The coordinates led us into the mountains, far from the noise of the city and the reach of anyone watching. By the time we reached the location, the sun had dipped behind the ridges, and the world outside had gone blue and quiet.
The GPS stopped on an abandoned airfield with cracked asphalt, rusting hangars, and a wind that carried the smell of rain and memory.
"This is it?" I asked.
Adrian killed the engine and studied the dark stretch ahead. "It's the location tied to Liam's last encrypted signal. If he's alive this is where the trail starts."
He stepped out first, gun drawn, scanning the area with that same disciplined focus that used to make headlines. I followed, my heart thudding too loud for the silence around us.
We moved through the broken gates and into the main hangar. The metal door creaked as we pushed it open. Inside, the air was cold and thick with dust.
Rows of abandoned equipment sat beneath torn tarps. Faded footprints marked the floor old, but not ancient. Someone had been here recently.
Adrian lifted his flashlight, the beam slicing through the darkness. "Over here."
He pointed to a table at the back of a workspace cluttered with maps, tools, and empty coffee tins.
And then I saw a photo tacked to the wall. My brother.
Younger, smiling, standing next to Adrian in uniform. The edges were worn, as if someone had handled it too many times.
I froze. "That's"
"Liam," he finished quietly. "This is proof he made it out."
My throat tightened. "How long have you known?"
"I didn't. I suspected." He looked at me then, really looked at me. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want to give you hope if I was wrong."
The anger that had been simmering since the night we met rose again, but it collided with something heavier disbelief, grief, longing.
I turned away, blinking fast. "You don't get to decide what I can handle."
"No," he said softly. "But I've seen what false hope does. I couldn't do that to you."
For a moment, there was nothing between us but silence and the echo of what he didn't say.
I reached for the photo, my fingers trembling slightly. The surface was rough, the ink faded but it was real. My brother had been here.
"Why would he send these coordinates now?" I asked.
Adrian moved closer, his voice low. "Because Ross is closing in. Liam must've known it was time to surface."
He brushed dust from a small metal locker beneath the table and cracked it open with a crowbar. Inside was a stack of old drives, sealed envelopes, and one black notebook marked with the symbol of Liam's unit.
"Do you think—" I began, but the rest of my sentence vanished when Adrian flipped the notebook open.
The first page was filled with dozens of them.
Ross.
Vale.
Quinn.
And beneath ours, a word scrawled in Liam's handwriting: Trust no one.
Adrian's jaw tightened. "He knew."
I stared at the list, a chill creeping up my spine. "Knew what?"
"That the mission was never about what they told us," he said. "It wasn't a recon. It was a clean-up erasing evidence of an illegal arms exchange. Your brother must've found proof."
I looked at him, realizing just how deep this went. "And you took the blame to protect him."
His silence was answer enough.
I stepped back, shaking my head. "You should've told me the truth from the start."
He met my gaze. "Would you have listened?"
The question hit hard, because we both knew the answer.
Before I could respond, a sound echoed outside a crunch of gravel, faint but distinct.
Adrian's expression shifted instantly. "Someone's here."
He moved toward the window, peering through a gap in the sheet metal. I followed, heart racing. Two SUVs were rolling down the dirt road, headlights off, engines barely audible.
"How did they find us?" I whispered.
"Doesn't matter," he said, already pulling the drives and the notebook into his bag. "We need to move."
We ran through the side exit, down the slope toward the treeline. The night swallowed us whole. Behind us, the hangar erupted in a burst of light flares, flashlights, and voices shouting orders.
"Go!" Adrian's hand gripped mine, dragging me through the mud and roots. My legs burned, but adrenaline kept me upright.
When we finally stopped, miles into the woods, I collapsed against a fallen log, gasping for breath.
"Ross's men," Adrian said between breaths. "They were waiting for us."
"Then someone tipped them off."
He nodded grimly. "Someone close."
I thought of my editor, Noah his sudden questions, his evasive tone the last time we spoke. A cold realization crept in. "Noah's been feeding them my research."
Adrian turned to me, his eyes dark. "Then they know exactly what you've found."
The silence stretched, broken only by the wind and the faraway sound of sirens. I looked at him, still trying to catch my breath, still trying to understand the chaos unraveling around us.
"Why are you still helping me?" I asked finally.
He glanced down, his expression unreadable. "Because I failed your brother. I won't fail you."
There it was the crack in his armor, the one thing he'd been holding back.
For a heartbeat, I forgot about the danger, the lies, the chase. All I saw was the man behind the silence.
I reached out without thinking, brushing a smear of dirt from his cheek. His breath caught, eyes flicking to mine startled, then softer.
"You don't have to fix me, Adrian," I whispered.
His voice dropped, rough and low. "I'm not trying to fix you. I'm trying to save you."
The air between us tightened again the kind of pull that had nothing to do with logic or forgiveness. His hand lifted slightly, as if he might touch me, then hesitated.
Before either of us could say more, his phone buzzed in his pocket a low vibration that cut through the moment like a blade.
He answered without looking away from me. "Vale."
A pause. Then his tone changed sharply, controlled. "Understood."
He hung up and met my eyes. "They found another body near the border. Same dog tags as Liam's."
My breath caught. "So he's"
"I don't know," he said. "But whoever planted that body wants us to stop looking."
I stared at him, the world spinning. "We can't stop."
"We won't," he said quietly. "But we have to be smarter."
His words were steady, but I could hear what he didn't say that every step forward was a step closer to fire.
As we started moving again, the forest swallowed our footsteps. The wind carried the faint scent of smoke from the burning hangar behind us, and for the first time, I realized what we were really running from.
Not just the men chasing us but the truth waiting to be found.