IN LOVE WITH MY BROTHER'S WIFE

EPISODE 8

"Stop the truck! I’m going to be sick!"

Maya’s scream cut through the tense silence of the cab. She was pale, her skin looking green in the dashboard lights.

I slammed on the brakes. The heavy pickup truck skidded on the wet asphalt, tires screeching as we pulled onto the soft shoulder of the road.

Before the truck even stopped moving, Maya threw her door open. She stumbled out into the rain, bending over by the ditch, heaving.

Sarah unbuckled her seatbelt instantly. "I’ve got her," she said.

She jumped out and ran to Maya’s side, rubbing her back as the rain poured down on them.

I stayed in the driver's seat for a second. I gripped the steering wheel so hard the leather creaked. My hands were shaking. Not from fear. From the adrenaline crash.

I looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror. My lip was split. There was a bruise forming on my jaw. My eyes looked wild, dark, and dangerous.

I didn't look like the mechanic anymore. I looked like a fugitive.

I looked like Danny.

The thought made me sick. I shook my head, trying to clear the image of the vault. The smell of Sarah’s skin. The sound of her cries against my neck.

We crossed the line, I thought. And there is no going back.

I opened the door and stepped out into the storm. The cold wind bit through my wet clothes, stinging my skin.

Maya was wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She was crying, shivering violently.

"I can't do this," Maya sobbed. "I’m just a teller, Jack. I count money. I don't rob banks. I don't run from the Sheriff."

"You didn't rob a bank," I said, walking over to them. "You saved our lives."

"He saw me," Maya whispered, her eyes wide with panic. "Ford saw me. He knows I pulled the alarm. He’s going to come for me."

"He won't find you," I said firmly. "Listen to me."

I grabbed her shoulders. I forced her to look at me.

"Take the truck," I said.

Sarah looked at me, surprised. "Jack? How will we get to the lighthouse?"

"We walk," I said. "It's only two miles through the woods. But Maya needs to get out of town. Now."

I turned back to Maya. "Drive to the ferry terminal. Leave the truck in the long-term lot. Get on the first boat to Seattle. Don't use your credit cards. Use cash."

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a wad of wet hundred-dollar bills—the money from the salvage yard safe back in Episode 2. I shoved it into her hand.

"Go to a motel," I instructed. "Stay inside. Don't call anyone. Not even your mom. We will come for you when it's safe."

Maya looked at the money, then at the truck, then at me.

"What about you?" she asked. "He's going to kill you."

"He's going to try," I said grimly.

Maya hugged Sarah quickly. "Be careful," she whispered. Then she looked at me. "Danny... he wasn't afraid of the Sheriff, Jack. He was afraid of the water. Remember that."

She climbed into the driver's seat. The truck roared away, taillights fading into the mist.

We were alone.

Standing on the side of a dark highway, surrounded by dense pine forest, with nothing but the clothes on our backs and a stolen master key.

Sarah looked at me. Rain plastered her hair to her face. Her shirt was soaked, clinging to her skin.

She stepped closer. She didn't say anything. She just reached out and took my hand.

Her fingers were warm. The connection sent a jolt through me, hotter than the cold rain.

"Two miles?" she asked.

"Give or take," I said. "Are you ready?"

"I'm done being afraid," she said. "Let's go hunting."

The hike to the Old Lighthouse was brutal. There was no path. We had to cut through the dense underbrush, fighting against wet branches that whipped our faces. The ground was mud, thick and sucking at our boots.

My shoulder—the one the deputy had slammed into the wall—was throbbing with a dull, heavy ache. Every time I lifted my arm to push a branch away, white sparks danced in my vision.

But I didn't stop. And Sarah didn't complain.

She was tough. I watched her climb over a fallen log, her movements efficient and strong. Danny had treated her like a porcelain doll. He put her on a shelf. But out here, in the dark and the dirt, she was steel.

"Jack," she said, stopping suddenly. "Look."

We had reached the edge of the tree line.

