Luke took two seconds to text Zach and warn him off the scene before he took the women outside. Now that Zach knew Naomi was safe, he could stay away and save his career. No one needed to know a New Haven Police Detective had knowledge of what was going down and didn’t call it in to his boss or alert local authorities once they knew the location of the cabin.

After that, they were all taken into custody. The women were taken to the hospital, along with Prentiss and Alyssa who hadn’t let go of one another from the moment they were reunited.

Murphy, Luke, and Chad were taken to the local sheriff’s station for questioning.

Damon was pronounced dead at the scene.

They didn’t mention the auction. As far as the local police were concerned, Damon and Murphy had been involved in a kidnap for ransom scheme and Luke and Chad had rescued them.

When they were allowed to make a phone call, Luke dialed the Commander. Turned out, Samantha had already been in touch with him, though how that woman knew how to reach him was beyond Luke’s understanding. Samantha Page was like that, from what he’d heard.

She’d been able to gather a lot of intel from the auction and she managed to get into Damon’s accounts and keep the auction live while agents from several agencies prepared to move on some of the bidders.

Not all of the potential buyers were in the United States, and some of them couldn’t be pinned down, but two homegrown terrorist groups—one a white supremacy group and the other a group that grasped onto any religion they could simply to be able to invoke it as the catalyst for causing violence—would be taken down.

Luke told the Commander that Damon mentioned fleeing the country by boat. How they’d track that boat or find out the details of that plan, he didn’t know, but he’d leave that to the Commander to deal with. As far as Luke was concerned, Damon had to be a little crazy to think he could bury so many bodies and get away, but maybe he’d planned to spend the rest of his days in a country without extradition to the United States.

After that, it was surprising the speed with which things transferred from the local law enforcement to the feds. Luke and Chad were taken out of there to be interviewed two hours away at the nearest FBI facility. They were no longer being held on possible murder or manslaughter charges, but they had to be debriefed.

Luke waited in a small room he knew was used for interrogations, his body aching. They’d done a quick patch job on the worst of his injuries. The gunshot wound to his side had turned out to be a flesh wound. The bullet had grazed the surface of his skin only, though he’d swear at the time it had taken out a chunk of his abdomen.

What hurt the most was not knowing what was going on with Naomi, Lyra, and the girls. He had been able to see none of their injuries were life threatening before they’d left the scene, but that still didn’t make being separated from them any easier.

He’d seen a look pass over Lyra’s face when she’d looked at him as she was bundling the girls into the ambulance. A look that said she’d remembered his betrayal. Remembered that he’d used her, gotten close to her to bring her brother down.

The look had haunted him and he was beginning to think there was very little chance he was going to be seeing her again when this was over. The thought made his heart ache. He’d thought getting back into his career would give him purpose, but he was so wrong. The people in his life were what gave him purpose. And he might lose her.

The door to the room opened and the commander walked in, looking a little stiff and worn.

He sank into the seat across from Luke. “You sure as hell brought a lot of people into this.”

Luke met his look with one of his own. “It was necessary.”

The commanded nodded, but Luke couldn’t read him. “Yeah, shit got a little out of hand, huh?”

Luke wasn’t going to defend himself. He’d done what he had to do and the auction had been stopped. It was a good outcome.

“Listen, I don’t know if you can do anything for him, but Billy Kemp wasn’t in on the auction. He thought they were going to go to the companies with the information and sell it to them so they could patch their security leaks, not exploit them. Stupid, but the kid didn’t know. As soon as he found out about it, he worked with us to try to stop it.”

The commander leveled him with a look. “Oh yeah? Came and confessed to you, huh? Told you everything?”

Luke shrugged. “More or less.”

“I’ll see what I can do for him, but he should expect to serve some time.”

Luke nodded. “He knows that. He’s been helping Samantha and he’ll help you guys with anything you need to know about the Brain Trust.”

“I can find more work for you, if you’re interested,” the commander said, after a beat.

Luke supposed he must not be all that disappointed in the way Luke had handled things. The commander rubbed at the back of his neck and Luke saw the years of responsibility for the lives of thousands—hell, millions—weighing on the man.

When the commander spoke again, his tone was heavy. “There are other threats we’re looking at right now.”

He didn’t specify, but Luke didn’t need him to. “I think I’m going to pass. I need to see to some . . . things.” It was a lame response, but it was the truth. He didn’t know what he wanted.

Months ago, he’d thought he wanted back in. That fighting for his country, diving back into the fight for what was right and what was wrong, was the way to bring meaning to his world.

He had a feeling he was wrong. Meaning was sitting in a hospital room right now. And he wasn’t sure she’d forgive him.