Chapter 2 - three missing minutes
Dominic crossed the dining room before the lights were fully restored.
“Marcus.”
No answer.
“Vanessa.”
Silence.
Emma stood near the wall, breathing hard.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic grabbed his phone.
No service.
He tried again.
Nothing.
Emma looked at hers.
“Mine too.”
Dominic moved toward the corridor.
One of his security men appeared at the far end.
“Boss, we lost internal communications.”
“For how long?”
“Maybe thirty seconds.”
“Where is my mother?”
The guard hesitated.
“We thought she was with you.”
Dominic’s eyes turned cold.
“Lock the gates.”
The man immediately reached for his radio.
Static.
Dominic looked toward Emma.
“Stay here.”
“Sir…”
“What?”
Emma appeared torn.
Then she said, “Mrs. Vance gave me something last night.”
Dominic stopped.
“What?”
Emma reached into the pocket of her uniform.
Empty.
Her face changed.
“It’s gone.”
“What was it?”
“A key.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“To what?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
Dominic’s patience thinned.
“Start at the beginning.”
Emma swallowed.
“Last night, your mother came into the kitchen after midnight. She looked upset. She asked if I trusted you.”
“That is a strange question.”
“I thought so too.”
“What did you say?”
“I said yes.”
Emma looked toward the hallway.
“Then she gave me a small brass key. She said if anything happened to her, I was supposed to give it to you personally.”
“And now it’s gone.”
“Yes.”
“Who knew you had it?”
“No one.”
Dominic stared at her.
Emma corrected herself.
“No one that I know of.”
A sound came from upstairs.
Metal striking marble.
Then Sophia screamed.
Dominic ran.
He took the staircase two steps at a time.
Emma followed.
The scream had come from the west living room.
As Dominic reached the corridor he heard Vanessa shouting.
“You should have kept your mouth shut.”
Dominic slowed for one fraction of a second.
Not because he was afraid.
Because he needed to understand what he was about to enter.
Sophia cried out.
Then came another heavy impact.
Dominic ran through the doorway.
His mother was on the floor.
Vanessa stood above her holding a brass statue.
Emma rushed past Dominic before he could stop her and threw herself over Sophia.
“Move,” Vanessa snapped.
She raised the statue.
Emma covered Sophia with her body.
Vanessa snarled, “Move, you worthless little maid.”
Dominic grabbed Vanessa’s wrist.
Everything after that happened quickly.
The statue hit the floor.
Vanessa stumbled.
Dominic struck her once and warned her never to touch his mother again.
Vanessa spat on his shoe.
Then insulted Sophia.
Dominic almost forgot there were other people in the world.
Until Emma raised her phone.
“Sir,” she whispered. “I recorded everything.”
Vanessa’s confidence vanished.
Dominic looked at Emma.
“When?”
Emma stared at the screen.
“From the moment the lights went out.”
Dominic’s anger changed shape.
A recording meant evidence.
A timeline.
Voices.
Movement.
Possibly answers.
He turned toward Vanessa.
“You didn’t do this alone.”
Vanessa stepped backward.
Then Emma looked over Dominic’s shoulder.
Her eyes widened.
“Mr. Vance. Behind you.”
Dominic began to turn.
Marcus Kane aimed a handgun at him.
The betrayal should have shocked him.
Instead Dominic felt strangely calm.
Perhaps because some part of him had already known.
Marcus had been wrong all morning.
Too watchful.
Too ready.
Too informed.
Marcus pushed the weapon toward him.
Vanessa smiled.
And then Richard Hale entered.
The senator told Dominic his father might not have died naturally.
Sophia admitted Vincent Vance had hidden a ledger.
And then the impossible happened.
Isabella Vance entered the room.
Dominic’s sister had died in a boating accident seventeen years earlier.
There had been wreckage.
Blood on the deck.
A jacket recovered from the water.
No body.
Dominic had spent months searching before accepting she was gone.
Their mother had mourned her.
Their father had changed afterward.
Now Isabella stood inside the house as if death had been an appointment she had simply missed.
“I gave the order,” Isabella said.
Dominic looked at her.
“What order?”
Isabella’s eyes moved toward Sophia.
“The order to pressure Mom until she told us where Dad hid the ledger.”
Sophia stared at her daughter.
“You said you would never hurt him.”
“I’m not hurting him.”
“You brought a gun into his home.”
Isabella glanced at Marcus.
“That wasn’t part of my instruction.”
Marcus did not lower the weapon.
“No,” he said. “It was mine.”
Isabella’s jaw tightened.
“Marcus.”
“He was never going to cooperate.”
Dominic almost laughed.
“You’ve been dead seventeen years and already your employees are ignoring you.”
Pain flashed across Isabella’s face.
“Still arrogant.”
“Still alive.”
Vanessa stepped between them.
“This family reunion is touching, but can we get what we came for?”
Dominic looked at his sister.
“You’re working with them?”
Isabella did not answer immediately.
Richard did.
“We are working toward the same result.”
“That was not my question.”
Isabella looked at Dominic.
“Yes.”
The answer hit harder than he expected.
Dominic glanced at Sophia.
“You knew she was alive.”
Sophia began crying silently.
That was answer enough.
Dominic turned back.
“You let me bury an empty coffin.”
Isabella’s composure cracked.
“You think I wanted that?”
“You had seventeen years to make a phone call.”
“You had seventeen years to become exactly what Dad feared.”
Dominic stepped toward her.
Marcus’s gun stopped him.
“What does that mean?”
Isabella looked at him with anger that felt old.
“You inherited the empire. The money. The men. The fear. You never once wondered what it cost.”
“I knew exactly what it cost.”
“No. You knew what everyone told you.”
Dominic pointed toward Sophia.
“Our mother is bleeding on the floor.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes.
“It’s not fatal.”
Dominic turned so quickly that Vanessa stepped back.
Isabella saw it.
“You really didn’t know,” she whispered.
“Know what?”
Isabella looked toward Richard.
Richard’s expression warned her.
Dominic caught that too.
“Tell me.”
Isabella stepped closer.
“Dad didn’t create the ledger to protect the family from outsiders.”
She paused.
“He created it because he discovered the person destroying the family was already inside it.”
Dominic stared at her.
“Who?”
Before Isabella could answer, the mansion alarm suddenly sounded.
Not the security alarm.
The fire alarm.
Marcus looked toward the ceiling.
Richard cursed.
Emma glanced down at her phone.
And smiled.
Dominic saw it.
“You did that.”
Emma whispered, “I sent the recording.”
“To who?”
“Everyone.”
Marcus’s face changed.
“What do you mean everyone?”
Emma looked directly at him.
“Every Vance captain. Every security office. Every phone connected to the house system.”
Vanessa lunged.
Emma moved back.
Marcus turned his gun toward her.
That was his mistake.
Dominic hit him.
The weapon fired.
May you like
The bullet struck the ceiling.
And within three seconds the room exploded into chaos.
