What's was left Behind

Chapter 10 – What Was Left Behind

Michael's disappearance changed everything.

The air in the safehouse had turned heavy—silent phones, locked windows, short tempers. Elias barely left the war room, pouring over timelines and surveillance footage with Mason. Liana was cross-referencing names from West's notebook with offshore bank activity.

And Amara… she was digging into memory.

It started with a box West had left behind—delivered anonymously weeks before her death, sealed in brown paper and hidden beneath Amara's bed back in the U.S. She hadn't opened it back then. She didn't want to. Now, it felt like the only thing that mattered.

Inside were papers, receipts, a worn notebook, and one USB drive with a single label: "Tell him. Don't trust anyone."

Those were her aunt's last words.

She stared at the words like they'd been carved into her.

Tell who? Elias? Michael? Someone else?

And don't trust anyone—did that mean someone close to them?

Amara slid the drive into a secure laptop and clicked it open. A few files. One video.

She clicked on it.

West's face appeared on screen—pale, eyes tired but clear.

> "If you're watching this, I'm likely gone. You always asked why I never spoke about your mother, about your past, about the silence in this family. I couldn't—because silence was the only thing keeping you alive."

Amara sat forward, her breath catching.

> "There's a man. An ally. Or so we thought. He helped fund our legal campaigns, connect us with whistleblowers. But he's not who he says he is. He's closer to Myra than I ever knew."

> "I didn't realize until it was too late. I left breadcrumbs. You'll find them in the ledger. And Amara—if you find Elias… tell him. Don't trust anyone."

The screen went black.

Amara stared in silence. The storm of thoughts rushing in was unbearable.

It wasn't Elias. West trusted Elias enough to name him. She was warning him. Which meant…

Someone else was hiding something. Maybe even someone in their own team.

She met with Elias later that evening, her face set.

"She left a message for you."

He didn't respond at first, just held her gaze.

"She said not to trust anyone."

Elias nodded slowly. "Then we watch our backs. All of us."

---

Meanwhile, on the edge of Berlin, in a dimly lit storage unit turned holding cell, Michael sat tied to a chair—bloody, but alive.

A figure entered the room. Clean suit, gloves, calm eyes.

"We've been patient," the figure said, voice low. "But your friends are making noise. If they don't stop, we'll make sure they never start again."

Michael lifted his head.

"You really don't know Amara," he said with a bloody grin. "She's not noise. She's a reckoning."

____

It started with a whisper in the hallway.

Liana had left her comms channel open by mistake. Or maybe it wasn't a mistake.

Amara heard it—half a conversation, just enough.

> "...they don't suspect. Not yet."

> "What about the drive?"

> "We let them dig. When they reach the edge, we shut it down."

She froze.

It wasn't just betrayal. It was coordination. Someone on the inside. Someone working against them.

She didn't confront Liana—not yet. She went to Elias instead.

And for the first time, she didn't knock on his door. She just walked in.

He looked up from the file spread across his desk, and something shifted. Maybe it was the look in her eyes. Maybe it was the fear she wasn't hiding anymore.

"Something's wrong," she said.

He didn't need to ask. He stood slowly, came around the desk. "Tell me."

She told him everything. The whisper. The file. The fear that their circle was bleeding.

And when she was done, he didn't speak. He just reached for her hand—quietly, like he was asking permission. She let him.

"It's alright " he said.

It was two words. But it cracked something open.

"I don't know who to trust anymore," she whispered.

"Then trust me. Until you can't."

She laughed softly, bitterly. "That's not comforting."

"But it's real," Elias said. "And right now, we need real."

They stayed like that for a moment—hands locked between all the secrets.

Then Elias leaned in, not close enough to kiss her, but close enough for her breath to catch.

"If this falls apart," he said, "we fall together."

She didn't respond. She didn't need to.

Later that night, someone tried to erase the files on the drive West had left.

Elias caught it first.

He stormed into the control room where Mason and Liana sat. "Someone tried to breach the ledger backups."

Liana looked stunned. "What? I—no, I've been here the whole time."

Mason narrowed his eyes. "So was I."

But Amara had seen the hesitation in Liana's fingers earlier. And now she saw it again—in the way she avoided looking her in the eye.

A name rose in her throat, but she didn't speak it.

Not yet.

Instead, she turned to Elias. Their eyes met, and without a word, they knew: the game had changed.

The walls were closing in.

But they were no longer standing alone.

The next morning felt colder, even though the heat hadn't changed.

Liana was gone.

Her room was stripped clean—not just her belongings, but her tech, backup drives, even the framed picture of her brother she used to keep on the desk. Gone like she'd never existed.

Amara stood in the doorway, barely breathing.

"She ran," Mason said behind her. "Or she was never really here."

Elias paced the war room, his jaw locked so tight he hadn't spoken since they found the room empty.

"She knew everything," he muttered finally. "Timelines. Access codes. Our next moves."

"Which means someone helped her," Amara said quietly.

Mason nodded. "Yeah, but who? Liana's good. But no one disappears that clean without help."

There was silence. A long one.

Then Elias said, "Michael."

Amara looked up sharply. "No."

But he was already pulling out his tablet, cross-referencing logins and comms. "His last encrypted call was routed through a proxy linked to her old contractor. It's weak, but it's something."

"No," Amara said again, firmer.

"She left because she was scared. Because someone found out she was playing both sides. Michael's the reason she didn't disappear sooner."

Elias looked at her, and for a moment, everything else faded. The suspicion. The plans. The war they hadn't chosen.

"You really believe that?" he asked.

"I believe him," she said. "Like I believe you."

He paused, then shut the tablet slowly. "Then we don't go after him. We go after the ones holding him."

---

Hours later, in an underground data center outside the city, Amara and Elias stood side by side in front of a cracked monitor.

They'd followed a lead—one West had buried so deep it nearly took Mason's entire rig to uncover. A storage unit paid for in cash. Multiple surveillance feeds rerouted and wiped. But one image remained.

Michael.

Alive.

Chained to a chair. Bruised but breathing. And across from him—Myra.

Amara's knees almost gave out.

The woman wasn't just alive and well—she was thriving. A silk suit. A wine glass in her hand. And that chilling smile Amara remembered from years ago, when she used to think Myra was the good one.

"Do you know what happens when people cling to ghosts?" Myra said in the video feed, looking directly into the camera.

Amara's hand flew to her mouth. "She knew we'd find this."

"She wanted us to," Elias whispered.

Myra leaned closer to Michael in the video, her voice barely audible.

> "You were never part of this. You just got close to someone who was."

> "You mean Amara?" Michael said through clenched teeth.

> "I mean West," she whispered.

And with that, the feed cut out.

---

Later that night, Amara sat in the stairwell, knees drawn to her chest. Elias found her there, a blanket over his shoulder. He draped it over her without speaking, then sat beside her, their shoulders just touching.

"Why did she betray us?" she asked finally. "Liana. After everything?"

"People break in different ways," Elias said. "Some break to survive. Some break because they were never whole to begin with."

Amara looked at him. "And what about us?"

He looked back. "We bend. We don't break."

And for the first time, she believed that. Because in all the darkness, Elias was the only constant. And maybe that was enough.