Chapter 12 - The Ghost In The Camera
Jax immediately crushed the tiny listening device beneath the heavy heel of his tactical combat boot.
He instructed us to remain completely silent while he spent the next hour tearing our beautiful new apartment completely apart.
He found three more hidden cameras, one tucked inside a fake electrical outlet and two carefully concealed inside the bathroom vents.
Bile rose in my throat as I realized someone had been watching my teenage daughter in her most private moments.
Jax plugged the destroyed camera memory boards into his encrypted laptop, furiously typing lines of code to recover the deleted cache files.
I paced the length of the living room, gripping a heavy iron fire poker, ready to strike anyone who tried to enter my home.
"I managed to isolate the initial installation footage from the day before you signed your lease," Jax announced in a low, dangerous rumble.
I rushed over to the kitchen island, staring intently at the glowing computer screen.
The grainy night-vision footage showed a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a dark hoodie, meticulously installing the camera in the ceiling.
When the man briefly turned his head toward the lens to test the angle, my heart completely stopped beating.
The face staring back at me through the screen was identical to the monster I had just sent to federal prison.
It was Mark, right down to the sharp jawline and the cold, dead eyes.
"That is entirely impossible," I whispered, my hands shaking violently as I gripped the edge of the counter.
"Mark has been in solitary confinement for six months, there is no way he could have installed these yesterday."
Jax zoomed in on the man's face, enhancing the digital resolution until the image became crystal clear.
"Look at the left side of his neck, Elena," Jax pointed a thick finger at the screen.
The man in the video had a massive, jagged burn scar stretching from his earlobe down to his collarbone.
A flood of horrifying memories washed over me as I finally recognized the face on the monitor.
It was Mark's identical twin brother, David, who Mark had sworn tragically died in a house fire over twenty years ago.
David was not dead at all.
He was a ghost who had been completely erased from the public record, operating entirely in the shadows to finish what Mark started.
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Suddenly, the encrypted digital radio sitting on Jax's hip began to emit a screeching burst of static.
"Someone just breached the fire escape window in your daughter's bedroom," Jax yelled, pulling a heavy black pistol from his shoulder holster.
