Chapter Eleven: The Empty Grave

"What do you mean by empty?" Mira's voice cracked in the dark.

"I mean exactly what I said." Adrian’s voice came from somewhere in the darkness to her left.

She turned, but she couldn’t see him. Then came the sharp sound of a match striking. Which brought a weak flame suddenly to life, revealing Adrian’s face. He looked pale, and his eyes were fixed on something behind her.

“There’s a headstone,” he whispered. “...and a coffin.”

For a moment, neither of them moved. Adrian’s voice dropped even lower. “But there’s nothing inside.”

"Your father faked his death?" Marcus asked, pulling himself up off the floor, still pressing a hand to the cut on his forehead.

"I don't know," Adrian said. "I found it empty two years after the funeral. I never told anyone because I didn't know what it meant, and honestly, I was scared to find out."

"So what's in that photograph?" Mira asked.

Adrian held it up to the torchlight. It showed an old man, standing in front of a warehouse Mira didn't recognize. His face was turned slightly away from the camera, but something about his shoulders looked familiar.

"That's him," Adrian said quietly. "That's my father. He is alive, and the photograph is recent from the look of his clothes."

Lena leaned in to look, then went very still. "Adrian. I know that warehouse."

"How?"

"It's one of Corin's holdings," she said. "One of the smaller ones, not even one of those we usually use for anything important. If your father's there, Corin's been keeping him."

"For three years?" Mira asked. "Why would he keep your father alive and hidden that long instead of just, I don't know, ending it?"

"It’s leverage," Marcus said boldly. "You don't kill the thing you can use later. You keep it in a box until you need it."

Adrian's hands were tightened around the photograph, folding one edge of the photograph. "So this whole time, Corin had my father, and he's been letting me believe he was dead, grieve for him, and also take his place, while he was holding him like a card he hadn't played yet."

"And now he's playing it," Mira said.

"Now he's playing it," Adrian repeated.

"We need to tell Helena," Marcus said. "...and also figure out where they're keeping Elena, because that photograph is obviously bait, sir. He wants you at that warehouse by sunrise, alone probably, and while you're gone…"

"He hits the house again," Adrian completed the statement.

"So don't go," Mira said.

Adrian looked at her like she'd suggested something impossible. "My father might be alive, Mira."

"It could possibly be an old photo he's had around for years, while waiting for the right moment to use it," Mira said. "You never can tell, and walking into a warehouse Corin owns, alone, on his timeline, is exactly the kind of reckless thing Lena warned you about twenty minutes ago."

Lena blinked, clearly not expecting to be quoted back at herself by the woman she'd been sizing up all night.

"She's right," Lena said slowly. "I hate that she's right, but she's right."

"So what do we do? We just let Elena stay wherever they're keeping her?" Adrian demanded. "Or do we let my father rot in a warehouse for another three years because it might be a trick?"

"I didn't say that," Mira said. "I said don't go alone, and don't go exactly when he tells you to."

"She's got a point," Marcus said. "We will go early and loud. If it's really your father in there, we will get him and Elena both. If it's a trap, we're not walking in on his exact timeline waiting to get ambushed."

Adrian dragged a hand down his face. For a second, under the torchlight, he looked less like the powerful thing that had stood up out of that wheelchair and more like a man who hadn't slept properly in three years.

"Fine," he said finally. "We will move at first light, not at sunrise. Early enough to catch them still setting up."

"I'm coming," Mira said.

"No."

"Adrian—" Mira insisted.

"No," he said again, louder this time. "You heard what that man said. Corin specifically said, "Not you, not yet." That means something. It means that he's saving you for something worse than a warehouse ambush, and I'm not walking you straight into whatever that is."

"So I just sit here again, waiting like last time," Mira said.

"Yes," Adrian said. "Exactly like last time."

"That did not work out so well for Elena," Mira snapped before she could stop herself.

The words landed hard on Adrian, and he flinched like she'd hit him.

"That's not fair," he said quietly.

"Maybe not," Mira said, echoing his own words back at him from earlier that night. "But we don't have time to pretend otherwise, right? Isn't that what you said?"

Silence stretched between them, tense enough that even Marcus looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight near the doorway.

"I need you safe," Adrian said finally, with a low voice. "However, that's not me trying to control you, but it’s me being terrified of losing you the same way I might be about to lose my father."

Something in Mira's chest cracked; she wanted to argue more, but the exhaustion and fear in Adrian’s voice stopped her.

"Fine," she said. "I will stay, but you must be checking in every hour, or I swear I will walk to that warehouse myself."

"Deal," Adrian said.

Lena cleared her throat. "I want to come with you to the warehouse."

"Absolutely not," Adrian said.

"Adrian, I know that building, and I know the guard rotations. I know which door doesn't lock right; I know things your men don't." Lena crossed her arms. "You need me there."

Adrian hesitated, looking clearly torn, and Mira watched something ugly and complicated pass behind his eyes before he finally nodded once. "Fine, but you will stay close to Marcus."

"Whatever you say," Lena responded.

Marcus's radio crackled to life again, and this time the voice on the other end was different, younger, unfamiliar, and shaking badly.

"This is not the security channel," Adrian said, frowning. "How did this signal get on our line?"

"Sir," the voice said, "I'm one of your men. I was posted near the old service road; I saw the trucks leave the warehouse district maybe ten minutes ago, heading this direction, fast."

"Heading where?" Adrian demanded.

"Sir, I think they're not waiting for sunrise anymore; I think they're already almost here."