Chapter 3 - The Decoy MatrixThe realization hit me like a physical blow. The way my mother stood at the funeral with one hand over her mouth—not in grief, but to hide her face from the distant neighborhood cameras. The subtle differences in her posture. It wasn't my mother.
"You knew?" I stared at my father, a cold fury rising in my chest. "You knew they were going to target Celeste and the kids?"
"I knew they were coming for me, which is why I staged my death to draw them out," Raymond said, his voice hard as iron. "I left a trail that only you could follow, using the gravedigger as a failsafe because I couldn't risk digital communication. But they anticipated my contingency. They grabbed your family to force you to give up this location."
Agent Miller was already typing furiously at the console, routing satellite imagery onto the secondary screens. "We have a visual on your house in suburban New Jersey. Thermal imaging shows three distinct heat signatures inside the kitchen, and two stationary signatures tied down in the basement."
"Tied down?" My voice cracked. Celeste. Leo. Maya.
"Julian, listen to me," my father said, grabbing my shoulders with hands that felt terrifyingly real. "If we rush in there like heroes, your children die before we cross the threshold. We have to play a very specific game. They think I'm dead, and they think you are currently driving home alone because of your mother's text."
My phone buzzed again in my pocket. I pulled it out slowly.
Hurry up. The children are crying, the text read.
May you like
"They're using the phone to track your GPS coordinate," Miller noted, glancing at a tracking map on her screen. "They see you stopped here at Route 9. They know something is wrong."
"Then we give them what they want," I said, a dark, unfamiliar resolve settling over my bones. "We let them think I found the trap—and we spring it on them."
