Dominic did not speak for almost an hour.
Elena had been taken to a secure location.
Police had been told the shooting involved an attempted corporate robbery.
Dominic sat alone inside his dark office.
Chloe stood outside the door.
She should have left him alone.
Instead, she knocked.
No answer.
She entered anyway.
Dominic stared through the windows.
“You're becoming terrible at following instructions,” he said.
“I'm learning from my boss.”
A tired sound escaped him.
Not quite laughter.
Chloe walked closer.
“Was Gabriel your older brother?”
“Younger.”
“Were you close?”
Dominic looked down.
“He was my best friend.”
The simplicity of the statement hurt more than anything dramatic could have.
“What happened?”
Dominic leaned against the desk.
“Four years ago Gabriel told me something was wrong with several family accounts. Money was moving through companies neither of us recognized.”
“Like Northstar.”
“Yes.”
“He thought your father was responsible?”
“Eventually.”
“What did he discover?”
Dominic's expression became distant.
“My father had been secretly funding another organization.”
“Why?”
“To maintain peace.”
Chloe frowned.
“That sounds almost reasonable.”
“It wasn't.”
Dominic looked at her.
“He wasn't paying for peace. He was helping them eliminate people who threatened his position.”
Chloe felt sick.
“His own people?”
“Yes.”
“Gabriel found proof?”
“He said he had.”
“What happened to it?”
“Gone after he died.”
Dominic walked toward a cabinet and poured whiskey.
He looked at the glass.
Then put it down untouched.
“Gabriel called me the night he died.”
His voice roughened.
“I was in New York negotiating a property deal.”
“What did he say?”
“That he finally understood everything.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“He asked me to come home.”
Chloe's chest tightened.
“And you couldn't.”
“I told him I'd take the morning flight.”
She knew what came next.
“He died that night.”
Dominic nodded.
“His car went through a barrier near Lake Shore Drive.”
Chloe moved closer.
“You believed it was an accident.”
“I needed to.”
The words were nearly inaudible.
“Because the alternative…”
“Was that my father murdered my brother.”
Chloe reached for his hand.
This time Dominic didn't freeze.
He held on.
“Elena says he did.”
“Elena says many things.”
“But you believe her.”
His silence answered.
Chloe looked toward the desk.
“Why would Elena help your father?”
“She wasn't.”
“What?”
Dominic turned.
“Elena worked for Gabriel.”
Chloe frowned.
“I thought she betrayed him.”
“So did I.”
He began pacing.
“But if she's telling the truth, she has spent four years trying to expose whoever inherited my father's secret network.”
“Someone inherited it?”
“Organizations like this never disappear because one man dies.”
Chloe thought of Harbor Point.
“Then Northstar isn't about Gabriel.”
“No.”
“It's about whoever took your father's place.”
Dominic nodded.
Chloe's mind began assembling pieces.
“Adrian Cole launders money through Harbor Point. Elena watches him. I find the discrepancy.”
“Yes.”
“Then someone targets me.”
“Yes.”
“But if Elena wanted the truth exposed, why bug my apartment?”
Dominic stopped.
“She says she didn't.”
Chloe stared.
“The transmitter was purchased using her account.”
“Stolen credentials.”
“So someone framed her too.”
“Possibly.”
Chloe's pulse quickened.
“Then the person inside Russo Holdings isn't Elena.”
Dominic's eyes met hers.
“No.”
A terrible realization formed.
“The attack tonight.”
“A distraction.”
“For what?”
Dominic picked up his phone.
“Marco.”
The security chief answered immediately.
“Check the archive.”
A pause.
Then Marco swore.
“What?”
“The Gabriel files are gone.”
Dominic went still.
“Who accessed them?”
“Checking.”
They waited.
Thirty seconds later Marco called back.
“One badge.”
“Whose?”
A longer pause.
“Mine.”
Dominic's face hardened.
“Your badge?”
“Cloned.”
Chloe whispered, “Someone has access to everything.”
Dominic turned toward her.
“Yes.”
Her stomach twisted.
Then she remembered something.
Tiny.
Ordinary.
A moment from months ago.
“Wait.”
Dominic watched her.
“When I first started working here, I had trouble with my access card.”
“Yes?”
“Someone helped reset it.”
“Who?”
“Patrick.”
Dominic's expression changed.
Patrick Russo.
His cousin.
Chief operating officer of Russo Holdings.
The man Dominic described publicly as his closest business partner.
Chloe continued.
“He knew the master security system.”
Dominic pulled out his phone.
Marco answered on the first ring.
“Find Patrick.”
Silence.
Then:
“He left the building twenty minutes before the attack.”
