Chapter 7 - THE MAN DOMINIC TRUSTED
Dominic saw it too.
“Marcus.”
Marcus drew.
Dominic slammed Clara to the floor as the first bullet hit the wall.
Noah screamed.
Two guards returned fire.
Marcus dove through the doorway.
“Take Noah!”
Dominic ran after him.
Clara pulled the boy behind the kitchen counter.
Gunshots exploded down the stairwell.
Then silence.
Dominic returned alone.
Blood covered his hand.
Clara stared.
“You’re hit.”
“Graze.”
“Where’s Marcus?”
“Gone.”
Dominic looked furious with himself.
Marcus had protected him for eleven years.
Knew his homes.
Businesses.
Schedules.
Security codes.
No wonder the enemy had always been one step ahead.
Noah clung to Clara.
Dominic looked at him.
“My son knew.”
Clara nodded.
“That’s why he fought the guards.”
Dominic looked sick.
“All these years I thought he was attacking people because he was traumatized.”
“He was.”
Clara touched Noah’s hair.
“But maybe he was trying to keep dangerous people away.”
Back at the mansion, Dominic opened every security archive.
Marcus had deleted years of footage.
But one backup survived.
A hidden camera outside the north wing.
The video showed Marcus carrying Noah into the room while Mrs. Hargrove followed.
Noah was two.
Crying.
Evelyn appeared moments later, wounded but alive.
She tried to reach her son.
Marcus grabbed her.
Mrs. Hargrove said something the camera microphone barely captured.
Dominic increased the volume.
“Sign the transfer.”
Evelyn shouted, “You’ll never own his companies!”
Dominic stared at the screen.
“What companies?”
Another file appeared.
Corporate transfers.
Shell corporations.
Millions disappearing from Dominic’s businesses after Evelyn’s supposed death.
Mrs. Hargrove had not only been hiding Evelyn.
She had been stealing the Vale empire while Dominic grieved.
But the worst recording came next.
Noah was strapped to the bed.
Mrs. Hargrove entered with a syringe.
“You will stop saying what you saw.”
The toddler screamed for his father.
Dominic turned away.
His shoulders shook.
Clara watched his face.
The most feared man in Chicago looked completely powerless.
Then Noah walked toward him.
“Dad.”
Dominic froze.
Noah had not called him that in two years.
Dominic dropped to his knees.
Noah stepped into his arms.
Dominic held him and cried without making a sound.
The computer suddenly beeped.
Marcus had accessed one of Dominic’s accounts.
A transfer request was pending.
Attached was a live camera feed.
Helen sat tied to a chair.
May you like
Beside her was Evelyn Vale.
Alive.
