Page 26 of Buried Past (First in Line #3)

Chapter seventeen

Matthew

M y palm trembled as I held Dorian's burner phone, its cracked screen displaying his face through swollen flesh and crusted blood—one eye sealed shut, lips torn, but defiant stare intact. Conscious. Unbroken.

Zip ties carved crimson grooves into his wrists where they'd been wrenched behind a steel chair. Someone had orchestrated each bruise—enough damage to horrify without destroying.

I placed the device beside the handwritten message. The paper looked obscene lying on my kitchen counter, next to the yellow notepad where I usually jotted mundane reminders. Block letters in black ink: FEDERAL BUILDING. MIDNIGHT. COME ALONE. OR THE McCABES BECOME COLLATERAL.

My hands began clearing the wreckage left by the intruders. Porcelain shards from our morning coffee ritual clinked into the waste bin. I realigned scattered bills into orderly stacks. The repetitive motions steadied my breathing while my brain churned through possibilities.

Dorian is still alive. Start there.

The salt dispenser lay overturned from whatever struggle had torn through my apartment, white granules scattered like fractured bone across dark wood. I righted the container and swept the mess into my palm.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and contacted Michael. He responded immediately.

"You two safe?"

"They have him." The admission shredded my throat. "Dorian. Ambush at my apartment."

"Christ. You injured?"

"Untouched, but they left documentation." I studied the device's display again, memorizing every visible detail of Dorian's captivity. "Federal Building. Midnight. Solo approach required."

I heard Michael moving around—the thud of his boots and the muffled sound of a door sealing shut.

"Pure setup."

"Undoubtedly." I rinsed salt residue down the drain and watched white crystals disappear into darkness. "But they have him, Michael. They have him."

"Matthew—"

"The message specified isolation. Non-negotiable." My composure fractured despite my efforts to maintain control. "If I arrive with company, they'll execute him."

A minute of silence passed. When Michael resumed speaking, his tone was firm. "You require phantom support. Observation only unless everything disintegrates."

"Manageable without alerting federal attention?"

"I can shadow your route from four blocks distance. Secured communications and civilian transportation. If violence erupts, I'm forty-five seconds out."

I pressed my eyes shut and gripped the counter until my knuckles whitened. Forty-five seconds stretched into eternity when bullets started flying, but it surpassed walking into a deathtrap entirely solo. "Execute."

"Already mobile. Additional requirements?"

My mind worked through an inventory. Gear. Intelligence. Evacuation routes. "I'll contact Marcus."

"Of course. Anything else?"

"Hope this isn't as catastrophic as it appears."

Our call ended. I immediately reached Marcus, who responded before the second tone.

"Michael briefed me via text. What's needed?"

No pleasantries. No wasted energy on comfort or false optimism. Marcus recognized that sentiment was a luxury until Dorian returned safely.

"Intelligence on the Federal complex. Architectural schematics, security systems, electrical infrastructure—anything providing tactical advantage.

" I headed toward my bedroom, already calculating essential equipment.

"Plus surveillance. Visual confirmation on every access point and every vehicle within six blocks. "

"James is accessing structural databases now. I can position thermal reconnaissance on three elevations within ninety minutes." I heard the computer keys clattering through the connection. "Matthew, you recognize this is manipulation."

"Affirmative."

"They want your presence for specific reasons. This isn't about ransom or negotiation."

I stopped at my bedroom threshold, phone pressed against my ear. "Then what?"

"Demonstration. They're proving they can acquire anyone, anywhere, anytime. Including those we treasure."

"Marcus—"

"We're covering you, brother. All of us. But exercise intelligence. Martyrs rescue nobody."

The call ended. I remained in my bedroom doorway, staring at the disheveled bedding where Dorian had rested against me hours earlier. The indentation from his head still marked the pillow.

The digital clock beside the bed read 10:49 PM. Seventy-one minutes until my appearance at the Federal Building. Each second pulsed against my eardrums.

