Chapter 2 - THE SECRET INSIDE THE RABBIT
Jack Mason knocked for the third time.
“Dominic?”
Dominic Caruso kept one hand on Lily’s shoulder and the other around the worn gray rabbit hidden behind his back.
He had spent twenty years learning how to lie without changing his breathing.
That morning, he needed the skill more than ever.
“Give me five minutes.”
Silence waited on the other side of the door.
Jack knew him too well.
“Is the kid all right?”
Lily frowned.
“I’m not a kid. I’m Lily.”
Despite everything, Dominic almost smiled.
“She’s fine.”
Another pause.
“Rachel’s room was searched,” Jack said. “Whoever did it knew exactly where to look.”
Dominic’s eyes dropped to the rabbit.
“Secure the house.”
“It already is.”
“Again.”
Jack did not argue.
“Anyone leaves, I know.”
“Done.”
“And Jack?”
“Yes?”
“Keep this between us.”
Jack hesitated.
“That includes Sebastian?”
Dominic’s pulse shifted.
Sebastian Caruso.
His father’s younger brother.
The man who helped raise Dominic after his father died.
The man who had controlled family finances for nearly thirty years.
“Everyone.”
Jack answered:
“Understood.”
His footsteps moved away.
Dominic waited until he could no longer hear them.
Then he looked at Lily.
“Sweetheart, I need to look inside Bunny.”
Her small arms immediately tightened around the rabbit after Dominic returned it.
“Will it hurt him?”
That question nearly broke him.
“No.”
“Promise?”
Dominic had made promises to dangerous men he never intended to keep.
This one mattered.
“I promise I’ll be careful.”
Lily considered him.
Then held out the rabbit.
Dominic carried it to the long table beneath the windows.
His fingers found the newer stitching across the back.
He did not tear it.
Rachel had made sure Lily loved the toy.
Whatever Claire hid inside, Dominic refused to destroy the last thing their daughter had received from her.
He opened a desk drawer.
Small scissors.
One cut.
Then another.
He separated the seam.
Inside the stuffing was a narrow plastic sleeve.
A small memory card.
A brass key no longer than his thumbnail.
And a folded strip of paper.
Dominic unfolded it.
Three words.
START WITH CLAIRE.
His throat tightened.
The memory card fit inside a secure laptop kept in a private cabinet.
Dominic almost called his technical team.
Then Rachel’s warning returned.
Nobody else.
Not even Mr. Mason.
He did it himself.
There were seven files.
Five photographs.
One audio recording.
One video.
The photographs came first.
Dominic opened the first.
Claire.
Alive.
His heart stopped.
She stood beside a gas station somewhere rural, wearing a green coat he remembered buying her.
Her stomach was visibly pregnant.
Dominic’s hand moved unconsciously toward the screen.
“Claire.”
Lily heard.
“That’s my first mommy?”
Dominic turned.
She stood several feet away holding the rabbit’s loose stuffing in both hands.
He swallowed.
“Yes.”
Lily walked closer.
She stared at the photograph.
“She looks like me.”
She did.
Dominic had spent four years seeing Claire in Lily without understanding what he was seeing.
The second photograph showed Claire holding a newborn baby.
Lily.
The third showed Owen Bennett standing beside her.
The fourth was different.
Grainy.
Night.
Two men outside a warehouse.
Dominic recognized one immediately.
Jack Mason.
His body went cold.
The other man stood partly turned away.
Broad shoulders.
Silver hair.
Sebastian Caruso.
The timestamp was five years earlier.
Three days before Claire disappeared.
Dominic zoomed in.
Jack and Sebastian appeared to be arguing.
Dominic’s pulse slowed.
Not proof of betrayal.
A photograph without context was dangerous.
Claire had taught him that once.
“You see what you expect, Dominic. That’s why assumptions are expensive.”
He almost heard her voice.
The fifth photograph showed a black sedan parked outside Claire’s Vermont apartment.
The license plate was visible.
Dominic did not recognize it.
Then he opened the audio.
Claire’s voice filled the room.
“Dominic, if you’re hearing this, I failed to get back to you.”
He closed his eyes.
Lily looked toward the speaker.
“That’s Mommy.”
“Yes.”
Claire continued.
“I need you to listen before you get angry.”
Dominic laughed once, broken.
“She really knew you,” Lily announced.
He looked at his daughter.
“Yes.”
Claire’s recording continued.
“The person who forced me to leave has access to your security network, your financial records, and your schedule.”
Dominic became still.
“I initially believed it was Jack.”
His eyes moved toward the door.
“His access credentials appear on several files I found.”
Then:
“I was wrong.”
Dominic stopped breathing.
“I think someone has been using Jack’s credentials.”
He stared at the screen.
Claire continued.
“I saw Jack confronting Sebastian outside Warehouse Twelve. Jack was angry. Sebastian told him he was becoming disloyal.”
The photograph.
Not conspiracy.
Conflict.
“I followed Sebastian two nights later.”
Dominic felt cold.
“He met with Adrian Vale.”
The name changed everything.
Adrian Vale had led one of the few organizations powerful enough to challenge the Carusos five years earlier.
He died two years ago.
