Chapter 25

Note: This is another action thriller cuz why not? :D. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~

The train wasn’t supposed to stop.

At 2:13 a.m., the midnight freight thundered through the abandoned outskirts of the city, its steel wheels screaming against rusted rails. No passengers. No scheduled halts.

Yet Detective Mara Venn watched from the shadows as it slowed.

Someone jumped off.

The figure hit the gravel hard, staggered, and clutched a silver briefcase to his chest. Before Mara could call for backup, headlights burst through the darkness.

Three black SUVs.

Doors flew open.

Men with rifles spilled onto the tracks.

“Give us the case!” one shouted.

The man ran.

Mara cursed under her breath and sprinted after him. She hadn’t spent six months hunting the Syndicate to let them disappear tonight.

Bullets tore through the air, sparking off the rails.

The fugitive stumbled. Mara grabbed his arm and dragged him behind a signal box just as gunfire shredded the metal.

“You a cop?” he gasped.

“Unfortunately.”

He shoved the briefcase into her hands.

“They can’t get this.”

Before she could ask why, he lurched back onto the tracks.

The distant horn of an approaching train echoed through the night.

“MOVE!” Mara shouted.

But the Syndicate gunmen were already closing in.

The fugitive looked at Mara one last time.

“Expose them.”

Then he turned, firing wildly to hold the attackers back.

The express train exploded from the darkness.

A roar of steel.

A blur of lights.

Silence.

Mara stood frozen as the gunmen scattered into the night.

Her hands trembled as she looked down at the briefcase.

Inside wasn’t money.

It wasn’t diamonds.

It was a flash drive.

Dozens of names filled the screen—politicians, judges, police chiefs. Every person the Syndicate had bought.

A voice crackled from the darkness behind her.

“You should’ve left the case on the tracks.”

Mara slowly turned.

More footsteps emerged from the shadows.

The men surrounding her weren’t strangers.

They wore police badges.

Behind them, another train horn wailed through the night.

And Mara realized the most dangerous thing on those tracks wasn’t the train.

It was knowing the truth.