Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
Dominic couldn't move.
Rain fell across the road.
Richard lay bleeding against the SUV.
Anna stared at him as if she had forgotten how to breathe.
Evelyn whispered—
“Your mother?”
Richard nodded.
“She survived.”
Dominic shook his head.
“I buried her.”
“You buried an empty coffin.”
The words hit harder than the gunshot.
Dominic remembered the funeral.
The closed casket.
His father's insistence that nobody open it.
He had been seventeen.
His mother was supposedly killed in a car accident.
His father had said she died instantly.
Dominic had believed him for twenty-six years.
Now everything he knew was collapsing.
“Where is she?”
Richard looked toward the road.
“She has been watching you.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
Dominic grabbed his collar.
“You know something.”
Richard winced.
“She wanted to protect you.”
“By pretending to be dead?”
“She thought your father would kill you if you knew.”
Dominic's voice broke.
“He already took everything from me.”
Richard looked at him.
“He didn't.”
“What?”
“Your mother took something from him first.”
Dominic remembered the photograph.
The necklace.
The bracelet.
The watch.
All objects connected to his childhood.
Objects his father had always forbidden him to ask about.
He suddenly understood.
“They were messages.”
Richard nodded.
“Your mother hid evidence in things nobody would search.”
Anna stepped forward.
“The necklace was one of them.”
Evelyn touched it.
“What does it contain?”
Anna looked at Lucas.
“Not what you think.”
Lucas pulled the necklace from Evelyn's neck.
He turned the pendant over.
Then pressed the center.
It opened.
Inside was a tiny folded piece of paper.
Evelyn stared.
“I never knew.”
Anna smiled sadly.
“She wanted you to find it.”
Evelyn unfolded the paper.
Three words were written inside.
BLUE HOUSE. SUNDAY.
Dominic looked at Anna.
“What does that mean?”
“My mother.”
“Your mother?”
Anna nodded.
“She lived there after she disappeared.”
Dominic's breath caught.
“Where?”
Anna gave him an address.
Dominic recognized it.
A small house outside the city.
He had driven past it dozens of times.
His mother had bought it under another name.
Dominic looked at Richard.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because your father threatened to kill your mother.”
“And you believed him?”
Richard looked ashamed.
“I believed him because he had already killed someone.”
“Who?”
Richard hesitated.
“Your mother's brother.”
Dominic went still.
His father had destroyed the entire family.
A sudden sound came from the road.
Tires.
Dominic turned.
Three vehicles approached.
Anna grabbed Lucas.
“That's not police.”
Dominic raised his gun.
The first vehicle stopped.
A woman stepped out.
Older.
Gray hair.
Dark coat.
Dominic's entire body froze.
His mother.
Eleanor Ashford.
She looked directly at him.
For a moment, neither moved.
Then Dominic whispered—
“Mom?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I'm sorry.”
He walked toward her.
Slowly.
Anger and grief fought inside him.
“You were alive.”
“Yes.”
“You watched me bury you.”
“I had no choice.”
“You always had a choice.”
She flinched.
He stopped a few feet away.
“Why?”
“Because your father had a man inside your life.”
Dominic's expression hardened.
“Who?”
Eleanor looked toward the warehouse road.
“The man you brought with you.”
Dominic turned.
Marco.
His oldest friend.
His face went cold.
Marco had his gun lowered.
He looked devastated.
“Boss…”
Eleanor shook her head.
“He didn't betray you.”
Dominic stared.
“Then who?”
Eleanor pointed behind Marco.
A man stepped out of the darkness.
Terrence Cole.
Dominic's former target.
The man he had come to collect a debt from that night.
Cole smiled.
“Hello, Dominic.”
Evelyn stepped backward.
“No.”
Cole looked at her.
“You survived.”
Dominic raised his gun.
“You were supposed to be here.”
Cole smiled.
“I was.”
“You chained her.”
“No.”
Cole looked at Caldwell's men.
“They did.”
Dominic's finger tightened.
“Then why were you running?”
“Because I was trying to save you.”
Dominic didn't believe him.
Cole reached into his coat.
He pulled out an old family photograph.
Dominic recognized it immediately.
His mother.
His father.
Richard.
Anna.
And a young Terrence Cole.
But there was one person Dominic didn't recognize.
A teenage boy.
Standing beside his father.
Cole looked at Dominic.
“You've been hunting the wrong man for twenty years.”
Dominic stared at the boy.
“Who is that?”
May you like
Cole answered quietly—
“Your older brother.”
