Chapter 13 - The Betrayal Within
"You knew?" I stepped forward, grabbing the front of Julian’s overalls before he could pull away, the fury of a betrayed brother boiling over. "You watched Lorraine terrorize Tessa? You watched my boys get hidden away while you sat out here playing mechanic in the graveyard of airplanes?!"
Julian didn't fight back. He just stared down at my hands, his face tight with a bitter, defensive anger. "What was I supposed to do, Grant? Go to war with the most ruthless woman in the Southwest with a wrench and a prayer? I didn't know the full extent of what she was doing until three weeks ago, when Marcus Vance contacted me."
My hands dropped slowly from his shirt. "Marcus contacted you?"
"He knew the truth about the twin inheritance," Julian nodded, running a hand over his silver-streaked hair. "Marcus came out here offering me a deal. He said Lorraine’s empire was fracturing, and if I agreed to sign over my claim to the trust fund and help them intercept Tessa before she reached the airport in Flagstaff, they would split the remaining liquid assets with me."
A cold sweat broke out across my back. "And did you take the deal?"
"I told him to go to hell," Julian snapped, his eyes flashing with sudden, genuine heat. "I might have spent my whole life resenting you for living the life that should have been mine, Grant, but I’m not a monster. I’m the one who leaked Tessa’s motel location to your private burner phone three days ago. How do you think you found her in Phoenix so fast? Magic?"
The pieces clicked together with terrifying clarity. The anonymous tip that had sent me racing to Sky Harbor Terminal 3 wasn't a coincidence, and it wasn't a trap set by Lorraine—it was Julian blowing up our mother’s carefully constructed cage from the inside.
Before I could process the depth of my brother’s confession, the absolute silence of the desert night was violently shattered.
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Headlights swept across the corrugated metal hangar. Not one, but four heavy-duty unmarked SUVs crested the ridge behind my truck, blocking our only exit out of the desert compound.
"Get down!" Julian yelled, shoving me hard behind the heavy steel workbench as automatic gunfire chewed through the trailer's thin aluminum walls, sending sparks and shrapnel flying in every direction.
