Chapter 7 - THE SIN OF MARCUS VALE
Dorian raised his weapon.
Marcus did the same.
Ara stepped between them.
“Stop.”
“Ara, move,” Dorian said.
“No.”
Marcus looked exhausted.
Not frightened.
That was worse.
“Is it true?”
He did not ask what she meant.
“Ara—”
“Did you work for Richard Hale?”
“Yes.”
The answer shattered something inside her.
“For eighteen years?”
“On and off.”
“Did you bring Mom to Lake Geneva?”
“Yes.”
Dorian’s gun remained pointed at Marcus.
Ara barely noticed.
“Did you order her death?”
“No.”
“Richard said—”
“Richard lies for oxygen.”
“Then tell me what happened.”
Marcus lowered his weapon.
Dorian did not.
Fourteen years earlier, Marcus explained, he had been Richard Hale’s fixer.
Not officially.
Officially, he worked for Antonio DeLorenzo.
But Richard had built a hidden network inside multiple Chicago organizations.
Marcus became part of it.
He moved money.
Threatened witnesses.
Destroyed evidence.
“I was not a good man,” Marcus said.
Ara’s eyes filled.
“You were my father.”
“Both can be true.”
Katherine discovered what he was doing.
She threatened to take Ara and disappear.
Marcus begged for one chance to fix it.
He arranged the meeting at Lake Geneva because Richard promised to let Marcus walk away if Katherine surrendered the recordings she had gathered.
Richard lied.
“When he shoved your mother, I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That neither of you would ever be safe while he had power.”
Marcus helped Katherine leave the estate.
He followed in another car.
Halfway home, her brakes failed.
Marcus reached the wreck first.
Katherine was alive.
Barely.
Ara covered her mouth.
“She knew she was dying,” Marcus whispered. “She made me promise I would not come home until Richard Hale could never touch you.”
“What were her last words?”
Marcus looked at her.
“Always choose the door.”
Ara cried then.
Quietly.
Marcus’s own eyes filled.
“I spent fourteen years trying to keep that promise.”
“You could have told me.”
“If Richard knew you knew anything, you would have become leverage.”
“I already was.”
“Yes.”
His voice broke.
“And that is the failure I will die regretting.”
Dorian lowered his weapon slightly.
“Why stage your death?”
“Because Richard ordered me to kill you.”
Dorian froze.
Marcus continued.
“The warehouse explosion was supposed to contain two bodies. Mine and yours.”
“So you faked your death.”
“And disappeared before he realized I’d chosen you.”
Ara wiped her face.
“Why pretend Elizabeth kidnapped you?”
“To force Richard to reveal how much he knows.”
“And?”
“He knows about the drive, but not the copies.”
Dorian frowned.
“Copies?”
Marcus smiled faintly.
“You think I spent six years collecting evidence and kept one flash drive?”
For the first time all night, hope entered the room.
“There are four copies,” Marcus said. “Each contains part of the encryption key for the full archive.”
“Where?”
“One is with a federal prosecutor in New York. One with a journalist in Washington. One with an attorney in Switzerland.”
“And the fourth?”
Marcus looked at Ara.
“With Elizabeth.”
Silence.
Ara stared.
“Elizabeth has evidence that could destroy her own father?”
“She stole it from me three years ago.”
“Why?”
“Insurance.”
Marcus explained that Elizabeth had known for years what Richard was.
She was cruel, entitled, and dangerous—but she was also afraid of her father.
She kept evidence as protection.
Richard did not know.
“Then Elizabeth is our door,” Ara said.
Marcus smiled.
“Your mother would have liked you.”
“She did like me.”
“You were fifteen. Nobody likes fifteen-year-olds.”
Ara laughed through tears.
It was the first real laugh she had shared with him in years.
Then a red dot appeared on Marcus’s chest.
Dorian saw it.
“DOWN!”
Gunfire shattered the warehouse windows.
Everyone dropped.
Dorian pulled Ara behind a concrete pillar.
Marcus fired toward the upper catwalk.
Mateo’s men returned fire.
A sniper retreated.
Then an SUV crashed through the loading entrance.
Armed men poured out.
Richard had followed Marcus.
The warehouse became chaos.
Dorian stayed beside Ara.
“Back exit!”
They moved.
Marcus covered them.
A bullet struck the pillar.
Another tore through Marcus’s shoulder.
“Dad!”
He fell.
Ara ran toward him.
Dorian cursed and followed.
They dragged Marcus behind machinery.
Blood spread through his shirt.
“Go,” Marcus said.
“No.”
“Ara.”
“I buried you once. I’m not doing it again.”
He looked at her.
Then nodded.
“Fair.”
Mateo reached them.
“Vehicle is coming around!”
They moved toward the loading dock.
Dorian fired twice.
Ara helped Marcus walk.
Twenty yards.
Ten.
Five.
Then Elizabeth Hale stepped from behind a truck.
She held a pistol.
Everyone stopped.
Her face was pale.
Her hands shook.
Dorian aimed at her.
“Drop it.”
Elizabeth looked at Ara.
“You destroyed everything.”
Ara stared at the gun.
“No. Your father did.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know enough.”
Elizabeth’s eyes filled with something Ara had never expected.
Fear.
“He’ll kill me.”
“Then help us stop him.”
Elizabeth laughed bitterly.
“You think there’s a way out?”
Ara remembered her mother.
Always choose the door.
“Yes.”
She stepped forward.
Dorian whispered, “Ara.”
She kept walking.
Elizabeth’s gun remained pointed at her chest.
“You told me to kneel,” Ara said. “You threw a glass at me because you thought power meant making someone smaller.”
Elizabeth’s jaw tightened.
“And now?”
“Now you’re terrified of someone who does the same thing to you.”
Elizabeth flinched.
Ara stopped three feet away.
“You can become him.”
A pause.
“Or you can end him.”
Elizabeth’s gun lowered.
Then a shot rang out.
Her body jerked.
She collapsed.
Ara screamed.
May you like
Across the warehouse, Richard Hale stood with a smoking gun.
He had just shot his own daughter.
