Part 26
Inside the envelope was a single piece of heavy, expensive paper and a photograph.
I pulled the photograph out first, and the blood drained completely from my face.
It was a picture of Derek and me, taken from the tree line just an hour ago while we were working in the garden.
We were smiling, dirty, completely unaware that someone was watching us through a camera lens.
I turned the paper over to read the neat, elegant handwriting written in dark blue ink.
“The roots of a legacy can never be truly buried. You kept the folder, but you forgot about the key. See you soon.”
There was no signature, but we didn't need one to know who it was from.
The syndicate hadn't been dismantled by the police raid; the snake had simply grown a new head.
Derek grabbed the note from my hands, his eyes burning with a mixture of rage and fear as he read the words.
"How did they find us?" he demanded, slamming his fist against the bedpost. "We changed our names, we paid in cash, we did everything right!"
"They are powerful, Derek," I whispered, the weight of reality crushing down on me. "People like them don't just give up."
The peaceful kitchen downstairs, the simmering sauce, our dreams of a quiet life—they all felt like a cruel joke now.
We were targets again, exposed and vulnerable in an old house with too many windows.
Derek looked at the photograph, his thumb hovering over my face in the image.
"They were right there in the woods," he murmured, looking back out into the dark night.
"They could have killed us right then."
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"Why didn't they?" I asked, a cold realization dawning on me.
"Because they don't want us dead yet," Derek realized, his voice dropping an octave. "They want what Dad hid."
