Chapter 14 - saint bartholomew’s
They left for Saint Bartholomew’s before sunrise.
Dominic hated leaving Natalie and Noah behind, but he hated more the idea of dragging them toward a burned orphanage connected to his father’s crimes. The safe room had been converted into a temporary command center. Samuel stayed with Natalie to fight the emergency filing. Emma refused to leave Noah, which Dominic accepted without argument. Marco came because too many secrets still had his fingerprints around the edges.
The drive north took forty minutes.
No one spoke for the first thirty.
At last, Marco said, “You should know something.”
Dominic looked out at the gray road.
“That sentence has become expensive.”
Marco accepted that.
“Catherine thought Elijah might have survived.”
Dominic’s head turned slowly.
“You said she believed Rane knew whether he lived.”
“That was the safe version.”
Dominic’s voice dropped.
“What did she believe?”
Marco stared ahead.
“She believed your father gave the child to Rane as collateral, then later regretted the exposure. The clinic records were destroyed. The doctor died. The nurse disappeared. Saint Bartholomew’s burned when Elijah would have been five.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
Five.
A child old enough to know his name.
Old enough to be afraid.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She had no proof.”
“She had me.”
Marco looked at him.
“She had a son already carrying too much of his father’s war.”
Dominic said nothing.
Saint Bartholomew’s stood behind a rusted fence at the end of a road no one repaired anymore.
Or rather, what remained stood there.
Black stone walls. A roof collapsed decades ago. Trees growing through old classrooms. Graffiti on brick. A place abandoned by everyone except birds, teenagers, and ghosts.
Dominic stepped out of the SUV.
Cold air moved through the ruins.
Marco checked the perimeter.
“No fresh vehicles.”
“That we can see.”
“Exactly.”
They entered through a gap in the fence.
Inside, the old orphanage smelled of wet leaves and ash that should have faded years ago but somehow had not. Dominic imagined children walking these halls. Metal beds. Thin blankets. Names changed because powerful men required silence.
His brother might have been here.
Or not.
That uncertainty was a cruelty all its own.
Marco led him to what had once been the administrative wing.
“Catherine’s notes mentioned a records room.”
“There are no records after a fire.”
“Officially.”
Dominic looked at him.
Marco kicked aside debris near a half-collapsed wall, revealing old tile beneath.
“Rane hid things. Men like him always keep insurance.”
They searched for twenty minutes before Dominic found the symbol.
A small carved rose in the stone.
Catherine’s rose.
His mother had been here.
He touched the carving.
The stone shifted slightly.
Marco helped him pull away a loose block. Behind it sat a metal tube wrapped in oilcloth.
Dominic opened it.
Inside was a birth record.
Not original.
A copy.
Elijah Thomas Mercer.
Male.
Born April 3.
Transferred April 5 by order of T.M.
Receiving guardian: V. Rane.
Dominic’s vision blurred with anger.
Not shock now.
Anger.
Clean, white, and almost peaceful.
Marco looked at the document.
“God.”
Dominic said, “He lived.”
“We don’t know for how long.”
“He lived long enough to be transferred.”
The wind moved through the broken walls like whispering.
Inside the tube was also a photograph.
A little boy around four years old stood in front of Saint Bartholomew’s holding a wooden horse. Dark hair. Serious eyes.
Mercer eyes.
On the back:
Eli. 5th birthday soon. V.R. says no visits.
Dominic sat down on a broken stone bench.
For a moment, he was not a boss, not a strategist, not a feared man in a dark coat.
He was an older brother who had not known there was someone to save.
Marco stood nearby, silent.
Dominic looked at the photograph.
“Did my mother see him?”
Marco’s voice was rough.
“I don’t know.”
Dominic put the photo inside his coat.
Then he heard the click.
Soft.
Metal.
Behind them.
Marco turned first.
Three men stood in the broken doorway.
The center man was in his sixties, thin, gray-haired, wearing a wool coat too fine for ruins.
Victor Rane.
Dominic knew him instantly though he had not seen him in years.
Some men age into weakness.
Rane had aged into bone.
“Dominic,” Rane said. “You look like your father when disappointed.”
Dominic did not move.
“My father disappointed everyone.”
Rane smiled.
“Not everyone.”
Marco’s hand moved toward his weapon.
The two men beside Rane raised guns.
Rane clicked his tongue.
“Let’s not reduce this to noise. I came to talk.”
Dominic stood slowly.
“You threatened a child.”
“I delivered a message.”
“You filed under Elijah’s name.”
“I filed truth.”
Dominic’s blood chilled.
Rane’s smile widened.
“Yes. He lived.”
Marco’s face tightened.
Dominic stepped forward.
“Where is he?”
Rane shook his head.
“Still direct. Thomas hated that about you.”
“Where is my brother?”
“Which answer do you want? The one that comforts you, or the one that keeps Noah alive?”
Dominic’s control frayed.
Rane saw it and enjoyed it.
“There he is,” Rane murmured. “Thomas after all.”
Marco said, “Careful.”
Rane looked at him.
“Ah, Marco Bennett. Catherine’s dog. Did she scratch behind your ears before sending you to betray everyone?”
Marco’s jaw flexed.
Dominic kept his eyes on Rane.
“What do you want?”
“The ledger. The drive. Catherine’s copies. All of them.”
“No.”
“Then the court freezes the trust. The press receives enough Mercer history to bury your clean little empire. And Natalie’s boy learns what it means to inherit a battlefield.”
Dominic smiled faintly.
Rane paused.
It was not the smile of a cornered man.
It was worse.
Dominic removed his phone from his pocket and held it up.
On the screen, a call was active.
Samuel Greer.
Rane’s eyes narrowed.
Dominic said, “You just confirmed Elijah lived, that you filed using his name, and that you threatened Noah’s trust.”
Rane’s expression hardened.
“That proves nothing.”
“No,” Dominic agreed. “But it buys time.”
A siren sounded faintly in the distance.
Then another.
Rane’s men shifted.
Marco smiled without humor.
“Perimeter arrived.”
Rane looked at Dominic with something like admiration.
“Catherine did make you suspicious enough.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Where is Elijah?”
For the first time, Rane’s confidence flickered.
Then he said, softly, “Closer than you think.”
Smoke canisters hit the floor.
White clouds exploded through the ruins.
Marco tackled Dominic sideways as a shot cracked against stone.
By the time the smoke cleared, Rane was gone.
But on the floor where he had stood lay a wooden horse.
Old.
Small.
May you like
Its underside carved with one word.
Alive.
