Rebecca,” Thomas said. “But this was never personal. She became a problem.”
“You tried to kill her.”
“She was going to destroy everything.”
Rebecca’s voice came steady from behind Jude.
“It was already rotten. You just didn’t want it exposed.”
Thomas’s pleasant mask slipped for the first time.
“There are interests involved here far bigger than either of you understand,” he snapped. “Give me the envelope.”
Jude said nothing.