Officially from a heart attack.
Claire continued.
“I heard enough to understand they were planning something around your wedding.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Sebastian wants control of the family businesses. Vale wants access to the ports and distribution contracts. I think Sebastian plans to let Vale attack you and then take control after you’re gone.”
Lily was arranging the rabbit’s stuffing into a little mountain.
Dominic felt the room tilt.
His own uncle.
Then Claire said:
“I went to Owen.”
Of course.
“Owen believed me because he had already seen irregular payments connected to Sebastian.”
Dominic remembered Owen disappearing with Claire.
The betrayal he had imagined.
The fury.
Five years wasted hating a loyal man.
Claire’s voice softened.
“I wanted to tell you immediately.”
Pause.
“Owen stopped me.”
Dominic’s jaw clenched.
“He said we didn’t know how many people Sebastian controlled, and that if I confronted you openly, you would attack him before we had enough proof.”
Accurate.
Dominic hated that.
“He said Sebastian would expect exactly that.”
Claire breathed.
“I agreed to leave for forty-eight hours.”
Dominic stared.
Forty-eight hours.
“I was supposed to come back.”
His eyes burned.
“Then I learned I was pregnant.”
Lily looked up.
Dominic could no longer hide his tears.
Claire continued.
“I wanted to tell you. God, Dominic, I wanted to tell you.”
Her voice cracked.
“But someone found us.”
A sound in the recording.
A breath.
“I realized Sebastian knew I was alive.”
Dominic’s hand tightened around the table.
“The black sedan in the last photograph has followed me twice.”
Then:
“I sent the plate to Owen.”
Dominic looked at the image.
“I think he knows who owns it.”
Claire continued.
“If something happens to me, Lily goes to Rachel.”
Dominic’s chest broke open.
“Rachel will raise her as her own until she believes you can protect her without exposing her.”
Claire paused.
Then, almost angrily:
“And Dominic, protection does not mean turning her into one more guarded room in your house.”
He laughed through tears.
Of course.
Even dying, Claire was arguing with him.
“She gets a childhood.”
Lily looked toward him.
“What’s childhood?”
Dominic wiped his face.
“I’ll explain later.”
Claire continued.
“She gets school. Friends. Parks. Bad birthday cake. Whatever normal looks like.”
Another pause.
“Do not raise her to inherit your enemies.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
That one cut deepest.
Then Claire said:
“There is more evidence. Owen hid it somewhere neither Sebastian nor Vale could reach.”
The brass key.
“He told Rachel the key opens the first door.”
First.
Not only.
“If Rachel gives you this recording, she should also know where Owen’s final letter is.”
Dominic frowned.
Rachel’s letter had said nothing about Owen’s final letter.
Then Claire added:
“Do not trust anyone because you love them.”
Pause.
“Not Jack.”
“Not Sebastian.”
“Not even what I’m telling you.”
Dominic stared.
“Verify everything.”
Rachel and Claire had known exactly who Dominic was.
A man whose grief could become a weapon before truth caught up.
The audio ended.
Lily walked to him.
“Daddy?”
The word hit him harder than any bullet ever could have.
He looked down.
She had not called him that earlier.
Maybe she was testing it.
“Say that again.”
Lily became shy.
“Daddy?”
Dominic’s throat closed.
He crouched.
She placed both hands on his cheeks.
“Why are you crying?”
“Because I missed you.”
She frowned.
“I was here.”
A broken laugh escaped him.
“Yes.”
“You saw me every day.”
“Yes.”
“Then you didn’t miss me.”
Dominic pressed his forehead gently to hers.
“I didn’t know what I was missing.”
That answer satisfied her more.
Then the doors opened.
Jack Mason entered without waiting.
Dominic stood instantly.
Jack saw the opened rabbit.
The laptop.
Dominic’s face.
Then Lily.
His expression changed.
“What happened?”
Dominic said nothing.
Jack looked toward the screen.
Claire’s frozen photograph remained visible.
He stopped.
“Claire?”
Dominic watched him carefully.
Jack’s face did not show guilt.
It showed grief.
Then Jack whispered:
“Oh, God.”
Dominic reached for the photograph taken outside Warehouse Twelve.
He turned the screen.
Jack saw himself standing beside Sebastian.
His face hardened.
“That night.”
“You remember?”
“Yes.”
“What were you arguing about?”
Jack looked toward Lily.
“Not here.”
Dominic’s body became still.
“Why?”
“Because what I’m going to tell you means somebody inside this house has been lying to both of us for five years.”
Dominic stared.
Jack continued.
“That night, I told Sebastian I knew someone had been copying my access credentials.”
The room went silent.
“And the next morning?”
Jack’s eyes moved toward Claire’s photograph.
“The security technician who reported it disappeared.”
Dominic felt his blood go cold.
“Who was he?”
Jack swallowed.
“Rachel Bennett’s brother.”
Lily stopped playing.
Dominic stared at Jack.
Rachel had never mentioned another brother.
Jack continued.
“And Dominic…”
“What?”
“I know who owned the black sedan that followed Claire.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Tell me.”
May you like
Jack looked directly at him.
“It was registered to Sebastian Caruso.”
