23. SUTTON

I woke inside a locked room. The cold floor against my bare feet was a shock at first.

Then the haze in my head stampeded out and I knew where I was. Hell.

Maura had always been someone I knew to keep my eye on. She had done some shady things in the past, especially while she was training me, and had for a period taken me into her care. It was impossible to see it at the time because she was also someone who when light shone on you, then nothing else mattered.

I called out, banging my fists against the stone.

At least my hands or legs weren't tied this time, but it looked like they'd taken everything I could've used to try and jimmy open the lock from me. It wasn't like I could physically lockpick anything anyway. My specialty was within lockpicking through computers.

Sighing, I looked at the ceiling light.

The thing about being here in Maura's bunker was never knowing the time of day. The fluorescent lights were everywhere. We lived like mole people, or doomsday preppers who'd been told the end times were here, and we needed to seek shelter.

There was nothing more I would've hated than knowing this was where I'd spend the rest of my life.

"He's awake," Maura's voices sounded in the distance beyond the thick layer of the door.

It opened seconds later as she walked in, a big smile on her face.

"What are you doing?"

"Be thankful it wasn't the tea this time," she snickered.

Two men walked in behind her in the same black fully operational amour and weaponry. "It was something much worse," I grumbled. "What are you gonna do?"

In her hands, she held out one of the luminescent bands that Lazer had been wearing. "I'm not doing anything," she said. "You're doing something for me."

"I'm not putting that thing on." I hid my hand behind my back.

It was no use, the two men were there, grabbing me. They pushed me against the wall, holding me in place as they stretched my arms out.

"Hold still," she said.

"No," I tried with all my might to push or kick any of them.

"I've not been left any other choice; this is my last straw."

It was possible the effects of the chloroform, but I didn't know what she was talking about. "If you want me to come back and help out I can, but you're not putting that on me to sell me like you are Lazer."

She scoffed. "Lazer isn't being sold. He's being rented out. His skills, your skills, everyone inside of this place have skills that I've given to you and them directly," she said. "It's not my fault that I'm now asking for something in return."

"No," I tried making my voice gruffer. "No."

She paced in front of me. "You see," she began. "It all started when you were three. Perhaps younger, or older. Time is weird when you reach a certain age. Anyway, this is nothing against you, it's your mother."

"My mother," I spat. I didn't know anything about her. All the records of her had been scrubbed, almost like I was given birth to by a nameless ghost. "Shut up."

"I tried to draw her out a number of times over the years," she said. "First, when I took you in, and then more recently, when I made Lazer put your name on that transaction between the Russians. Nothing helped. Then you were both hunted by the Russians, and well, I couldn't rescue Lazer without you, so I made another plan. A plan I know will work."

"My mother," I repeated it on the tip of my tongue, almost like it was sour in my mouth, the more it repeated itself, the more disgusted the taste was on my tongue. "Who is she?"

"Your mother, my sister," she chuckled. "I told you when I took you in, we were one big family. Her name is Petra, and nobody has seen her in over twenty years."

It was almost like she'd sent me into a dream state with that drug I'd inhaled and was now filling my head with nonsense. Except, these two men had been pinned against the wall, and it was slowly starting to hurt.

"I don't know her," I said.

Maura tutted. "Your mother stole from me, over a hundred million. We'd been planning it for years. We'd found the exploits. She'd seduced some money guy, got into his office, and was doing all of that. Don't worry," she snickered. "That man wasn't your father. He's dead, I'm sorry, died before you were even born."

I didn't know if what she was saying was true. It sounded like there had to have been truth to it, nobody else had told me, and there were no records, which meant any information I was told I sort of clung to. "No," I whimpered. "You're lying. If you knew, you would've told me."

"No," she said, opening the wristband. "I wouldn't have told you at all. In fact, I've been keeping it a big secret for so long now that I wasn't sure I would ever tell you. You spent forever searching message boards for someone you never knew, I figured, the more you searched, the more she was likely to reach out. My sister likes to play games."

"Wait. So, you're—"

"Yes, catch up," she laughed. "I'm your auntie, surprise. Anyway, your mother has left me no choice, and I know she's out there and active because you intercepted something that wasn't meant for you. It was meant to pull her out."

My brain was spinning with questions. "Intercepted," I mumbled. I wondered if she was talking about the USB. "I—"

"Yes, the thumb drive, remember," she said, snapping her fingers in my confused face. "That was bait. You said it yourself. You cracked it. So, didn't you get any hints?"

