Chapter 6 - THE NIGHT THE HOUSE WENT DARK
The attack came at 2:13 a.m.
Every light in Dominic's townhouse went out.
Not a power failure.
A deliberate shutdown.
The security system went offline thirty seconds later.
Dominic was already awake.
He heard footsteps.
Three floors below.
He moved silently.
Clara woke when he entered the bedroom.
“What's happening?”
“Stay here.”
“Dominic—”
“Lock the door.”
He disappeared.
Clara reached for the phone.
No signal.
Then she heard glass break.
Elias.
She ran.
At the end of the hallway, a shadow moved.
Clara froze.
A man stepped into view.
“Mrs. Falcone?”
She grabbed the nearest lamp.
The man smiled.
“I'm not here to hurt you.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To tell you the truth.”
Before he could continue, Dominic appeared behind him.
The man dropped a weapon.
Dominic recognized him.
“Reed.”
The retired detective raised both hands.
“Listen to me.”
Dominic didn't lower his guard.
“You broke into my house.”
“I came because I know who has the ledger.”
“Who?”
Reed looked at Clara.
“Your aunt.”
Silence.
Then a gunshot cracked from outside.
Reed fell.
Dominic dragged Clara behind the wall.
Another shot.
Then another.
The attackers weren't trying to enter.
They were trying to kill Reed.
When the shooting stopped, Reed was alive.
Barely.
Before paramedics arrived, he whispered:
“Old customs house.”
Then he died.
The phrase meant nothing.
Until Clara remembered the silver coins.
Each had a year stamped on the reverse.
She arranged them chronologically.
They formed a sequence.
A date.
Then another.
Then another.
Dominic stared.
“These aren't years.”
“What are they?”
“Shipping coordinates.”
Clara looked at him.
The coins were a map.
A map to the old customs house.
They went there before sunrise.
The building had been abandoned for decades.
Inside, they found nothing.
Until Elias noticed a loose brick.
“Mom.”
Behind it was a metal box.
Clara opened it.
Inside was the Montgomery ledger.
Thousands of pages.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Transfers.
Photographs.
And one final document.
A birth certificate.
Clara read it.
Then went completely still.
Dominic saw her face.
“What?”
She handed it to him.
The document was for Nathaniel Harrington.
But the listed father was not Nathaniel's father.
It was someone else.
A man whose name Dominic knew.
His own father.
Dominic's face drained of color.
“No.”
Clara stared at him.
“What does this mean?”
“My father had another family.”
Dominic turned the page.
Nathaniel's mother had been his father's mistress.
Nathaniel was Dominic's half-brother.
Suddenly, everything made sense.
The rivalry.
The shipping empire.
The obsession with control.
The hatred.
Nathaniel hadn't merely wanted Clara's family.
He had wanted Dominic's.
And the ledger contained the proof.
Before they could process it, footsteps echoed outside.
Dominic closed the box.
“Go.”
Clara grabbed Elias.
They ran through the rear corridor.
Three men entered the building.
One shouted:
“Find the ledger!”
Dominic stopped.
He looked at Clara.
“Take Elias.”
“What about you?”
“I'll be behind you.”
He turned back.
Clara knew that look.
It was the same expression he'd worn nine years earlier when he carried her from the snow.
The expression of a man who had decided that everyone else could leave.
But he would stay.
This time, Clara refused.
She grabbed his hand.
“No.”
Dominic looked at her.
“We leave together.”
For the first time, he smiled.
May you like
“Fine.”
They ran.
