Chapter 13 - BROTHERS
“No.”
Preston stared at Dominic.
Dominic stared back.
Mara sat between them, exhausted beyond anger.
Price stood near the door.
Bianca sat in a chair across the room.
Nobody knew what to do with the truth.
Dominic spoke first.
“My father had an affair with Preston’s mother.”
Preston shook his head.
“My father is David Reed.”
“The man who raised you.”
“Same thing.”
“Not biologically.”
Preston looked at Price.
“Is this real?”
Price nodded.
“Eleanor found the records.”
Mara frowned.
“Why would my mother care?”
Dominic answered.
“Because my father asked her to protect Preston’s mother.”
Mara looked at him.
“You knew this before tonight?”
“I suspected.”
“How long?”
“Years.”
“And you never told Preston?”
“No.”
Preston laughed once.
“You’re telling me the head of the Vale family has known I’m his half brother?”
“Yes.”
“And what? You watched me marry a senator’s daughter for entertainment?”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“I watched you from a distance because my father’s enemies would have used you if they knew.”
Preston looked sick.
“My whole life…”
“Doesn’t change.”
“It changes everything.”
“No,” Dominic said. “It changes blood.”
The words landed.
“Family is what you do after you learn the blood.”
Mara looked at Dominic.
That was not the kind of sentence she expected from him.
Maybe he was changing.
Or maybe she had never understood him.
Bianca stood.
“My father knew?”
Price nodded.
“Likely.”
Her face twisted.
“So that’s why he wanted Preston.”
Mara frowned.
“What?”
Bianca laughed bitterly.
“Dad pushed me toward him. He called Preston perfect. Clean background. Ambitious. Good face.”
She looked at Dominic.
“But he knew Preston carried Vale blood.”
Dominic understood first.
“Insurance.”
Price nodded.
“If Thorne ever lost influence with Dominic, Preston could become leverage.”
Preston rubbed both hands over his face.
“I divorced Mara for that family.”
Nobody answered.
He looked at Mara.
“I destroyed us for a future they designed.”
Mara’s heart hurt.
But not the old way.
For years she had imagined hearing Preston admit regret.
She thought it would heal something.
It didn’t.
It simply made the past smaller.
“I loved you,” she said.
Preston lowered his hands.
“I know.”
“But the man I loved would’ve chosen me.”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“And I can finally stop asking why.”
Preston nodded.
Tears ran down his face.
“I’m sorry.”
“I believe you.”
He looked up.
Mara continued.
“And it doesn’t change anything.”
A sad smile touched his mouth.
“Fair.”
Dominic looked away, giving them privacy he did not owe.
Mara noticed.
Then a federal agent entered.
“Mr. Price, we have a problem.”
Price stood.
“What?”
“Harlan is alive.”
Mara blinked.
“What?”
“The warehouse shot didn’t kill him. He regained consciousness during transport.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“And?”
“He escaped.”
“How?”
“We believe he had help.”
Bianca went pale.
“My father?”
“No. Thorne is in federal custody.”
Price asked, “Then who?”
The agent hesitated.
“We pulled Harlan’s phone records.”
He handed Price a page.
Price read it.
His face lost color.
“What?” Dominic demanded.
Price looked at Mara.
“Harlan made seventeen calls in the last month to someone inside Dominic’s organization.”
Dominic became very still.
“Who?”
Price gave him the name.
“Marco DeLuca.”
Dominic stared at the door.
His most trusted man.
His oldest friend.
The man who had been standing beside him since he was twenty-two.
Then Dominic’s phone rang.
Marco.
Dominic answered.
“Where are you?”
Marco’s voice was calm.
“You should’ve stayed out of Eleanor Whitfield’s business.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“Where are you?”
Marco laughed softly.
“Ask Mara where her original files are.”
Mara froze.
Dominic looked at her.
May you like
Marco continued.
“Because if she doesn’t tell me in ten minutes, I start burning down everything you ever built.”
