Marcus’s safe apartment looked like a storm had passed through it.
A chair lay broken beside the kitchen.
One security guard was unconscious but alive.
The other was missing.
There was blood on the floor.
Not much.
Enough.
Dominic stared at it with an expression I had learned to fear.
“Who knew the location?” I asked.
“Me,” Gabriel said. “Dominic. Two guards.”
“And Elliot?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“He could have found out.”
Dominic looked toward the security camera.
“Footage?”
“Deleted.”
“Backup?”
“Working on it.”
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
Marcus sat tied to a chair.
Beneath it:
Bring Dominic’s evidence. Midnight. Alone.
Dominic took the phone.
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“Marcus risked his life meeting me.”
“And walking into Roland’s hands won’t help him.”
“Then what do we do?”
Dominic looked at Gabriel.
“We finish this.”
The next four hours changed everything.
Gabriel recovered partial footage showing Elliot Crane entering the building forty minutes before Marcus disappeared.
The missing guard’s bank records revealed a $200,000 deposit.
Marcus had been sold.
Again.
But this time we were ready.
Dominic contacted federal prosecutor Rebecca Sloan, a woman who had spent years trying unsuccessfully to prosecute members of his organization.
When she arrived at the mansion, she looked at him as if expecting a trick.
“You want immunity.”
“No.”
That surprised everyone.
“What do you want?”
“Protection for Claire and Marcus. Prosecution of Roland Pike and Elliot Crane.”
“And in return?”
“Everything I have.”
Gabriel stared at him.
“Dom.”
Dominic didn’t look away from Sloan.
“Financial records. Names. Operations.”
Sloan sat slowly.
“You understand what you’re offering?”
“Yes.”
“You could incriminate yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Dominic glanced at me.
“Because I’m tired.”
Nobody spoke.
He continued.
“My father taught me that power meant making people fear losing something. Their money. Their reputation. Their lives.”
His hand rested on the wheel.
“Then I lost the use of my legs and discovered fear doesn’t make you powerful. It just makes everyone around you wait for a chance to become the person holding the knife.”
Rebecca Sloan studied him.
“And now?”
“Now I want out.”
The words stunned me.
Dominic Vale had built his identity around control.
Walking away from his criminal empire would cost more than money.
It would cost the person he had spent his entire adult life becoming.
Sloan nodded.
“Then help me build a case.”
At eleven thirty, I drove toward the warehouse Roland had chosen.
Alone.
At least, that was what Roland believed.
The evidence in my bag was fake.
A transmitter was hidden inside my coat.
Federal agents waited several blocks away.
Dominic hated every second.
“You don’t have to do this,” he had said before I left.
“Yes, I do.”
“Claire.”
“You protected me before I even knew I needed protecting. Let me protect someone else.”
His face tightened.
“I love you.”
It was the second time he had said it.
This time, I kissed him.
Not for cameras.
Not because of a contract.
Because I wanted to.
When I pulled back, Dominic looked stunned.
“If I come back,” I whispered, “we’re going to have a very serious conversation.”
“When.”
“What?”
“When you come back.”
I smiled.
“When.”
Roland waited inside the warehouse.
Marcus sat behind him.
Alive.
Elliot stood nearby.
Seeing Elliot hurt more than expected.
He had always been kind to me.
He had once brought soup when I had the flu.
Now he held a gun.
“Claire,” Roland said. “The drive.”
“Marcus first.”
“You’re negotiating?”
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“Dominic taught you badly.”
“No. Dominic taught me that people reveal themselves when they think they have all the power.”
Roland’s smile faded.
I held up the drive.
“You want this? Tell me why.”
“Why what?”
“Why Dominic?”
Roland laughed.
“You came for a confession?”
“I came because I want to understand how someone spends years pretending to be a friend before arranging a truck to hit him.”
Elliot stiffened.
Roland looked amused.
“You think friendship matters in business?”
“It mattered to Dominic.”
“That was his weakness.”
“Was?”
Roland stepped closer.
“He’s finished.”
“Because he’s in a wheelchair?”
“Because he became sentimental.”
“For me?”
“For everything.”
Roland shook his head.
“Before the crash, Dominic understood what men like us are. Afterward, he started talking about legitimacy. Selling businesses. Cleaning things up.”
“So you tried to kill him.”
“I tried to remove a problem.”
“And Elliot helped.”
Elliot’s face tightened.
“Careful.”
I looked at him.