Ahead of us, the ground dropped away into jagged black cliffs. And sitting on the very edge of the point, looming against the stormy sky, was the lighthouse.

It wasn't like the postcards. It was a ruin. The white paint had peeled away decades ago, leaving grey, rotting wood. The glass in the lantern room at the top was shattered. The keeper’s cottage attached to the base was slumped, the roof sagging like a broken spine.

"It looks dead," Sarah whispered.

"It's supposed to," I said. "That's why Danny chose it."

We moved across the open ground, keeping low in the tall grass. The wind was fierce here, howling off the ocean. The waves crashed against the cliffs below with a sound like cannon fire. BOOM. BOOM.

We reached the cottage door. It was hanging off one hinge.

I motioned for Sarah to stay back. I pulled the master key from my pocket—not that I needed it here—and gripped it like a weapon between my knuckles.

I pushed the door open.

Creeeeaaak.

The inside smelled of mold, rat droppings, and... ozone.

"Do you smell that?" I whispered.

"Like a thunderstorm," Sarah said.

I pulled out my lighter and flicked it on. The small flame illuminated the room.

It was a mess. Old furniture rotted in the corners. But in the center of the room, the dust had been disturbed. There were footprints.

And on a sturdy oak table in the middle of the room, there was a setup that didn't belong in a ruin.

A heavy black Pelican case. A portable generator (silent, battery operated). And a row of hard drives.

"He was here," Sarah breathed. She walked to the table. "Look."

She picked up a candy bar wrapper from the floor. Snickers.

"Danny's favorite," she said. Her voice cracked. "He was standing right here. Eating a chocolate bar while I was crying at home wondering if he was dead."

I saw the pain in her face. The betrayal was cutting deeper than the fear.

I walked over to her. I put my hand on her back, feeling the tension in her muscles.

"We're going to find out why," I said.

I looked at the equipment. It was military grade. The same kind of tech we saw on the drone.

"This isn't just a drop point," I said, running my fingers over the black case. "This is a command center."

I flipped the latch on the case. I opened it.

Inside was a ruggedized laptop and a satellite uplink unit.

I pressed the power button.

The screen flickered to life. It didn't ask for a password. It was already logged in.

A map appeared on the screen. It was a live tracking map of the coastline.

There were two dots on the screen.

One was blue. It was stationary. It was marked HOME BASE. That was us. The lighthouse.

The other dot was red. It was moving. Fast. It was out in the deep water, heading west, away from the coast.

It was marked LEVIATHAN.

"Leviathan," Sarah read the screen. "That's a sea monster."

"It's a ship," I said. I typed on the keyboard, pulling up the vessel details. "A container ship. Panamanian flag. It left the port of Seattle six hours ago."

"Is Danny on it?"

"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe the cargo is."

I clicked on the 'Files' folder. I wanted to see the logs. I wanted to see the names in the ledger that we left in the bank ceiling.

But the folder was empty.

Except for one video file.

It was titled: FOR_JACK.mov

I froze. My hand hovered over the trackpad.

"He knew," Sarah whispered. "He knew you would come."

"He knows me," I said. "He knows I don't give up."

"Play it," she said. She stepped closer, her shoulder pressing against mine. She needed the contact. So did I.

I clicked play.

The video opened.

It was Danny.

He was sitting in this very room. The rotting walls of the cottage were visible behind him. He looked... different.

His hair was buzzed short. He had a scar above his eye that I hadn't seen before. And his eyes... they were manic. He was smiling, but it wasn't his warm, brotherly smile. It was a sharp, jagged grin.

"Hey, little brother," Danny said from the screen. His voice was tinny through the laptop speakers.

"If you're watching this, it means you survived the bank. Good job. I knew you were smart. That's why I always kept you around. You fix things."

Sarah made a small, wounded sound in her throat.

"And Sarah," Danny continued, looking directly into the camera lens. "I know you're there too. Jack doesn't go anywhere without his safety blanket."

Sarah stiffened. "Bastard."

