Chapter 4 - THE DEAD MANDominic raised his gun.
Silas Kane didn’t flinch.
“Still dramatic, Dominic.”
“Hands where I can see them.”
Silas lifted them slowly.
Victor stood between Lena and the doorway.
“You poisoned my champagne.”
“I arranged for someone to poison your champagne.”
“You’re splitting hairs.”
“I’m explaining motive.”
Gabriel Mercer coughed behind them.
Silas’s gaze flicked toward him.
“You should call an ambulance.”
Dominic laughed coldly.
“You shoot him and then recommend medical care?”
“I didn’t shoot Gabriel.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“Then who did?”
“The man you should actually be hunting.”
Sirens sounded faintly in the distance.
Silas looked toward the windows.
“You have approximately ninety seconds before local police arrive.”
Dominic kept the gun trained on him.
“Good.”
“No. Because the sheriff’s deputy responding to this house receives six thousand dollars a month from Raven.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
Silas smiled slightly.
“Now we can waste time arguing about whether I’m trustworthy, or you can carry Gabriel out the back.”
Victor looked at Mercer.
The old attorney nodded weakly.
“He’s telling the truth.”
That decided it.
Dominic cursed.
They moved.
A black SUV waited behind the barn.
Silas drove.
Dominic hated that arrangement but Gabriel was losing blood too quickly to debate.
They sped down a dirt road while police cruisers approached the farmhouse from the opposite direction.
Lena sat beside Gabriel, pressing a towel against his wound.
“Stay with me.”
He smiled faintly.
“You have Daniel’s eyes.”
“My father left your name.”
“I know.”
“What happened to him?”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“Raven happened.”
“Who is Raven?”
His eyelids opened.
“Someone Victor loves.”
Silence filled the vehicle.
Victor turned from the passenger seat.
“What?”
Gabriel coughed.
“Your father discovered the truth too late.”
Silas drove faster.
Victor looked at him.
“You know who Raven is.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
Dominic nearly lunged forward.
“You poison him, threaten a maid, break into her home, and now you want cooperation?”
Silas’s hands tightened on the wheel.
“I didn’t order the break-in.”
“Convenient.”
“I ordered the poison.”
Lena stared at him.
Silas glanced at her through the mirror.
“Not enough to kill him.”
Victor’s voice became dangerous.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“What was in the glass?”
“Digitalis derivative. Small dose.”
Dominic said, “Enough to put him in a hospital.”
“Exactly.”
“Why?”
“Because Raven has survived for twenty years by remaining hidden whenever Victor is strong. I needed Victor vulnerable.”
“So Raven would move,” Lena said.
Silas looked at her again.
“Daniel’s daughter is smarter than all of you.”
Dominic muttered something obscene.
Silas continued.
“I needed Raven to believe Victor had been poisoned successfully. Hospitalization would create uncertainty. The organization would scramble. Raven would contact assets.”
Victor’s voice was icy.
“You gambled with my life.”
“Yes.”
“And Lena?”
“Unexpected.”
Lena leaned forward.
“You knew my name on the phone.”
“I recognized you after the punch.”
“How?”
“You look like Daniel.”
She hated that answer.
Silas turned down another road.
A private clinic appeared beyond the trees.
Apparently Victor owned that too.
Doctors rushed Gabriel inside.
Twenty minutes later, they gathered in a private waiting room.
Dominic stood far from Silas because Victor had confiscated both their weapons.
Victor faced the man presumed dead for sixteen years.
“Talk.”
Silas sat.
“When Antonio Romano built his businesses, he trusted three people completely. Daniel Hart with his money. Gabriel Mercer with his legal affairs. And one other person with practically everything else.”
“Who?”
Silas looked at him.
“Your mother.”
Victor went still.
Lena stared.
“Isabella?”
Dominic whispered.
Victor’s mother had died eight years earlier.
Cancer.
Public funeral.
Thousands attending.
Silas continued.
“Isabella Romano was Raven.”
Victor crossed the room in two strides and punched him.
Silas hit the wall.
Lena jumped.
Dominic didn’t.
Victor grabbed Silas by the collar.
“Say her name again.”
Silas smiled through blood.
“Isabella.”
Victor hit him again.
“Victor!” Lena shouted.
He stopped.
Silas wiped his mouth.
“That anger is why nobody told you.”
“My mother spent her life protecting this family.”
“Your mother spent her life controlling it.”
“Liar.”
“Ask Gabriel.”
Victor looked toward the treatment room.
Silas continued.
“Isabella created shell companies and siphoned millions from Antonio. Not because she wanted handbags. She was creating her own network.”
“Why?”
“She knew your father was losing control.”
Dominic frowned.
“Antonio never lost control.”
