Chapter 9 - THE BROTHER WHO NEVER CAME HOME|
Dominic did not shout. He did not throw anything or order anyone dragged from the building. He simply stood in silence, as if the life he had understood had been replaced by a stranger’s history.
Adrian had been his younger brother, his shadow, and the one person in the family who could make him laugh without trying. Dominic had carried the grief of losing him for years, even when he rarely spoke about it.
Now he was being told that the grief had been manufactured.
“Prove it,” he said.
Vivienne nodded toward her guards.
“Bring the photograph from the dining room. The original one.”
One guard returned with a sealed evidence bag. Inside was the burned photograph that had vanished during the shooting. Lena examined the children on the dock again.
On the back, beneath the message, a faint stamp had been pressed into the paper: a clinic logo and a date.
Dominic called his investigator and gave him the details.
Within an hour, the investigator found a defunct medical facility in Connecticut that had treated an unidentified male patient after a boating accident twenty-two years earlier. The patient had been transferred to a private rehabilitation center under a false name.
The records had been sealed.
But the payment trail led to the hidden trust Vivienne had described.
“Adrian was alive,” Dominic said.
Lena watched him.
“Maybe he still is.”
He looked at her.
“If Solin has him, why keep him alive?”
“Leverage. Information. Or because your brother knows something that could destroy him.”
Vivienne sat with her hands clasped.
“There’s another possibility. Adrian may have been helping him.”
Dominic turned sharply.
“You said Edward had him hidden.”
“I said Edward arranged the transfer. I never said what happened afterward.”
The uncertainty was unbearable.
They decided to retrieve the trust key from the Fifth Avenue apartment. Dominic wanted to go alone, but Lena insisted on joining him. Vivienne remained under guard at the safe house.
The apartment was immaculate, preserved like a museum of a marriage that had ended without anyone announcing it. Dominic opened a locked drawer beneath the bedroom desk. Inside lay a small brass key and a letter in Edward Reeve’s handwriting.
The letter was addressed to Dominic.
If you are reading this, you have discovered that some truths are more dangerous than lies. Your brother’s survival was necessary. His disappearance was necessary. The family could not withstand what he knew.
No explanation followed.
Only an address and a sentence:
Ask him what happened on the dock.
Lena looked up.
“The same dock in the photograph.”
Dominic took the letter.
“Then that’s where we go.”
Before they could leave, the apartment’s security system chimed. Someone had entered the private elevator.
Dominic motioned Lena into the adjoining room.
A man stepped out of the elevator and walked through the apartment without hesitation. He wore a dark coat, had a thin scar beneath his left eye, and carried himself with the ease of someone who had never needed permission to enter.
He stopped beside the desk.
“You always did leave your important things in the obvious places,” he said.
Dominic emerged from the doorway, weapon raised.
“Adrian?”
The man turned.
For a moment, his face softened.
“Hello, brother.”
Dominic’s weapon lowered by an inch.
Lena stepped into view.
Adrian’s expression changed the moment he saw her.
“Lena Voss,” he said.
She stared at him.
“You knew my family.”
“I knew your father.”
“You were alive when they died.”
“Yes.”
The word was quiet. Absolute.
“Did you know they were going to be killed?”
Adrian looked at Dominic, then back at Lena.
“I knew someone was planning a move against your father. I thought I could stop it.”
“You failed.”
His eyes dropped.
“Yes.”
“Why did you let us believe you were dead?”
“Because the people who wanted me buried were the same people who could reach you.”
Lena stepped closer.
“Then tell us who ordered the accident.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“I will.”
He looked at Dominic.
“But not here.”
A distant siren rose outside the building.
Adrian smiled without humor.
“We have about three minutes before Solin’s men arrive.”
May you like
Then he added the words neither of them expected.
“And when they do, you’ll discover that the man who saved me is the same man who killed your father.”
