Chapter 3 - THE SHOT IN THE CHAPELFor several seconds, darkness swallowed everything.
Evelyn screamed.
Dominic hit the stone floor as another bullet tore through the wooden altar.
“DOWN!”
Marcus fired toward the doorway.
A shadow moved beyond the stained-glass corridor.
Dominic crawled to Graham.
Blood spread across the estate manager’s shirt.
“Graham.”
No response.
Marcus reached the switch panel.
The lights returned.
Graham was breathing.
Barely.
The bullet had entered near his shoulder.
“Call the doctor.”
Dominic ran into the corridor.
A side door swung open.
Cold rain blew inside.
The shooter was gone.
Three guards converged from the west hall.
Dominic grabbed the nearest man.
“How did somebody get through?”
“We didn’t see anyone.”
“Then you weren’t watching.”
Outside, muddy footprints crossed the courtyard.
Marcus followed them to the garage.
They ended beside an empty parking space.
One vehicle was missing.
Richard Sloan’s Mercedes.
The family attorney had been inside the mansion less than an hour earlier.
Now he was gone.
Dominic called him.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Marcus checked the property cameras.
Someone had disabled six feeds for exactly nine minutes.
Professional.
Planned.
Dominic returned upstairs while Graham’s wound was treated.
Evelyn waited outside.
“Is he alive?”
“For now.”
“Do you think he did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You found the cellar key in his room.”
“And somebody just tried to kill him.”
“Maybe to make him look innocent.”
Dominic glanced at her.
“You learn quickly.”
“When you clean rich people’s houses long enough, you learn everyone lies.”
Despite everything, Dominic almost smiled.
Almost.
Harper came running around the corner.
“Mommy!”
Evelyn lifted her carefully.
Dominic watched them.
Whoever had imprisoned Evelyn had threatened this child.
That changed the rules.
At 2:17 a.m., Marcus found Richard Sloan’s Mercedes abandoned near the north gate.
Blood covered the steering wheel.
But Richard was missing.
A message had been carved into the dashboard.
STOP DIGGING.
Dominic did the opposite.
By dawn, every archived financial record from the year Julian died had been moved to the library.
Marcus assembled three trusted men.
No one else was allowed inside.
Evelyn sat at one end of the table.
“You should rest,” Dominic told her.
“So should you.”
“I don’t.”
“That explains your personality.”
Marcus coughed to hide a laugh.
Dominic stared at Evelyn.
She looked nervous for half a second.
Then Dominic surprised both of them.
“Fair.”
They worked.
The old ledgers showed large transfers routed through shell companies in Delaware, Nevada, and the Cayman Islands.
Julian’s alleged betrayal payment had been $4.8 million.
But Evelyn noticed something.
“This account existed before the betrayal.”
Dominic looked.
She was right.
Six months before Julian supposedly began selling information, the account had already received deposits.
“Whose money?”
Marcus traced one company.
It belonged to a corporation represented by Richard Sloan’s law firm.
That pointed at Richard.
Too neatly.
Again.
Dominic hated neat evidence now.
Seven years earlier, neat evidence had convinced him his brother was a traitor.
He would not repeat the mistake.
At sunrise Graham woke.
Dominic entered his room alone.
Graham looked exhausted.
“Did Richard shoot you?”
“I couldn’t see.”
“Richard disappeared.”
“That means nothing.”
Dominic sat.
“Tell me about the recording.”
Graham stared at the ceiling.
“Your father came to me three nights before he died.”
“What did he say?”
“That the family had been compromised for years.”
“By whom?”
“He refused to say.”
“Why?”
“He trusted no one anymore.”
“Including you?”
“Especially me.”
Graham gave a bitter smile.
“He told me everyone around power eventually becomes tempted by it.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“What was on the second recording?”
“I never listened.”
“Where did you put it?”
“In the chapel wall.”
“It wasn’t there.”
Graham’s face tightened.
“Then someone took it.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who knew?”
“Only your father.”
“And you.”
Graham met his eyes.
“Yes.”
Dominic placed the photograph on the blanket.
Graham stared.
“I’ve never seen that.”
“On the back, my father wrote that I was next.”
Graham closed his eyes.
“Then he knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That Julian was framed to isolate you.”
Dominic felt anger rise.
“Why would someone want me isolated?”
“Because your father planned to hand everything to both of you.”
Dominic froze.
“That isn’t true.”
“It is.”
Their father had always said Dominic would inherit leadership.
Julian would handle legitimate investments.
Graham shook his head.
“He changed his will.”
“When?”
“Two weeks before he died.”
Dominic stared.
“No one told me.”
“Richard prepared it.”
That immediately gave Richard motive.
But Graham continued.
“The new arrangement required both brothers to approve major family transactions.”
Dominic understood.
“If Julian died…”
“You controlled everything.”
“And someone controlling me could access everything.”
Graham nodded.
Dominic stood.
“Who has been controlling me?”
“That’s the question you should have asked seven years ago.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
Graham regretted the words.
But Dominic did not strike him.
Because he deserved them.
He had accepted the evidence.
Accepted his brother’s guilt.
Accepted advice from people around him.
And after Julian’s death, he had become colder, more isolated, easier to manipulate through anger.
Exactly as someone might have planned.
Downstairs, Evelyn searched her belongings.
The hidden cassette remained safe.
She had placed it somewhere no adult would think to search.
Inside Harper’s stuffed rabbit.
But when she opened the toy chest—
The rabbit was gone.
“Harper?”
The little girl looked up from drawing.
“Where’s Mr. Bunny?”
“Auntie took him.”
Evelyn’s stomach dropped.
“What auntie?”
“The pretty lady.”
“What lady?”
Harper pointed toward the hallway.
“She said Mr. Bunny was dirty and she’d wash him.”
Evelyn ran.
“Dominic!”
He appeared at the landing.
“What?”
“The tape.”
Everyone stopped.
“It was inside Harper’s toy.”
“What toy?”
“A stuffed rabbit. Someone took it.”
Dominic looked toward security.
“Lock the house again.”
Harper began crying.
Dominic approached her.
“What did the lady look like?”
Harper sniffled.
“Yellow hair.”
“Blond?”
She nodded.
“Tall?”
Another nod.
“Did you know her?”
“Yes.”
Dominic’s pulse changed.
“Who was she?”
Harper pointed toward a framed family photograph hanging beside the stairs.
Dominic followed her finger.
The picture had been taken at Christmas two years earlier.
There were twelve people.
Harper pointed to one.
A beautiful blond woman wearing pearls.
Dominic’s aunt by marriage.
Vincent Vale’s wife.
Celeste.
Dominic straightened.
“Where is Celeste?”
Nobody answered.
Then a maid rushed into the hall.
“Mr. Vale?”
“What?”
“There’s smoke coming from the greenhouse.”
Dominic ran outside.
Flames were already rising behind the glass walls.
Marcus broke the door.
Inside, surrounded by burning papers, lay Harper’s stuffed rabbit.
Dominic grabbed it.
The seam had been cut open.
The cassette was gone.
But someone had overlooked one thing.
A small piece of paper remained trapped inside the stuffing.
Evelyn unfolded it.
It was not hers.
The message had been placed there with the cassette years earlier.
Three words were typed across it.
ASK ABOUT ISABELLA.
Dominic stared at the name.
Evelyn noticed his face.
“Who’s Isabella?”
Dominic answered slowly.
“My mother.”
May you like
And according to everything Dominic had believed for twenty-one years—
Isabella Vale had died in a car accident.
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