CHAPTER 8 — THE FINAL NAME ON THE LIST
Samuel Pierce was gone.
The helicopters had landed.
The prisoners were being evacuated.
For the first time in thirty years, Blackridge Prison stood silent.
Ava thought it was finally over.
She was wrong.
As federal agents secured the underground bunker, one young technician called out.
"Agent Carter... you need to see this."
In the deepest server room, a single computer was still running.
Unlike the others, it hadn't been connected to the prison's network.
It had its own encrypted satellite link.
On the screen was a message.
WELCOME BACK, AVA.
Her blood ran cold.
The keyboard suddenly unlocked by itself.
One sentence appeared.
Open the final file?
Ava clicked YES.
A video began to play.
An elderly man in a navy military uniform appeared on the screen.
His face was unfamiliar.
But the name beneath it wasn't.
GENERAL HENRY CARTER.
Ava whispered,
"...Dad?"
Her father had supposedly died in combat before she was born.
Eleanor, standing beside her, suddenly broke into tears.
"He... he can't be alive."
The recording continued.
"If you're watching this, Ava... then Blackridge has fallen."
"I always prayed this day would come."
Ava's heart pounded.
"Who did this to us?"
Her father's expression grew serious.
"Everything you believed was a lie."
"I never died."
"I disappeared because someone inside our own government created an organization called THE CIRCLE."
"They control prisons..."
"They control politicians..."
"They control corporations..."
"And eventually..."
"They intended to control the country."
He paused before speaking the words Ava would never forget.
"Samuel Pierce worked for them."
"I pretended to betray my family..."
"...so I could destroy them from the inside."
The video suddenly glitched.
A warning flashed across the screen.
REMOTE ACCESS DETECTED.
Someone else had connected to the server.
The image changed.
A person wearing a black mask appeared.
Their voice was calm.
"So..."
"...you're finally here."
Ava clenched her fists.
"Who are you?"
The masked figure chuckled.
"I've watched you since the day you were born."
"You defeated Marcus."
"You exposed Pierce."
"But neither of them mattered."
"They were only pieces."
The stranger slowly removed a single black glove.
On the back of their hand was the same circular symbol found throughout Blackridge.
The mark of The Circle.
Then the figure leaned toward the camera.
"Tell your mother..."
"...I'm coming to finish what we started twenty years ago."
The screen instantly went black.
At that exact moment, every light inside the bunker shut off.
Darkness swallowed the room.
A deafening explosion rocked the upper floors.
Outside, agents shouted into their radios.
"Shots fired!"
"We have an intruder!"
A lone figure dressed entirely in black walked through the smoke toward the prison gates.
Security cameras couldn't identify them.
Facial recognition returned only two words.
NO MATCH.
As the mysterious stranger disappeared into the night, Ava looked at her mother and made a silent promise.
Blackridge was over.
But the war against The Circle had only just begun.
May you like
And somewhere in the darkness...
The real mastermind was smiling.
