Chapter 9 - TEN SECONDS
Dominic moved before anyone else.
“Daniel, wire!”
Daniel dropped beside the chair.
Seven seconds.
Claire was crying.
“Emily, don’t move.”
Six.
Daniel followed the cable.
“Fake trigger!”
Five.
“What?”
“The timer’s separate!”
Four.
Dominic grabbed Emily’s chair.
Three.
“Move!”
They dragged her toward the side aisle.
Two.
The device exploded.
The blast shattered the altar.
Dominic hit the floor.
Glass and wood rained over him.
His ears screamed.
For several seconds, he could see nothing but dust.
Then Harper’s voice appeared in his mind.
You came back.
Dominic forced himself up.
“Daniel!”
“I’m here!”
“Claire!”
“I’m okay!”
Emily was alive.
Bleeding from her forehead.
But alive.
Then gunfire erupted outside.
“It was a trap!” Marcus shouted.
Dominic fired through a broken stained-glass window.
Two attackers fell back.
Daniel cut Emily loose.
“North exit!”
They ran through the cemetery.
A black SUV appeared through the fog.
Vincent leaned from the driver’s window.
“Get in!”
They piled inside.
Vincent accelerated while bullets chased them down the road.
Claire held Emily.
“I thought you were dead.”
Emily shook violently.
“He wanted you to think that.”
“Nathan?”
Emily nodded.
Dominic turned.
“Tell me where he is.”
Emily looked at him.
“He’s going back to your house.”
Dominic’s blood chilled.
“Mia.”
Emily shook her head.
“Not Mia.”
“Then why?”
“He needs the vault.”
“What vault?”
Emily laughed weakly.
“You really don’t know your own house.”
Dominic was getting tired of hearing that.
“What vault?”
“Your grandfather built a federal evidence bunker beneath the east wing in the sixties.”
Vincent cursed.
“Dad mentioned rumors.”
Emily continued.
“Nathan believes your grandfather hid something there.”
“What?”
“Ledgers.”
Dominic frowned.
“Old gambling ledgers?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Emily looked at Vincent.
“Records proving the Cross family were informants.”
Claire went still.
Emily continued.
“Nathan’s grandfather gave federal agents evidence that put dozens of Vale men in prison.”
Dominic stared.
“So this is revenge?”
“Partly.”
“Partly?”
“Nathan’s father was murdered when Nathan was twelve.”
“By my family?”
Emily nodded.
“Nathan spent his whole life getting close enough to destroy you from the inside.”
Dominic thought of seventeen years.
The dinners.
The funerals.
Nathan standing beside Elena’s grave.
Nathan helping carry Dominic’s father’s coffin.
Seventeen years of hatred disguised as loyalty.
Dominic’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Nathan’s voice.
“Hello, brother.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“Where are you?”
“You know where.”
“If you touch Mia—”
“I don’t care about Mia.”
“You locked her underground.”
“She found something she wasn’t supposed to find.”
“What do you want?”
Nathan laughed softly.
“The same thing I wanted the day I met you.”
Dominic looked out at the road.
“My family dead?”
“No.”
Nathan’s answer surprised him.
“I wanted you to discover the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That Dominic Vale was never the strongest man in the room.”
A child cried in the background.
Dominic stopped breathing.
“Nathan.”
The crying came again.
May you like
Harper.
Nathan whispered, “Come home alone.”