Dominic's eyes went black.
“Where is he now?”
“We don't know.”
Chloe felt suddenly cold.
“What if he's the one?”
Dominic looked at her.
“Then I've spent twelve years trusting the man who helped murder my brother.”
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
Dominic answered.
“Russo.”
A man's voice filled the speaker.
Warm.
Familiar.
“Cousin.”
Patrick.
Dominic's expression became stone.
“Where are you?”
Patrick laughed.
“You always ask the wrong question.”
“What do you want?”
“What your father promised mine.”
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
“The empire.”
“No. Recognition.”
Patrick's voice hardened.
“Our fathers built everything together. Yours took the crown. Mine took the blame whenever something went wrong.”
“You killed Adrian.”
“Yes.”
“You targeted Chloe.”
A pause.
Then Patrick laughed softly.
“Now we're getting to the interesting part.”
Dominic's grip tightened around the phone.
“If you touch her—”
“What? You'll kill me?”
Patrick sounded amused.
“You've been threatening people for twenty years, Dominic. But this is the first time you've had something worth threatening.”
Chloe's heartbeat pounded.
Patrick continued.
“She changed you.”
Dominic said nothing.
“That's dangerous.”
“Leave her out of this.”
“Too late.”
The call disconnected.
Chloe looked at Dominic.
“He doesn't have me.”
“No.”
“But he wants you to think he can.”
Dominic stared at the phone.
“Yes.”
Chloe stepped closer.
“What happens now?”
Dominic looked at her.
“We end this.”
“How?”
He reached into a hidden drawer and removed an old envelope.
Gabriel's handwriting covered the front.
Chloe's breath caught.
“You had something from him?”
“A letter.”
“You never opened it?”
“I did.”
“Then why—”
“I didn't understand it.”
Dominic handed it to her.
Inside was a single sheet.
Three sentences.
Dom, if I fail, don't trust the numbers. Trust where they lead. Father always said the city remembers everything. Start where we learned to swim.
Chloe read it twice.
“Where did you learn to swim?”
Dominic's face changed.
“Lake Geneva.”
“Family house?”
“Yes.”
“Does Patrick know?”
“He grew up there too.”
Chloe met his eyes.
“Then whatever Gabriel hid…”
Dominic finished.
“Patrick may already be looking for it.”
Three hours later, they were driving north.
Dominic insisted Chloe stay behind.
Chloe refused.
For once he lost the argument.
The Russo lake house had been abandoned for years.
Dust covered the furniture.
Moonlight stretched across the wooden floors.
Dominic walked directly toward the old indoor pool.
It had been drained.
They descended the tiled steps.
“Gabriel hated swimming,” Dominic said quietly.
“Then why mention it?”
“He didn't.”
Chloe frowned.
Dominic pointed toward the wall.
A faded mural showed three boys standing beside the lake.
Dominic.
Gabriel.
Patrick.
Below them, painted in blue letters:
RUSSO BOYS — SUMMER 1998
Chloe touched the wall.
One tile shifted.
Dominic looked at her.
Together they removed it.
Behind the tile was a metal box.
Inside:
A flash drive.
A ledger.
And a photograph.
Dominic picked up the photograph.
His father stood beside Patrick's father.
Between them was a much younger Elena.
On the back, Gabriel had written:
The empire belongs to whoever tells the truth.
Dominic inserted the drive into a secure laptop.
Files appeared.
Hundreds.
Payments.
Recordings.
Photographs.
Enough evidence to explain two decades of betrayal.
Then Chloe saw one folder.
GABRIEL — FINAL NIGHT.
Dominic opened it.
An audio recording began.
Gabriel's voice filled the empty pool.
“If you're hearing this, Dom, I probably didn't make it.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
Chloe held his hand.
“I know who's helping Father.”
A pause.
Then the name.
“Patrick.”
Dominic's fingers tightened around Chloe's.
The recording continued.
“He believes the family belongs to him. Father promised him control if he helped clean up the old network.”
Dominic's jaw hardened.
“If anything happens to me, Patrick did it.”
Silence.
Then Gabriel's voice softened.
“And Dom… don't become Father trying to avenge me. Build something better.”
The recording ended.
Dominic stood motionless.
Chloe looked at him.
“You heard him.”
“He deserves justice.”
“Yes.”
“But Gabriel didn't ask you for revenge.”
Dominic looked at the dark screen.
“No.”
“He asked you to become better.”
For several seconds there was only silence.
Then glass shattered upstairs.
Dominic pulled Chloe behind him.
A voice echoed from the doorway.
“Well.”
Patrick Russo stepped into view.
Gun in hand.
“You finally found it.”
---