I knelt beside the dresser and worked my fingers along its base until I found the concealed release.

The false bottom yielded with a whisper, revealing the gear I'd hoped never to use again.

Emergency supplies that belonged to a different version of myself, one who'd out-maneuvered death in Afghan valleys.

The cloned flash drive came first, smaller than my thumbnail but containing enough evidence to incinerate Hoyle's entire network.

Dorian had copied the original before hiding it, as insurance against this kind of scenario.

I wrapped the device in electrical tape and worked it down into my boot's inner lining, nestling it against my ankle bone where searchers would overlook it.

If I don't walk out, at least the truth survives.

My service weapon followed—a Glock 19 that felt heavier than I remembered. I ejected the magazine and examined each round, brass casings winking under the bedroom's overhead light fixture. Fifteen cartridges plus one chambered. Sixteen opportunities to bring Dorian home or die trying.

The shoulder holster's leather had stiffened from disuse. I adjusted the straps to accommodate years of civilian softness around my torso. The weapon settled against my ribs like an unwelcome reminder of skills I didn't want to use.

A jacket concealed the hardware, dark fabric draping over the angular bulge beneath my left arm. I checked my reflection in the closet mirror—just another Seattle resident heading out for late-night errands.

My gaze drifted toward the living room, where my reading chair sat empty. I could still see Dorian wrapped in Ma's wool blanket while he told me a story about summer camp hornets. His laugh had transformed my ordinary furniture into something sacred, a place where broken people could heal.

Now the chair looked abandoned, its leather cushions holding the impression of someone who might never return.

I pressed my palms against my thighs, feeling the pistol's weight redistribute as I moved. The sensation triggered memory fragments from Afghanistan—the particular heaviness of loaded magazines and how gear pressed against your body during long patrols through hostile territory.

I inhaled sharply, chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow pulls. I forced myself to count backward from twenty, a technique drilled into me during combat stress training. Numbers provided structure when chaos threatened to overwhelm the brain.

Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen.

The red digits advanced a few more minutes: 10:52 PM.

Sixty-eight minutes until I learned whether love could overcome professional violence. Until I discovered whether I had enough strength to save the man I couldn't lose.

I checked the pistol's safety one final time and then headed for the door.

Halfway down the stairwell, my chest seized. Not the familiar grip of combat stress—this was something else entirely. Raw terror that had nothing to do with my own mortality and everything to do with the blinding flash of truth. I loved Dorian.

I gripped the handrail and forced myself to stop. The painted metal bit into my palm, cold and merciless, while the stairwell tilted around me like the world was coming unhinged.

He can't die.

But that wasn't the thought that was killing me.

The thought that was killing me was this: By allowing him into my apartment, I had given Dorian the power to destroy me, and I had done it gladly. Willingly. I had handed him every piece of myself that mattered, and now those pieces were zip-tied to a chair in some windowless warehouse, bleeding.

I'd lost people before: Dad to the fire, men in my unit to IEDs, and I thought I lost Farid. But I had never understood—could never have understood—the difference between losing someone important and losing the person who had become the other half of me.

When Dad died, I grieved for what was taken. When Farid died in my arms, I grieved for what I couldn't save.

But if Dorian died, I would grieve for what I had chosen to become—a man who depended on someone else to be whole.

Sweat gathered along my hairline despite the building's late fall chill. The stairwell's concrete walls seemed to be contracting, pressing closer against me.

Get your shit together.

Combat breathing. Four counts in through the nose, hold for four, out through the mouth for four. Repeat until the world stops tilting sideways. The technique had carried me through mortar attacks and IED aftermath.

Four in. Hold. Four out.

The stairwell stabilized around me. My heartbeat decelerated from sprint to sustainable. The sweat cooled against my skin.

