Chapter 8 - THE FALL OF RICHARD HALE
Elizabeth survived.
The bullet entered beneath her ribs.
Dorian’s armored SUV became an ambulance while Mateo’s men held Richard’s shooters long enough for them to escape.
Ara pressed both hands against Elizabeth’s wound.
The absurdity was almost unbearable.
Twenty-four hours earlier, this woman had thrown a glass at her.
Now Ara was trying to keep her alive.
Elizabeth looked up through half-closed eyes.
“Why?”
“Save your strength.”
“Why are you helping me?”
Ara pressed harder.
“Because I refuse to become your father.”
Elizabeth began to cry.
At the hospital, surgeons took her immediately.
Marcus went into another operating room.
Ara stood between both doors covered in blood.
Dorian approached.
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re covered in two people’s blood.”
“I said I’m fine.”
Then her knees weakened.
Dorian caught her.
Ara pressed her face against his chest.
For once, she did not fight being held.
He said nothing.
His hand rested against the back of her head.
Minutes passed.
Maybe longer.
“I don’t know who my father is anymore.”
“Yes, you do.”
She pulled back.
“He hurt people.”
“Yes.”
“He lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“He also spent fourteen years trying to stop Richard.”
“Yes.”
“How can all those things belong to the same person?”
“Because people aren’t court exhibits, Ara.”
She looked at him.
“They can contain evidence for both sides.”
Marcus survived surgery.
Elizabeth did too.
At 4:13 a.m., Elizabeth woke.
Her first request was to speak with Ara.
Alone.
Dorian objected.
Ara ignored him.
Elizabeth looked small beneath hospital blankets.
No diamonds.
No silk.
No audience.
“I hated you the second you looked at me without fear,” she said.
Ara sat.
“That seems exhausting.”
Elizabeth almost smiled.
“My father taught me fear was respect.”
“He was wrong.”
“I know.”
A long silence.
Then Elizabeth whispered, “I saw your mother die.”
Ara went still.
“I was in my father’s car.”
She had followed Richard after the argument.
Richard’s driver stopped near Katherine’s wreck.
Elizabeth watched her father stand beside the burning vehicle.
He did not help.
He waited.
“Marcus arrived after him,” Elizabeth said. “Your father attacked mine. He tried to pull your mother out.”
Ara’s eyes filled.
“Why did you lie?”
“I was fifteen.”
“That explains it. It doesn’t erase it.”
“I know.”
Elizabeth turned her face away.
“My father told me if I contradicted him, my mother would have an accident too.”
Ara’s anger remained.
But it changed shape.
“Where’s the fourth copy?”
Elizabeth looked back.
“In my engagement ring.”
Ara blinked.
“The diamond setting contains a micro-storage chip.”
“Where is the ring?”
“My father took it.”
Of course.
“Where?”
“He keeps anything important in a private vault beneath his Lake Geneva house.”
The same estate.
The story was returning to where it began.
By noon, Marcus was conscious.
Dorian stood beside his bed.
Ara entered.
Marcus looked at her.
“Elizabeth?”
“Alive.”
“Good.”
“You saved Mom?”
His face tightened.
“I tried.”
“She told me.”
Marcus looked toward the window.
“I should have gotten there sooner.”
Ara sat beside him.
For years she had imagined what she would say if her father somehow returned.
She had imagined forgiveness would be immediate.
Then anger.
Then joy.
Reality was messier.
“I’m not ready to forgive everything.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“But I don’t want to lose you again.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
That sentence nearly broke him.
He reached for her hand.
She gave it.
Dorian interrupted gently.
“We need the ring.”
Marcus looked at him.
“Lake Geneva?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going.”
Dorian raised an eyebrow.
Marcus pointed at his wounded shoulder.
“I’m still allowed to give terrible advice from a hospital bed.”
Ara stood.
“We’re going.”
Marcus sighed.
“You really are my daughter.”
“No. Apparently I’m my mother’s.”
That made him smile.
The plan was simple because complicated plans failed faster.
Richard believed Elizabeth was unconscious.
He believed Marcus was critically injured.
He believed Dorian was preparing to disappear.
Instead, Dorian leaked information suggesting he would leave Chicago from a private airfield that evening.
Richard moved men away from Lake Geneva.
At 10:40 p.m., Ara and Dorian entered the estate through an old boathouse tunnel Marcus had identified.
The vault was beneath the study.
Dorian bypassed the alarm.
Ara looked impressed.
“Mafia skill?”
“Boarding-school hobby.”
“That raises more questions.”
The vault opened.
Inside were cash, documents, weapons, passports.
And a velvet jewelry box.
Ara opened it.
Elizabeth’s engagement ring.
She removed the diamond assembly.
A tiny black chip sat beneath it.
“Got it.”
Then the vault door slammed shut.
Ara spun.
Dorian tried the mechanism.
Locked.
A speaker activated overhead.
Richard Hale’s voice filled the room.
“Marcus always did underestimate me.”
Ara looked at Dorian.
Richard continued.
“I wondered which of you would come.”
Gas began hissing through the ventilation system.
Dorian pulled Ara’s sleeve over her mouth.
She coughed.
The vault had no windows.
One door.
Locked electronically.
Ara’s vision began to blur.
Dorian fired at the control panel.
Nothing.
Ara stumbled against the shelves.
Always choose the door.
Her mother’s words.
But what if there wasn’t one?
Then she saw scratches on the floor behind a filing cabinet.
“A door.”
Dorian looked.
Together they pushed the cabinet.
Behind it was a narrow steel hatch.
Dorian laughed once.
“Your mother would be proud.”
They opened it.
Cold night air rushed in.
They crawled into darkness.
Behind them, Richard’s voice changed.
For the first time, he sounded afraid.
May you like
Because Ara Quinn had found the door.
And in her hand was everything needed to destroy him.
