Chapter 5 - The Brother Who Lied
Dominic Vale received the message at 3:14 in the morning Singapore time.
It contained no sender name.
Only a photograph.
Mia stood outside Blackthorne’s chapel, looking over her shoulder. Harper was beside her. Through the rain-streaked window behind them, Nathan spoke to two men in dark coats.
Beneath the photograph were seven words.
Your wife will disappear before Friday’s vote.
Dominic called Mia.
The call failed.
He called the manor.
Nathan answered.
“Dom?”
“Put Mia on.”
“It is the middle of the night.”
“Wake her.”
Nathan was silent.
Dominic stood from the hotel desk.
“Where is my wife?”
“She took Harper to her sister’s house.”
“Mia does not have a sister.”
Another silence.
Dominic closed his laptop.
“I am coming home.”
“You cannot leave now. The Tanaka agreement—”
“Who told you about the agreement?”
Nathan said nothing.
Only four people knew negotiations had reached the Tanaka stage.
Dominic.
His assistant.
The Japanese legal adviser.
And Nathan, if someone had accessed Dominic’s private calendar.
Dominic called his pilot.
The company aircraft was unavailable.
A mechanical inspection had been scheduled without his authorization.
He booked the first commercial flight to London under a false name.
Before leaving the hotel, he opened the encrypted family archive on his laptop.
The system rejected his password.
He tried again.
Account suspended.
Dominic called the head of security.
No answer.
Then his hotel room door opened.
A woman in a gray housekeeping uniform stepped inside carrying towels.
“I did not request service,” Dominic said.
She lowered the towels.
A pistol was hidden beneath them.
Dominic moved before she raised it.
He caught her wrist and drove her against the wall. The weapon fired into the ceiling.
Two men rushed from the corridor.
Dominic threw the woman into the first and ran toward the bedroom. He shattered the window with a chair and climbed onto the narrow exterior ledge.
The hotel occupied the twenty-seventh floor.
Wind tore at his shirt.
The men entered behind him.
Dominic moved sideways along the ledge toward the neighboring balcony. A bullet struck the stone above his head.
He jumped.
His hands caught the railing.
For one terrible second, his legs swung over the city.
Then he pulled himself onto the balcony.
The door was locked.
He struck the glass with a metal table until it broke.
An elderly couple screamed from the bed.
“Call the police,” Dominic said.
He ran through their room and reached the service stairs.
By the time security arrived, the attackers had disappeared.
On the flight to London, Dominic replayed every conversation with Nathan from the previous month.
The questions about restructuring.
The warnings about family control.
The insistence that Dominic travel personally to Singapore.
Nathan had arranged the meeting.
Nathan had arranged the aircraft.
Nathan had access to the archive.
Yet Dominic could not reconcile the brother who taught Harper to ride a bicycle with the man who might threaten her.
They had survived Vivienne together.
At seventeen, Dominic had stood between Nathan and their mother while she smashed a crystal decanter against the wall.
At twenty-four, Nathan had warned Dominic that Vivienne planned to declare him legally incompetent.
They had promised never to become their parents.
Perhaps promises mattered only until power became expensive.
When the plane landed, Dominic was met by Inspector Lena Ward, an old university friend now working for the Metropolitan Police.
He had contacted her through a secure channel during the flight.
She showed him a file in the airport car park.
“Mia’s passport has not been used,” Lena said. “Neither has Harper’s.”
“What about the manor?”
“Your brother reported them missing yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“The report claims Mia left after an argument with you.”
“I was in Singapore.”
“It says the argument happened by phone.”
Dominic looked at the report.
Nathan’s signature appeared at the bottom.
“Why would he report her missing if he took her?”
“To control the investigation.”
“Can you search Blackthorne?”
“We need cause.”
“My wife and daughter are missing.”
“And your brother says Mia left voluntarily.”
Dominic looked toward the gray sky beyond the parking structure.
“I received a photograph showing armed men in my house.”
“The image metadata was stripped. We cannot verify when it was taken.”
“I do not need a warrant to search my own home.”
“No. But whoever is inside knows you are coming.”
Dominic took the keys from his pocket.
“That is what I am counting on.”
He did not go directly to Blackthorne.
First, he visited the small cemetery outside Richmond where Vivienne Vale’s name appeared on a black marble stone.
The grave had never been opened.
Dominic paid the groundskeeper to check the records.
There was no burial authorization.
No death certificate on file.
No body.
Only a payment from the St. Orison Trust.
Dominic stood before the empty grave as rain began to fall.
Behind him, Lena said, “Your mother may be alive.”
Dominic looked at the carved dates.
“She is.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because Nathan used the same trust our father used when he wanted people erased.”
His phone rang.
Nathan’s name appeared.
Dominic answered.
“Where is Mia?”
Nathan breathed heavily.
“Dom, listen carefully. Mother is alive.”
“I know.”
“She has Harper.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“Is Mia alive?”
“Yes.”
“Put her on.”
“I cannot.”
“Why?”
“Because I do not know where she is.”
“You filed the missing-person report.”
“I was trying to keep the police away from the manor.”
“Why?”
“Because there are things under this house that can destroy all of us.”
Dominic gripped the phone.
“You have one chance. Tell me the truth.”
Nathan lowered his voice.
“Come to Blackthorne alone. Bring the restructuring documents.”
“I am not signing anything.”
“Then Harper dies before sunrise.”
The call ended.
Lena had heard enough.
“You cannot go alone.”
“I am not planning to.”
“What are you planning?”
Dominic looked toward the cemetery gate.
“To make Nathan believe I still trust him.”
As they walked back to the car, someone watched from inside a black sedan.
A woman lifted her phone.
“He is returning,” she said.
May you like
A voice answered through the speaker.
“Then prepare the cellar.”
