“Why?”
“Because I needed one person inside the system who genuinely believed I'd uncovered a criminal program.”
Cross stood slowly as security officers held his arms.
“And that's how the legend began.”
Aria looked at him.
“What legend?”
“The brave Thomas Mercer who discovered Sentinel was corrupt.”
Jackson looked sick.
“Wasn't it?”
Cross laughed.
“Not originally.”
Harper demanded, “Then what was it?”
Cross answered.
“A counter-corruption experiment.”
Silence.
“They created Sentinel because senior officials suspected certain classified chains of command could be manipulated. The team was deliberately exposed to conflicting orders to test whether operators would recognize unlawful instructions.”
Aria's head spun.
Thomas said, “That's what it started as.”
Cross nodded.
“And then Thomas discovered something.”
Aria looked at her father.
“What?”
Cross answered for him.
“That if everyone believed the program itself was corrupt, he could disappear with its funding architecture.”
Thomas lunged.
Jackson blocked him.
Everyone froze.
Aria stepped backward.
“No.”
Thomas stopped fighting.
“Aria, listen.”
Cross smiled sadly.
“There's the truth.”
“No,” Aria whispered.
Thomas looked desperate.
“It's not what he thinks.”
“How much?”
“What?”
“How much money?”
“Aria—”
“How much did you take?”
Thomas said nothing.
Cross answered.
“Forty-three million dollars.”
The number rippled through the officers nearby.
Aria stared at her father.
“No.”
“I didn't take it for myself.”
Cross laughed.
“Of course.”
Thomas shouted, “I used it to keep people alive!”
“Which people?”
“Operators who would've been eliminated!”
Cross shook his head.
“You paid seven members of Sentinel to disappear.”
Aria's eyes widened.
“The seven who were presumed dead?”
Thomas nodded.
“They're alive?”
“Five are.”
Jackson staggered backward.
“You knew?”
Thomas looked at him.
“Yes.”
“All these years?”
“Yes.”
Jackson's face collapsed.
“You let me mourn them.”
“I had to make it real.”
“You let their families mourn them!”
“They were compromised.”
“You don't know that!”
“I knew enough.”
Jackson grabbed Thomas's jacket.
Security moved in.
Aria shouted, “Stop!”
Jackson released him.
Thomas straightened his clothes.
Aria felt something inside her breaking.
This man had been dead for twenty-three years.
Then alive for twenty minutes.
Now she didn't know who he was.
“You could have contacted me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Thomas looked at her with unbearable sadness.
“Because once I started lying, every person I loved became evidence.”
Aria's eyes burned.
“So you chose the lie.”
“Yes.”
“For twenty-three years.”
“Yes.”
Her voice cracked.
“Was any of it for me?”
His answer came instantly.
“Every day.”
Cross laughed.
Aria turned on him.
“Shut up.”
He did.
She looked back at her father.
“Then prove it.”
Thomas frowned.
“How?”
“Tell me why they were watching me.”
He became still.
Cross's expression sharpened.
Aria noticed both.
“You said it wasn't because I'm your daughter.”
Thomas didn't respond.
“Dad.”
Harper stepped closer.
“Thomas.”
He sighed.
Then reached slowly into his jacket again.
This time he removed an envelope.
Old.
Worn.
He handed it to Aria.
Inside was a photograph of a baby.
Aria.
On the back was a date.
And a code.
S-10.
“What is that?”
Thomas looked toward the ground.
“The Sentinel candidates were numbered.”
“You said there were nine men.”
“There were ten candidates.”
Aria stared at the photograph.
“I was a baby.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Thomas's eyes filled.
“You weren't a candidate then.”