Every nightmare scenario raced through my mind as I composed myself: Hoyle's people torturing Dorian to death for information he didn't possess, Federal agents arriving to find two corpses instead of a successful rescue, and Ma getting a phone call in the middle of the night, her voice breaking as someone explained why neither her son nor the man he loved would be coming home.

Yet, beneath the horror, something else emerged. Clarity. Purpose. The same certainty that had driven me toward burning buildings and overturned vehicles throughout my career.

I'd rather die beside him than live not knowing I tried.

I could survive losing Dorian if I'd given everything to save him. I couldn't survive spending the rest of my life wondering what might have happened if I'd been braver and faster.

Death was nothing compared to that particular brand of regret.

I released the handrail and continued toward the exit. Each step carried me further from safety and closer to whatever waited in the Federal Building. My heartbeat was steady now, controlled. The panic had burned itself out, leaving behind something harder and more useful.

The lobby's glass doors reflected my image as I approached. No one would guess I carried enough firepower to start a war or enough evidence to end one. I looked ordinary, unremarkable.

Perfect.

I pushed into the autumn air, where my truck waited beneath a flickering streetlight. The engine turned over on the first attempt, settling into the reliable rumble that had carried me through three years of emergency calls.

"Ma…" I said aloud. "If this goes bad… I'm sorry. I found someone who made me want to stay. Someone who made me more than a job. And if I don't come back… just know I didn't run."

Fifty-eight minutes until midnight.

Time to go collect the man I loved, or die trying.

The traffic was thin on Seattle's late-night highways. I merged onto First Avenue and let the truck's V8 pull me deeper into the urban core, where glass towers pierced the low-hanging cloud cover.

Rain had transformed the asphalt into black mirrors, each streetlight spawning orange halos that fractured and reformed as my tires carved through accumulated water. The city wore its wet season uniform—reflective surfaces everywhere.

I passed Pioneer Square's cobblestone emptiness, where weekend crowds usually gathered around buskers and food trucks.

Now, only pigeons claimed the space, their gray forms huddled beneath storefront awnings.

The homeless encampments had retreated deeper into doorways and alcoves, invisible except for the occasional shopping cart loaded with survival essentials.

My rearview mirror captured sporadic headlights maintaining careful distances. It was impossible to distinguish Michael's unmarked surveillance from legitimate traffic, but knowing he was back there somewhere provided marginal comfort. Backup existed, even if I couldn't see it.

The Federal Building's bulk appeared ahead—eleven stories of bureaucratic concrete rising from the intersection like a monument to institutional power.

Floodlights bathed its lower floors in harsh white, while upper windows remained dark except for scattered squares where security personnel or obsessive civil servants burned midnight oil.

I circled the perimeter once, checking details.

The building's north face had loading docks, accessible through a service alley barely wide enough for delivery vehicles.

Concrete planters flanked the main entrance and doubled as vehicle barriers.

Multiple surveillance cameras tracked every approach angle.

I completed my reconnaissance loop and selected a parking space two blocks south—close enough to reach on foot, and distant enough to avoid immediate detection. The residential street felt safer somehow, lined with converted townhouses.

The engine died with a mechanical sigh. Sudden silence rushed into the cab, broken only by rain drumming against the windshield.

I retrieved the burner phone and opened the photograph one final time.

Dorian's battered face stared back, and his eyes remained alert.

Calculating. He was planning something—I saw it in how his gaze focused slightly left of the camera, as if tracking movement beyond the frame, considering his first move.

He's preparing for a fight.

The realization sparked something fierce in my chest. Dorian hadn't surrendered, despite the zip ties and professional beating. He was gathering intelligence, measuring distances, and waiting for the right moment to act.

I wasn't walking into a simple hostage exchange. I was joining a battle already in progress.

I checked my watch: 11:55 PM. Five minutes until midnight. I slipped the phone into my jacket pocket and stepped into the light rain.

Time to end this.

I'm coming, Dorian. Just hold on.