Chapter 18: The Last Witness
524 Words
The cottage erupted into chaos.
"Everyone, get down!" Detective Bennett shouted as another bullet shattered the front window.
Alexander rushed to Samuel, who had fallen beside the fireplace.
"Samuel!"
The old man groaned in pain.
"The bullet... it hit my shoulder," he whispered.
Detective Bennett quickly checked the wound.
"He's alive. We need an ambulance!"
Outside, tires screeched across the gravel.
Four masked men surrounded the cottage.
"They're closing in," Jordan warned.
Nathan peered through a side window.
"They're carrying automatic weapons."
Alexander looked around the small room.
"There has to be another way out."
Samuel pointed weakly toward the kitchen.
"The cellar... there's a tunnel."
---
Maya helped Ethan—who had insisted on staying behind at a safe location earlier and was not present—wasn't there, so she instead supported Samuel as Alexander and Nathan lifted him carefully.
Jordan pulled open a trapdoor beneath an old rug.
A narrow stone staircase disappeared into darkness.
"Hurry!" Detective Bennett urged.
One by one, they climbed down.
Moments later, the front door crashed open.
The attackers had entered the cottage.
---
The tunnel was cold and damp.
Old lantern hooks lined the walls, evidence that it had been built decades earlier.
"How did you know about this?" Maya asked Samuel.
"Your father..." Samuel said between breaths to Alexander. "He built it after receiving death threats."
They continued forward until they reached an iron gate.
Nathan forced it open.
Fresh air rushed in.
They emerged behind a line of cliffs overlooking the sea.
An ambulance and police vehicles were already arriving at the cottage from the opposite road.
"We made it," Jordan sighed.
Detective Bennett shook her head.
"Not yet."
She pointed toward the beach below.
A black speedboat was racing away from the shore.
One of the masked men removed his hood and looked back toward the cliffs.
Alexander froze.
"I know him."
Maya stared.
"It can't be..."
The man wasn't Richard Hale.
It wasn't Damien.
It was Michael Reeves, Stone Global's Chief Financial Officer—a trusted executive who had worked with Alexander for nearly ten years.
"He was inside my company all along," Alexander said quietly.
Nathan clenched his jaw.
"He wasn't spying for Hale."
Maya looked at him.
"How do you know?"
Nathan's expression darkened.
"Because Michael Reeves is Richard Hale's son."
Silence swept over the group.
Everything suddenly made sense.
The stolen documents.
The sabotage.
The false accusations.
Someone had spent years earning Alexander's trust from inside the company.
Detective Bennett's radio crackled.
"Detective, we've secured the cottage. We also found a laptop hidden beneath the floorboards."
Her eyes widened.
"What was on it?"
"The files mention a meeting tonight."
"Where?"
She listened carefully.
Then she looked at Alexander.
"The old Stone Global headquarters."
Alexander frowned.
"But that building has been abandoned for fifteen years."
"Not anymore," Bennett replied.
"The mastermind is planning one final meeting."
Alexander looked at Maya.
"This ends tonight."
As the speedboat disappeared over the horizon, Richard Hale watched the scene through binoculars from a yacht anchored far offshore.
He smiled.
"Come to the headquarters, Alexander."
He lowered the binoculars.
"I'll be waiting."
To be continued
- Writer
