Chapter 18 - THE BROTHER WHO HATED HIMDominic hit Sebastian once.
One punch.
Hard.
Sebastian fell against the hospital wall.
Carrie shouted:
“Dominic!”
Security moved.
Dominic stopped himself before the second punch.
That mattered.
Barely.
Sebastian wiped blood from his mouth.
“I didn’t hire anyone.”
Dominic stepped forward.
Carrie stood between them.
“Show him.”
Reyes opened the banking records.
A payment had moved from a Vale-controlled account to a private security contractor.
The contractor paid the shooter.
Sebastian stared.
“That account is dormant.”
“Not anymore,” Reyes said.
“Who has access?”
“My CFO.”
“Name?”
“Miles Carden.”
Carrie froze.
She knew that name.
Miles had interviewed with Whitaker Advisory eight months earlier.
Excellent credentials.
Perfect references.
Carrie had nearly hired him.
Rebecca had stopped her because one employment date could not be verified.
“Where is he?” Dominic asked.
Sebastian pulled out his phone.
No answer.
His office said Miles had not appeared for work in three days.
Reyes began tracking him.
Dominic stared at Sebastian.
“If you’re lying—”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
Sebastian looked at him.
“You think you’re the only man who knows what it feels like to have a family threatened?”
Dominic stopped.
Sebastian’s voice lowered.
“I had a wife.”
Nobody knew that.
“Had?”
“She died.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
Carrie’s stomach tightened.
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
Sebastian looked toward the floor.
“She was pregnant.”
Silence.
Dominic’s anger changed shape.
Sebastian continued.
“Twenty-nine weeks.”
Carrie unconsciously touched her own stomach.
Old memory.
Grace.
Hospital.
Fear.
“I was supposed to meet her for dinner.”
Sebastian swallowed.
“I canceled because Anthony’s attorney called about Meridian.”
Carrie closed her eyes.
“The truck that hit her was registered to a Meridian subcontractor.”
Dominic whispered:
“You think it wasn’t an accident.”
“I know it wasn’t.”
“Why didn’t you go to police?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“The driver disappeared.”
Sebastian laughed bitterly.
“Money is very good at making people disappear.”
Dominic sat.
Suddenly his brother’s obsession with the company made sense.
Not inheritance.
Not jealousy.
Grief.
Sebastian had spent six years trying to discover who killed his wife and unborn child.
“What was her name?” Carrie asked.
Sebastian looked at her.
“Anna.”
“Were you happy?”
His face broke.
“Yes.”
One word.
Enough.
Carrie sat beside him.
“I’m sorry.”
Sebastian looked away quickly.
Dominic watched.
All his life he had imagined a brother might have meant shared childhoods.
Fights.
Baseball.
Holidays.
Someone to stand beside him at their father’s funeral.
Instead, his brother arrived forty years late carrying grief.
Dominic slowly extended a hand.
Sebastian stared at it.
“This isn’t forgiveness.”
“I know.”
“It’s also not an apology for punching you.”
“I assumed.”
Sebastian took his hand.
Dominic helped him stand.
Reyes’s phone rang.
They found Miles Carden’s car.
Abandoned.
Inside was blood.
No body.
A laptop remained in the trunk.
Encrypted.
Carrie’s firm had one cybersecurity consultant capable of opening it.
By midnight, they had access.
Miles had been working for Evelyn Cross.
But not willingly.
His daughter was in severe debt after a failed business.
Evelyn purchased the debt.
Then threatened prosecution.
Miles obeyed.
He accessed Sebastian’s accounts.
Hired contractors.
Leaked Grace’s schedule.
Then apparently tried to stop.
The final email from Miles had been sent to Evelyn.
I WILL NOT HURT THE CHILD.
Carrie stared.
Grace.
Again.
Every frightened person in this story eventually reached the same line.
Not the child.
The laptop also contained a video.
Miles sat inside his car.
His face bruised.
“I don’t know if anyone will find this.”
He looked terrified.
“Evelyn Cross ordered the shooting.”
Sebastian closed his eyes.
“She used Mr. Vale’s account because she wanted Dominic Marino to kill him.”
Dominic looked at Sebastian.
Exactly what nearly happened.
Miles continued.
“The merger vote is a distraction.”
Carrie leaned forward.
“For what?”
“The real asset is not the port.”
Everyone listened.
“It’s Pier Nine.”
Reyes frowned.
Pier Nine had been closed for twenty years.
Miles continued.
“Anthony Marino stored something there before he died.”
Dominic whispered:
“What?”
Miles looked over his shoulder in the video.
Then back.
“A ledger.”
Carrie almost laughed from disbelief.
Another ledger.
Except Miles’s final words erased all humor.
“It contains the names of every judge, politician, executive, police official and organized-crime intermediary paid through Meridian Atlantic since 1987.”
Reyes went pale.
“That could destroy half the state.”
Miles nodded in the recording as though he could hear.
“And Evelyn Cross knows Grace’s trust contains the only legal key to open the property where it’s hidden.”
The video ended.
Dominic looked at Carrie.
“She doesn’t need the shares.”
Carrie understood.
“She needs Grace’s trust authority.”
Sebastian stood.
“Then the merger vote was never the real deadline.”
Reyes asked:
“What is?”
Carrie looked at the trust documents.
Grace’s birthday.
Six days away.
At midnight on her sixth birthday, ownership transferred.
The sealed Pier Nine property became legally accessible to Grace’s trustee.
Carrie.
Dominic’s face hardened.
“So Evelyn needs Carrie alive long enough to open it.”
Reyes nodded.
“And afterward?”
May you like
Nobody answered.
They didn’t need to.
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