Chapter 2 - THE MAN INSIDE THE WALLS
Dominic moved before the echo faded.
He grabbed Lucy with one arm and pushed Elena toward the interior wall.
“Down.”
Marcus drew his weapon.
Emergency lights should have activated within three seconds.
They did not.
That meant the outage was not accidental.
Someone had disabled the backup system too.
Dominic crouched beside Elena.
“Stay behind me.”
Lucy clung to her mother’s neck.
Another gunshot sounded from downstairs.
Then shouting.
Marcus pressed two fingers to the radio in his ear.
Nothing.
“Comms are dead.”
Dominic pulled his phone out.
No signal.
Jammer.
Whoever had entered Vale House had planned this carefully.
He knew the building.
He knew the systems.
And he had waited until Dominic ordered a lockdown, ensuring everyone important would be trapped inside.
Dominic crossed to a decorative panel beside the fireplace and pressed a hidden latch.
A narrow door opened.
Elena stared.
“What is that?”
“Safe corridor.”
“You have secret hallways?”
“I have enemies.”
“Apparently.”
Under different circumstances, Dominic might have smiled.
“Inside.”
Marcus went first.
Elena carried Lucy behind him.
Dominic entered last and closed the panel.
The corridor was narrow and completely dark until Marcus activated a small flashlight.
“This leads to the east security room,” Dominic said.
“If they don’t know about it.”
“They don’t.”
Elena looked at him.
“You said that very confidently for a man who just found microphones in his office.”
He had no answer.
They moved.
Vale House had been built in 1912 by a railroad magnate who had apparently distrusted everyone he knew. Dominic’s father purchased it sixty years later and discovered hidden passages between several rooms.
Dominic had modernized them.
Only four people knew the complete layout.
Dominic.
Marcus.
Nathan.
And Dominic’s younger brother, Gabriel.
Gabriel had been dead for nine years.
Nathan therefore remained the obvious concern.
They reached a junction.
Marcus suddenly stopped.
“What?”
Dominic whispered.
Marcus pointed his light toward the floor.
Mud.
A partial shoe print.
Fresh.
Elena tightened her hold on Lucy.
Dominic stared at it.
Someone else knew the corridor.
Marcus mouthed, “Back.”
They turned.
A metallic scrape came from behind them.
Dominic pushed Elena into a side recess just as a bullet struck the wall.
Marcus fired twice.
A man cursed.
Footsteps retreated.
Dominic waited.
“Lucy,” Elena whispered, covering the child’s ears.
Dominic looked down the corridor.
The attacker had known exactly where they were.
This was no longer surveillance.
It was a hunt.
Marcus gestured toward another branch.
“This way.”
They moved quickly and exited through a hidden panel into the wine cellar.
Two security guards were already there.
Both raised weapons.
“Boss.”
“Status?”
“Three intruders confirmed. Maybe four. West entrance compromised. Main power sabotaged.”
“Casualties?”
“Torres was hit in the shoulder. Everyone else alive.”
“Where’s Nathan Pierce?”
The guards exchanged a glance.
One answered.
“Missing.”
Dominic looked at Marcus.
Of course he was.
They moved into the adjacent security chamber.
Backup screens flickered to life.
A technician had bypassed the damaged network.
Camera feeds appeared one at a time.
Front hall.
Empty.
Kitchen.
Staff members sheltering behind counters.
West corridor.
Two armed men.
Driveway.
Three vehicles.
Music room.
Dominic froze.
A figure stood beside the piano.
Nathan.
The attorney moved slowly through the room, looking beneath furniture.
Searching.
“Zoom.”
The technician enlarged the feed.
Nathan’s face was tense.
He pulled out his phone, realized it still had no signal, and swore.
Then he approached the underside of the piano and removed the listening device Lucy had found.
Marcus whispered, “There’s your answer.”
Dominic watched Nathan examine it.
Instead of pocketing it, Nathan placed it inside a metal champagne bucket and crushed it with the heel of his shoe.
Odd.
“If he planted it,” Dominic said, “why destroy it?”
Marcus frowned.
Onscreen, Nathan suddenly looked toward the doorway.
He raised both hands.
Someone entered.
The camera angle revealed only the back of the newcomer.
Tall.
Brown hair.
Black suit.
Lucy stepped toward the monitor.
“That’s him.”
Everyone turned.
“The bad man?”
She nodded violently.
Dominic looked at the screen.
Nathan was speaking to the stranger.
No audio.
The stranger produced a gun.
Elena covered Lucy’s eyes.
Dominic kept watching.
Nathan said something.
The stranger struck him across the face.
Nathan fell.
Then the feed went black.
“Get a team there.”
Marcus gave orders.
Dominic looked at Lucy.
“You said he grabbed you.”
She nodded.
“Did you see his face clearly?”
“A little.”
“Anything special?”
Lucy thought.
“He had a funny ear.”
“Funny how?”
She touched her own left ear.
“Like this part was missing.”
Dominic’s chest tightened.
A memory surfaced.
Eight years ago.
A warehouse fire in Queens.
Three men dead.
One survivor who disappeared before police arrived.
Victor Sloane.
Former security specialist.
Former employee of Dominic’s father.
A man Gabriel Vale had fired two weeks before his death.
Victor had lost part of his left ear in the warehouse explosion.