"No. Wait. No."

"The code," she said. "Any specific number pattern."

It was eight numbers. I couldn't pull them from the top of my head now.

"Nineteen ninety-eight," she started. "Twenty-nine. O-five."

Like a slap around the ears, it left me wringing with both realization and confusion. "My birthday, twenty-ninth of May, ninety-eight."

"Ding-ding," she said. "I sent that out hoping your mother would intercept. Turns out, you did, and then we followed that all the way back to the Russians." She rolled her eyes. "Because the last thing I needed was to get back into bed with the Russians."

"What was on the drive?"

"Baby pictures, information I had scrubbed," she said. "If your boyfriend got into it, then he'd know, and he'd see what was there. Including an original birth certificate for you, Sutton James Levan."

I sank into the grasp of the men holding me. I didn't want to think any of it was true. It was far too convenient. But everything seemingly added to making sense. It was a painful way to go about realization, and I wouldn't have recommended it to anyone.

"So, what will you do?" I asked.

"Hold still," she said, and with one swift motion, she snapped the wristband on me.

It stung at first, catching me off-guard. "Fuck."

"Now, I've got your vitals, and also a handy little chip that can detonate a deadly poison into your wrist and pump its way all the way to your heart within seconds," she said. "Now, let's see how that sister of mine can try and worm her way out of not coming up for air this time."

My jaw clenched. "You don't have to do this," I said, trying to keep my breathing steady. "I can send out a—a bat symbol or whatever you need for me to get her attention."

Maura grinned. "You're already doing it," she said. "Existing in this moment, you are doing what needs to be done to get her attention. And once she sees your name appear on my list, she'll know I've got you."

"What? If she's in your system, then she can just—"

She placed a finger over my mouth. "She can view it, but that's the limit. It's like when a zoo puts an observatory in over the animal enclosure. You can see in, but you can't come in without alerting every animal in there to your existence."

I didn't even know the woman she was talking about, but she was supposed to be my mother. Someone I hadn't seen in over twenty years. I had doubts she even existed. I shook my head at Maura. "She doesn't know me. I don't know her. What makes you so sure she'll come out like, surprise, I'm here." The men let go of my arms. I cradled the pain in my wrist.

"Don't pull on it either," she said. "There's a system in place that will also inject you if it feels tampered with."

Immediately letting go, I stared at Maura, wondering what it was that I'd done to her to make her do this to me in retaliation. I was good, I was even still good with her now after leaving, but that clearly wasn't the case.

"She won't care," I told her. "If she cared at all, she wouldn't have waited twenty years to get in contact with me."

Maura tutted. "Well. I'm aware of some mysterious texts you've been receiving, and if I'm right, then I know who sent them."

"No."

"Yes."

She was trying to say that it was my mom who was sending those texts, and then she outright said it. I couldn't quite believe any of the words she was saying, but at the same time, it made sense. She was helping, that number, while at first, we thought was responsible for the initial theft was trying to help us find the people truly responsible.

I stared at Maura. "She knew it was you all along," I whispered. "That's why she was sending me those messages. She knew what you'd done, and she tried to smooth it over the best she could." And I needed to tell Danya.

Rushing out of the room, I didn't know my way around since the expansion of this space. For all I knew, it could've been somewhere completely different.

I took a left, then another left, and another left. An old trick I was taught for escaping mazes, except this wasn't a maze, this was the makings of a mad woman on the verge.

Over a speaker, Maura's voice screeched.

"Sutton! Get back here."

Doors opened and people with the same wristbands suctioned to their wrists appeared. Almost coming from the darkness, gloomy looks on their faces after spending hours in the dark with only a computer screen as company, and a job as motivation. I could only imagine she'd told them the same thing she'd told me about the lethal injection she'd force into their bloodstream the moment they disobeyed her.

I stopped.

She could do that to me if she wanted. Right here. Right now.

Against the wall, wrapping both arms to my chest like a comforting self-hug, I screwed my eyes. Please, please, please, don't let this be real. I pressed a finger into the gap. The wristband warmed, searing pain in my wrist.

The power went out.

The wristband came loose.

Everyone's band came loose. A hail of cheers roared through the hallways.

"We've got her!" Maura's voice carried over the speaker.

Oh. no.