Chapter 7 - THE DEAD BROTHER
Damian punched Julian.
Lily winced.
Julian staggered backward, touched his split lip, and nodded.
“I probably deserved that.”
Damian grabbed him by the jacket.
“Six years.”
“I know.”
“Six years I buried you.”
“I know.”
“I carried your coffin.”
“It was empty.”
“That does not help.”
Damian punched him again.
“Okay,” Lily said. “Maybe we move past the punching portion of the reunion.”
Damian turned on her.
“He was dead.”
“Technically,” Julian said, “I wasn’t.”
Damian lunged again.
Lily stepped between them.
“Enough.”
For some inexplicable reason, Damian stopped.
Julian noticed.
“So this is Lily.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“How do you know her?”
“Raymond talked about her constantly.”
Lily went still.
“You knew my father?”
Julian’s expression softened.
“He saved my life.”
They relocated to a secure apartment.
There, Julian explained everything.
Six years earlier, he discovered that Marcus Bell had been siphoning money from both the Vale and Romano organizations while secretly engineering conflict between them.
Julian intended to expose him.
Marcus discovered the plan.
“He arranged the crash,” Julian said. “Your accountant pulled me from the car before it burned.”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
Lily’s eyes filled.
“Why didn’t he tell Damian?”
“Because we didn’t know who inside Vale could be trusted.”
Damian looked devastated.
“You could have trusted me.”
Julian stared at him.
“Could I?”
The question landed hard.
“You were becoming Dad,” Julian continued. “You believed loyalty meant obedience. If I had told you Marcus was a traitor, you would have confronted him before we had proof.”
Damian couldn’t deny it.
“So you disappeared.”
“I thought for a few months. Then Marcus started watching everyone close to me. Raymond helped create the funeral records.”
Lily wiped her cheek.
“My dad spent the last years of his life protecting you?”
“And collecting evidence.”
“Why?”
“Because he believed I could help Damian end the organization someday.”
Damian looked at Lily.
Her father had been building the escape route Damian never knew existed.
Julian continued.
“Marcus has the notebook now, but that isn’t the real evidence.”
“What is?”
Julian smiled.
“The silver briefcase.”
Damian frowned.
“The drive was stolen.”
“Not that drive.”
Julian looked at Lily.
“The case itself.”
Lily blinked.
“What?”
“Raymond modified it years ago. There’s a second storage device inside the lining.”
Damian immediately ordered the briefcase brought to them.
They removed the interior panel.
A tiny encrypted drive appeared.
Lily laughed through tears.
“Dad, you paranoid genius.”
Julian smiled.
“That sounds like him.”
The drive contained everything.
Marcus’s accounts.
Bribes.
Illegal shipments.
Names of corrupt officials.
Records proving he had arranged Julian’s crash.
And evidence that he was planning something larger.
Damian read the final file.
His face hardened.
“What?”
Julian leaned closer.
“Tomorrow night.”
Marcus planned to destroy a Vale warehouse containing old financial archives, then blame Victor Romano.
Thirty-seven night-shift employees would be inside.
Lily stared.
“He’s going to kill innocent people just to start a war?”
“Yes,” Damian said.
He reached for his phone.
Julian stopped him.
“Who are you calling?”
“Police.”
Julian stared.
Six years earlier, Damian would have sent armed men.
Now he was calling law enforcement.
Damian noticed his brother’s expression.
“What?”
Julian smiled faintly.
“Nothing.”
They sent copies of the evidence to federal investigators and evacuated the warehouse under the excuse of a gas leak.
Marcus arrived expecting dozens of victims.
Instead, police were waiting.
But Marcus escaped.
Again.
By dawn, news broke that senior Vale executives were under investigation.
Damian voluntarily turned over company records.
Then he did something nobody expected.
He publicly acknowledged that parts of his family empire had operated illegally.
He announced Vale International would cooperate fully with authorities.
His lawyers nearly had heart attacks.
Lily found him alone afterward.
“You may lose everything.”
“I know.”
“Are you scared?”
“Yes.”
She took his hand.
“Good.”
He looked at her strangely.
“Good?”
“Means you finally have something more important than power.”
Damian pulled her closer.
“And what is that?”
She looked toward Julian, laughing with Mrs. Alvarez across the room.
“Your brother.”
Damian smiled.
“And?”
“Don’t push it.”
He kissed her forehead.
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
Damian answered.
Marcus’s voice came through.
“You really think handing over records makes you clean?”
“No.”
“I’m going to take everything you love.”
Damian’s hand tightened.
“You already tried.”
Marcus laughed.
“No, Damian.”
A photograph arrived on Lily’s phone.
Her apartment.
Taken from inside her bedroom.
Lily went pale.
May you like
Marcus whispered through Damian’s phone.
“I’m just getting started.”