"I'm sorry about the mess," Danny said, gesturing around. "But I had to leave in a hurry. The Syndicate is... impatient. We're moving the product. The Subject 8 canisters are unstable. We have to get them to the buyer before they degrade."

He leaned in closer to the camera. His eyes went dark.

"Stop following me, Jack. I mean it. You think you're the hero? You're not. You're just a mechanic. You don't know what's at stake. This isn't about money anymore. It's about evolution."

"Evolution?" I muttered. "He's lost his mind."

"Go home," Danny said. "Take Sarah. Move to Oregon. Forget you ever had a brother. Because where I'm going... you can't follow. And if you try..."

Danny reached down and picked up something from the table.

It was a detonator. A remote trigger.

"I rigged the playground, Jack," Danny whispered. "Boom."

The video cut to black.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The sound came from the corner of the room.

I spun around.

Under the rotting sofa, a red light was blinking. Faster and faster.

"Jack!" Sarah screamed.

"Run!" I grabbed her hand.

We scrambled for the door. We threw ourselves out into the rain, sprinting across the wet grass.

We didn't look back. We just ran toward the cliff edge, away from the cottage.

KA-BOOM!

The explosion lifted me off my feet.

A shockwave of heat and force slammed into my back. I went flying, hitting the mud hard. Debris rained down on us—splinters of wood, chunks of roof shingles, burning insulation.

My ears were ringing. A high-pitched squeal that drowned out the storm.

I groaned and rolled over.

The cottage was gone. It was a ball of fire, orange flames licking up into the night sky, illuminating the broken lighthouse tower.

"Sarah!" I shouted. I couldn't hear my own voice.

I crawled through the mud. "Sarah!"

"I'm here!"

She was lying a few feet away, curled in a ball. She was covered in mud, but she was moving. She sat up, coughing.

"Are you hit?" I scrambled over to her, checking her for shrapnel.

"I'm okay," she gasped. "I think... I think I'm okay."

She looked at the burning ruins. Her face was illuminated by the firelight. She looked horrified.

"He tried to kill us," she whispered. "My husband... your brother... he actually tried to kill us."

"He thought that would stop us," I said. I wiped mud from my eyes. The anger was rising in me, cold and hard, replacing the fear.

I stood up. I helped Sarah to her feet. We stood there, watching the fire.

"He said go home," Sarah said. Her voice was trembling, but her eyes were dry. "He said forget him."

"We can't," I said. "Not now."

"No," she agreed. She looked at me. "He's on that ship. The Leviathan."

"It's heading for international waters," I said. "If it crosses the line, we can't touch him. And whatever is in those canisters disappears forever."

"How do we catch a container ship?" she asked.

I looked out at the dark ocean. I thought about the salvage yard. I thought about the one boat Danny hadn't taken. The one boat that was fast enough, tough enough, and crazy enough for this weather.

"We don't need to catch it," I said. "We just need to intercept it."

I looked at Sarah.

"We need the Sea Witch," I said. "And we need a crew."

"We don't have a crew," she said. "Everyone is afraid of Ford."

"Not everyone," I said. "I know a guy. An old Navy salvage diver. He lives in the scrapyard on the edge of town. He hates the police and he owes me a favor."

"Is he crazy?" Sarah asked.

"Completely," I said.

I took her face in my hands. I kissed her forehead, tasting the smoke and the rain.

"We're going to sea, Sarah. And we're going to bring him down."

She nodded. She reached into her pocket and pulled out something she had grabbed from the table right before we ran.

It wasn't the laptop. It wasn't the hard drive.

It was a small, black notebook.

My eyes widened.

"The logbook?" I asked. "But... we left it in the bank ceiling."

"No," she said. "This is a new one. It was next to the computer."

She opened it.

The pages were fresh.

Entry 1: If Jack survives the bomb, he'll come after the ship. Let him come. The Third Diver needs a test subject.

I stared at the words.

"He's baiting us," I said.

"Then let's take the bait," Sarah said. She closed the book with a snap. "And choke him on it."