Dominic stood so quickly the chair behind him scraped the floor.
Marcus saw his expression.
“You know him.”
“Victor Sloane.”
Marcus went still.
“He’s dead.”
“No body was ever recovered.”
“Dominic, that fire was eight years ago.”
“I know.”
Elena looked between them.
“Who is Victor Sloane?”
Dominic hesitated.
She deserved the truth.
“He worked for my family.”
“What happened?”
“My brother discovered Victor had been selling information to competitors.”
“And?”
“Gabriel fired him.”
“And then your brother died?”
Dominic looked at her.
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve worked here a year. Staff talk.”
Marcus checked another screen.
A team entered the music room.
Nathan was alive.
Barely conscious but alive.
The attacker was gone.
Dominic turned toward the door.
Marcus blocked him.
“You stay here.”
“He’s my attorney.”
“He might also be involved.”
“Which is why I need answers.”
“And you’ll get them after the house is secured.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
Marcus did not move.
They had been friends long enough for Marcus to know when refusing an order was worth the risk.
A guard rushed in.
“We found another device.”
“Where?”
“The child’s staff room.”
Elena’s face lost all color.
“What?”
“Under the chair where she was sitting this morning.”
Dominic felt something inside him shift.
This had begun before Lucy saw Victor.
Someone had been watching the child.
“Why would they bug her room?” Elena whispered.
No one answered.
Lucy tugged her mother’s sleeve.
“Mommy.”
Elena knelt.
“What, baby?”
“The man asked me something.”
Dominic turned.
“What did he ask?”
Lucy looked uncertain.
“He asked where my necklace was.”
Elena froze.
Dominic noticed.
“What necklace?”
“Nothing.”
“Elena.”
“It’s nothing.”
Her voice said otherwise.
Lucy reached beneath the collar of her dress.
“There.”
She pulled out a thin silver chain.
A small round pendant hung from it.
Dominic stared.
The pendant carried an engraving.
A falcon surrounded by three stars.
He knew that symbol.
He had seen it on his brother’s signet ring.
“Where did you get that?”
Elena closed her hand around the pendant.
“My husband gave it to her.”
“Your husband?”
“He died four years ago.”
Dominic looked at her.
“What was his name?”
Elena hesitated.
“Michael Carter.”
The name meant nothing.
But fear did.
“You’re lying.”
Elena stood.
“Excuse me?”
“You knew exactly what that symbol meant when I reacted.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
Her eyes filled.
“I don’t know anything.”
Lucy looked frightened.
Dominic lowered his voice.
“I’m not threatening you.”
“People like you don’t have to threaten people like me.”
That sentence landed harder than he expected.
She continued.
“You own the house I’m standing in. You pay my salary. You have men with guns around every door. You ask questions and everyone answers because they’re afraid of what happens if they don’t.”
Dominic absorbed it.
She was right again.
“I won’t hurt you.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can promise what I’ll do.”
Elena looked at him for a long moment.
Then the door opened.
Nathan was carried inside by two guards.
Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.
Dominic went to him.
Nathan pushed away the medic.
“Where’s the girl?”
“She’s safe.”
Nathan exhaled.
“Thank God.”
Dominic grabbed his shirt.
“What are you doing in my house?”
Marcus reached forward.
“Dominic.”
Nathan did not resist.
“I came to warn you.”
“By sneaking into restricted rooms?”
“Because I didn’t know who I could trust.”
“You could have trusted me.”
Nathan laughed once, painfully.
“That’s exactly what Gabriel said nine years ago.”
Dominic’s grip loosened.
“What does my brother have to do with this?”
Nathan looked toward Elena.
Then toward Lucy’s necklace.
His face changed.
“Where did she get that?”
Dominic released him.
“You tell me.”
Nathan’s eyes moved to Elena.
“You said you destroyed it.”
Elena took a step backward.
Dominic slowly turned toward her.
“You know Nathan?”
Tears appeared in Elena’s eyes.
Nathan whispered, “Elena, you have to tell him.”
“No.”
“You don’t have a choice anymore.”
“I spent five years protecting her.”
Dominic stared.
“Protecting Lucy from what?”
Elena shook her head.
“From this family.”
Lucy clung to her.
Nathan closed his eyes.
Dominic felt the room become impossibly quiet.
“What does my family have to do with your daughter?”
Nathan answered before Elena could stop him.
“Everything.”
Elena whispered, “Nathan, don’t.”
But he continued.
“Michael Carter wasn’t Lucy’s father.”
Dominic’s heart slowed.
Nathan looked directly at him.
“Gabriel was.”
Dominic did not understand the words at first.
Then he understood them all at once.
His dead younger brother.
The little girl.
The necklace.
The years of secrecy.
Dominic looked at Lucy.
Her dark curls.
Her brown eyes.
The small indentation in her chin.
Gabriel had the same one.
“No,” Dominic whispered.
Elena started crying.
Nathan nodded.
“Lucy is Gabriel Vale’s daughter.”
A distant explosion shook the house.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
The security screens flickered.
Then every monitor changed at once.
A black screen appeared.
White letters began typing across it.
HELLO, DOMINIC.
May you like
A second line followed.
THANK YOU FOR FINDING THE LAST VALE HEIR FOR ME.