“You gave Roland Dominic’s route.”
Silence.
“You arranged the medical evaluations.”
Elliot raised the gun.
Roland lifted a hand.
“Let her talk.”
“You wanted him declared incompetent,” I continued. “You wanted control of the trust.”
Roland smiled.
“Dominic should have died like his father.”
The words stopped me.
“What?”
Even Elliot looked at Roland.
Roland realized his mistake.
I pushed.
“What happened to Anthony Vale?”
“Claire.”
Elliot’s voice was warning.
I ignored him.
“Dominic thinks his father died of a heart attack.”
Roland’s expression changed.
And suddenly I knew.
“Oh my God.”
Elliot whispered, “Shut up.”
“You killed his father too.”
Roland’s face hardened.
“His father was dying anyway.”
The transmitter beneath my coat felt suddenly enormous.
“How?”
“Medication.”
Elliot grabbed Roland’s arm.
“That’s enough.”
Roland shoved him away.
“No. She wants truth? Give her truth.”
He looked at me.
“Anthony Vale built an empire and then got religion at the end. Wanted to dismantle everything. Dominic was going to help him.”
“So you poisoned him.”
“Elliot changed a prescription.”
I looked at Elliot.
His face was gray.
“Thirty years with that family.”
He looked away.
“You murdered the man who trusted you.”
“I did what was necessary.”
“No. You did what was profitable.”
Marcus suddenly kicked the chair sideways.
It hit Roland.
I moved.
Elliot grabbed me.
The warehouse erupted.
Federal agents entered from two sides.
“Federal agents! Drop the weapon!”
Roland ran.
Elliot froze.
For one horrible second, the gun in his hand pointed toward me.
Then Marcus slammed his shoulder into Elliot.
The gun fell.
Agents tackled them both.
Roland reached a side door.
It opened before he could escape.
Dominic sat on the other side.
My heart stopped.
He had come.
Of course he had.
Roland stared at him.
Dominic looked almost calm.
“You.”
Roland laughed breathlessly.
“What are you going to do, Dom? Chase me?”
Dominic’s expression didn’t change.
“No.”
Behind him stood two federal agents.
“I’m just here to watch you lose.”
Roland was handcuffed.
As agents led him past Dominic, Roland leaned close.
“You think this makes you clean?”
“No,” Dominic said.
“Then what does it make you?”
Dominic looked toward me.
“Finished.”
Hours later, after statements and ambulances and endless questions, we returned home.
The sun was beginning to rise.
Dominic stopped in the foyer.
I stood in front of him.
“You came to the warehouse.”
“Yes.”
“I specifically told you not to.”
“Yes.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You mentioned that.”
I wanted to laugh.
Instead, I cried.
Everything hit me at once.
Marcus.
Roland.
The crash.
Anthony Vale.
The fact that Dominic had loved me enough to release me from the contract without ever telling me.
He reached for me.
I sank onto his lap carefully and wrapped my arms around him.
He held me.
For a long time, neither of us spoke.
Then he whispered against my hair.
“The contract is over.”
I pulled back.
“What?”
“You’re free.”
My heart dropped.
“That’s what you want?”
“No.”
“Then why are you saying it?”
“Because if you stay now, I need to know you chose it.”
I stared at him.
“What happens to you?”
“I cooperate. I sell what can be sold. Close what needs closing.”
“Prison?”
“Possibly.”
The word frightened me.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
I touched his face.
“You should have told me.”
“I’m telling you now.”
He covered my hand.
“Claire, I won’t make you spend your life paying for my choices.”
“You don’t get to make that choice for me.”
His eyes searched mine.
I leaned closer.
“You wanted proof you were still a man?”
His jaw tightened at the memory.
“This is it, Dominic.”
“What is?”
“Letting someone love you without deciding for them how much they’re allowed to risk.”
His eyes became wet.
He looked away.
I gently turned his face back.
“I’m not staying because of a contract.”
“Then why?”
I kissed him.
“Because somewhere between hating your rules and stealing your coffee, I fell in love with you too.”
For the first time since I had met Dominic Vale, the most feared man in New York had absolutely nothing to say.
Then Gabriel rushed into the foyer.
His face destroyed the moment.
“Dom.”
Dominic looked up.
“What now?”
Gabriel held out his phone.
“Roland made a call before the warehouse.”
“To whom?”
“We don’t know.”
Gabriel’s expression darkened.
“But whoever answered just put a five-million-dollar contract on Claire.”