Page 140 of The Thief
"Great. So we're dealing with a professionally trained psychopath with unlimited resources and a personal vendetta."
"Gets better. According to these records, he's been off his medication for over a year. Deliberately."
"Because?"
"Because he believes his doctors are part of a conspiracy against him. Same with his therapists, his lawyers, anyone in authority."
The room goes quiet as we process this information. We're not just fighting a war; we're fighting a madman who's completely disconnected from reality.
"This explains the escalation," Stephen says. "The increasing violence, the personal targeting."
"And it means he's completely unpredictable," I add. "You can't negotiate with someone who's living in a different reality."
"No," Henry agrees. "You can't negotiate. You can only eliminate."
Freddie's studying the documents, his face dark with thought. "There's something else. Something about the timing."
"What do you mean?"
"Trace's third psychiatric episode happened three months ago. Right when someone in our organization started receiving payments from his shell companies."
The connection hits everyone at the same time. Our mole didn't start betraying us randomly; they started when Trace was at his most unstable, most dangerous.
"Someone took advantage of his mental state," Maverick says.
"Or someone's mental state made them vulnerable to his manipulation."
"Either way, we've got a problem. A big one."
I listen to them discuss strategies and possibilities, but my mind keeps returning to the fear in Trace's voice when Henry attacked Ava's memory. The way he broke down and revealed information he clearly hadn't meant to share.
This man isn't just dangerous, he's completely broken. And somewhere in our organization, someone's decided that serving a madman is better than staying loyal to family.
The thought makes me sick. But it also makes me angry.
These people—Henry, Freddie, Denis, all of them—they've given me something I never had before. A place to belong, people who care whether I live or die, a future worth fighting for. Dad tried, but he'd be gone half the time, but right now, this is family and I've finally found my place.
And someone's trying to destroy it all for money.
When we find out who, when we identify the traitor in our midst, I want to be there. Want to see their face when they realize their betrayal has been discovered.
I want to watch them pay for putting Freddie, putting all of us, in danger.
Because family protects family. And I'm finally starting to understand what that really means.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
freddie
The traps are set.
Six different stories, six different suspects, six chances to catch a rat. Now we wait to see which version of events Trace responds to first.
"Sean Murphy," Stephen says for the third time in an hour. "It must be him. The man's been acting nervous for weeks."
"Nervous doesn't make him guilty," I reply, checking my phone for the tenth time. "It could just be the stress of knowing there's a mole among us."
"Or guilt eating him alive."