“He lost plenty. He just killed anyone who noticed.”
Victor released Silas.
“What does this have to do with Daniel?”
“Daniel discovered Isabella’s accounts.”
Lena felt sick.
“He was going to expose her.”
“Yes.”
“Did she kill him?”
Silas hesitated.
“No.”
“Then who?”
“I did.”
The room became silent.
Lena stared.
Silas didn’t look away.
“I caused the crash.”
Her body reacted before her mind.
She rushed him.
Victor caught her around the waist.
“You murdered my father!”
Silas stood still.
“Lena—”
“You murdered him!”
“Yes.”
She fought against Victor.
“Let me go!”
Victor held her.
Silas looked almost ashamed.
“I believed Daniel was going to give the evidence to Antonio. Isabella convinced me that if he did, Antonio would kill everyone connected.”
“So you killed him first?”
“Yes.”
“You took my father from me!”
“Yes.”
Her voice broke.
“My mother worked three jobs.”
Silas closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I watched from a distance.”
That made it worse.
Lena stopped struggling.
“You watched us suffer?”
“I made sure your rent was sometimes anonymously covered.”
Lena stared at him.
Those strange months when bills mysteriously showed paid balances.
Her mother had called them bank errors.
“You don’t get credit for that.”
“I’m not asking for it.”
“Why are you alive?”
“Because Antonio eventually learned enough to hunt me. I staged my death.”
“And now?”
“I came back because Raven returned.”
Victor looked at him.
“My mother is dead.”
Silas smiled sadly.
“No, Victor.”
Victor’s face changed.
Silas reached inside his jacket very slowly.
Dominic tensed.
Silas removed a photograph.
He placed it on the table.
Taken three weeks earlier.
A woman stepped from a black Mercedes outside a villa in Switzerland.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
Victor picked up the photograph.
His hand trembled.
“My mother.”
“She never died of cancer,” Silas said.
Dominic whispered, “I saw the body.”
“You saw a closed casket after a private hospital reported her death.”
Victor looked physically ill.
Silas continued.
“She disappeared because federal investigators were getting too close to Raven’s accounts.”
“Why come back now?”
“Antonio is dead. His empire belongs to you.”
Victor stared at the photograph.
“And she wants it.”
“No.”
Silas shook his head.
“She wants something far more valuable.”
“What?”
Silas looked toward Lena.
“Daniel Hart’s ledger.”
Lena folded her arms.
“Why?”
“Because the ledger doesn’t only contain theft records.”
“What else?”
“The names of every judge, official, businessman, and law-enforcement officer Raven ever purchased.”
Dominic whispered, “That could bring down half the network.”
“And send Isabella to prison for the rest of her life.”
The treatment-room door opened.
A doctor emerged.
“Mr. Mercer is stable.”
Victor nodded.
“Can he speak?”
“For a few minutes.”
They entered.
Gabriel looked fragile beneath the hospital lights.
Victor approached.
“My mother is alive.”
Gabriel’s expression answered before his mouth did.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since her funeral.”
Victor looked away, devastated.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because she threatened you.”
“I was thirty-five.”
“Parents still know how to frighten people when their children are grown.”
Victor sat.
“Is she Raven?”
Gabriel nodded.
Victor closed his eyes.
Lena watched the powerful man from the ballroom collapse silently under the weight of a truth no gun could fight.
Then Gabriel looked at Lena.
“Your father hid one more thing.”
“What?”
“Evidence.”
“The ledger?”
“No.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“A recording.”
Lena remembered the second cassette tape in Daniel’s box.
She had left it at the townhouse.
“What’s on it?”
“Isabella confessing.”
Victor looked up.
“To Daniel’s murder?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“No.”
“To Antonio Romano’s.”
Dominic stared.
Victor whispered, “My father died of a heart attack.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“No.”
He took a painful breath.
“Your mother poisoned him.”
Victor slowly stood.
At that exact moment, Dominic’s phone rang.
One of the townhouse guards.
He answered.
His face changed immediately.
“What happened?”
Lena felt dread before he said anything.
Dominic looked at her.
“The townhouse was attacked.”
Her heart stopped.
“Noah?”
Dominic’s silence answered.
Lena grabbed him.
“Where is my brother?”
“The guards are alive.”
“Where is Noah?”
Dominic swallowed.
“He’s gone.”
Victor turned toward Silas.
Silas looked genuinely shocked.
Then Dominic’s phone buzzed.
A photograph arrived.
Noah sat tied to a chair.
Behind him stood an elegant silver-haired woman.
Isabella Romano.
Victor’s supposedly dead mother.
May you like
The message beneath the photo contained six words:
BRING ME DANIEL’S LEDGER OR HE DIES.
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