Chapter 8 - The Last Debt
Thomas woke tied to a chair in an abandoned rail depot.
Dominic sat across from him.
“You’ve become old.”
Thomas smiled bitterly.
“So have you.”
Dominic poured himself whiskey.
“Adrian destroyed everything.”
“No.”
Thomas looked at him.
“You did.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
Meanwhile, across Chicago, Elena was putting on a bulletproof vest.
Adrian stared.
“No.”
She looked at him.
“We are not doing this again.”
“Doing what?”
“The thing where you say no and I ignore you.”
“This time I mean it.”
“You meant it every time.”
Marcus interrupted.
“I hate agreeing with either of you, but she needs to come.”
Adrian looked betrayed.
Marcus explained.
“Dominic asked for both of you. If Elena doesn’t appear, he may kill Thomas before we locate him.”
Elena smiled faintly.
“Marcus is my favorite.”
“Noted,” Adrian said coldly.
They tracked the message to an abandoned rail depot on Chicago’s South Side.
Dominic had fewer men now.
Desperate men were more dangerous.
Elena entered beside Adrian.
Not behind him.
Dominic waited.
Thomas was alive.
Elena’s breath caught.
“Dad.”
“I’m okay.”
Dominic held a gun against him.
“No touching reunion?”
Adrian stepped forward.
“You wanted me.”
“I wanted what your father stole from mine.”
Adrian frowned.
Dominic’s obsession finally emerged.
Nathaniel had inherited control of the family empire despite Dominic believing himself stronger.
For decades Dominic had convinced himself he had been cheated.
“So you murdered him,” Adrian said.
“I corrected a mistake.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
Elena squeezed his hand.
Dominic noticed.
“You really love her.”
Adrian said nothing.
Dominic laughed.
“That’s disappointing.”
“Why?”
“Because love makes men weak.”
Elena answered.
“No. It gives weak men an excuse for what they already are.”
Dominic looked at her.
“I have disliked you from the beginning.”
“The feeling survived the audit.”
Thomas laughed.
Dominic struck him.
Elena moved.
Adrian stopped her.
Dominic smiled.
“Now we negotiate.”
He wanted access to an offshore reserve Adrian had frozen.
Twenty-two million dollars.
A plane.
Safe passage.
Adrian agreed.
Elena looked at him.
He squeezed her hand once.
A lie.
Marcus’s team was moving outside.
Dominic ordered Adrian to transfer the money.
Adrian opened his phone.
Elena watched the clock.
Three minutes.
That was all Marcus needed.
Then one of Dominic’s men shouted.
“They’re here!”
Gunfire erupted.
Dominic grabbed Thomas.
Elena ran toward them.
A bullet shattered concrete near her.
Adrian tackled her.
“Stay down!”
Dominic dragged Thomas toward a vehicle.
Marcus intercepted.
Thomas fought back.
The gun fired.
Elena screamed.
Her father fell.
Dominic ran.
Adrian had a clear shot.
A gun lay beside him.
He picked it up.
Dominic was twenty yards away.
Adrian aimed.
Then stopped.
Elena saw.
He lowered the weapon.
Police vehicles surrounded the depot.
Dominic was arrested again.
Alive.
Adrian ran to Elena.
She was beside Thomas.
Blood covered his shirt.
“Dad.”
Thomas smiled weakly.
“Apparently our family has terrible luck with shoulders.”
Elena laughed through tears.
The bullet had struck almost exactly where the first one had.
Thomas survived again.
Later, outside the hospital, Adrian stood alone.
Elena joined him.
“You could have killed Dominic.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“Was it difficult?”
Adrian thought about it.
“Yes.”
She took his hand.
“That’s what makes it matter.”
He looked at her.
“For twenty years I thought mercy was weakness.”
“And now?”
“Now I think sometimes it’s the hardest form of control.”
Elena smiled.
“Look at you developing emotional intelligence.”
“Don’t tell Marcus.”
“Never.”
Adrian kissed her.
Then a nurse came running.
“Ms. Marlowe?”
Elena turned.
“Your father is asking for you.”
They entered Thomas’s room.
He looked exhausted.
But alive.
He held an envelope.
“This belonged to your mother.”
Elena froze.
“She gave it to me before I disappeared.”
“You kept it?”
“For seventeen years.”
Elena opened it.
Inside was a photograph of her parents holding thirteen-year-old Elena between them.
On the back, her mother had written:
Whatever happens, come home.
Elena cried.
Thomas did too.
Adrian quietly stepped toward the door.
Elena caught his hand.
“Where are you going?”
“This is family.”
She pulled him back.
“So are you.”
Adrian stopped.
Thomas looked at him.
Then sighed.
“Well.”
Adrian raised an eyebrow.
Thomas pointed at him.
“I’m still deciding.”
Elena laughed.
May you like
For the first time in seventeen years, the sound of her laughter filled a room with both her father and the man she loved.
And no one was running away.
