Chapter 22 - JULIAN’S LAST GAME
Julian was sixty-one and dying of pancreatic cancer inside federal prison.
His attorney claimed the briefcase came from an evidence auction.
Impossible.
The bag had never been released.
The boarding pass was genuine.
Booked through a diplomatic travel account linked to one surviving Janus contractor.
Emma refused to travel.
Then Julian requested a final interview.
No deal.
No appeal.
Only information about Samuel’s archive.
Rachel advised against it.
Emma went anyway.
The prison interview room smelled of disinfectant and old paper.
Julian entered in a wheelchair.
He looked smaller.
Not harmless.
Smaller.
“You kept the name Whitmore on the center,” he said.
“Not anymore.”
“I liked that.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
“You never did anything for me after the airport.”
Emma almost left.
Julian raised one hand.
“The boarding pass is not an invitation. It is a warning.”
“About what?”
“My father had another son.”
Emma stared.
Julian smiled weakly.
“Not biologically. Operationally.”
Richard trained Thomas Bell, Daniel Reeves, and several others.
But one protégé remained hidden.
A person who did not appear in ledgers because Richard treated him as family.
Code name:
Orion.
Orion managed Janus continuity.
Bell was visible leadership.
Orion designed survival.
Julian claimed Orion had access to sealed victim identities, protected witnesses, and corrected property records.
The Geneva ticket marked a planned extraction.
Not for Emma.
For someone traveling under her identity.
“Who?”
Julian leaned closer.
“Your father’s grandson.”
Emma’s body went cold.
“I don’t have children.”
“No.”
“Then whose?”
“Your brother’s.”
Emma had no brother.
At least, none she knew.
Julian explained that Samuel fathered a son before marrying Emma’s mother.
The child was adopted privately.
Richard discovered him.
Raised him through scholarships, jobs, and covert influence.
Orion believed Samuel abandoned him while preserving wealth for Emma.
He helped Richard not for money.
For inheritance revenge.
Emma asked for a name.
Julian refused.
“What do you want?”
“To know whether you ever loved me.”
The question was almost pathetic.
That made it more dangerous.
Emma stood.
“No.”
Julian’s face changed.
Not surprise.
Final injury.
She added:
“I loved the person you performed. You were never willing to let me meet the man underneath.”
He looked down.
Then whispered the name.
Nathan Price.
Emma left the prison with one new fact.
Samuel’s hidden son had a child named Nathan.
Nathan was Orion.
And airport records showed a Nathan Price booked on the same Geneva flight as Emma’s false ticket.
Traveling with a woman listed as Rachel Stone.
Rachel was standing beside Emma when the alert arrived.
Her face went pale.
“I’m not traveling.”
Emma looked at her.
“Then someone is using both of us.”
The false Rachel had already passed security in Boston.
May you like
She carried diplomatic credentials.
And a sealed court order authorizing transfer of protected Janus witnesses out of the country.
