Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
The ringtone came from inside the stuffed rabbit.
Dominic carefully opened a seam in its back and found a small, battered phone wrapped in plastic.
The screen lit up.
MOM CALLING.
Lucas gasped.
“That's her.”
Dominic answered.
“Isabella?”
A breathless voice replied, “Dominic, listen to me. You have Lucas?”
“Yes. He's safe.”
“Thank God.”
He gripped the phone so tightly his fingers hurt.
“Where are you? I've spent three years believing you were dead.”
“I know.”
“Who did this to you?”
“There's no time. Vanessa knows you've found him. She'll come for him.”
“Then tell me where you are, and I'll come get you.”
“Not yet. You have to understand something first.”
A sharp sound interrupted her.
Then a man spoke in the background.
“Isabella, we have to move.”
Dominic recognized the voice.
Adrian Vale.
“Isabella!” he shouted. “Don't go with him.”
She whispered, “Dominic, the crash wasn't an accident.”
The call ended.
Dominic immediately called Anthony.
“Find Adrian Vale. Every address, every bank account, every person he's contacted in the last three years.”
Then he looked down at Lucas.
“Do you know where your mother is?”
Lucas nodded.
“She said the lighthouse.”
Dominic frowned.
“What lighthouse?”
“The place where the boats sleep.”
Isabella had grown up near Lake Michigan. As a child, she'd loved visiting the old lighthouse north of Chicago.
Dominic knew the place.
He also knew it had been abandoned for years.
He took Lucas to the estate under heavy security. Emily was resting in the medical suite when they arrived. Despite the exhaustion on her face, she smiled when she saw the boy.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
Lucas stayed close to Dominic.
Emily didn't approach him. She simply set a glass of water on the table and returned to her chair.
After a few minutes, Lucas sat beside her.
“Are you having a baby?”
Emily smiled gently.
“Yes.”
“Will you let me meet him?”
“Of course.”
He considered that.
“My mommy said babies can hear kindness before they can understand words.”
Emily's eyes filled with tears.
“Your mommy sounds like a wonderful woman.”
“She is.”
Dominic turned away before the boy could see his expression.
He had missed every milestone of his son's life.
First words.
First steps.
First birthday.
Every ordinary moment that became precious only when it was gone.
He would never recover those years.
But he could protect what remained.
At dawn, Dominic drove toward the lighthouse with Anthony and a small security team following at a distance. Lucas stayed at the estate with Emily and two trusted guards.
The lighthouse stood on a rocky stretch of shoreline, its white paint peeling beneath the gray sky.
Dominic entered through the side door.
“Isabella!”
A figure appeared at the top of the stairs.
A woman.
Thin, pale, with shoulder-length dark hair.
She wore a gray sweater and held one hand against the railing.
Dominic forgot how to breathe.
It was Isabella.
Older, exhausted, and visibly frightened, but alive.
He climbed the stairs slowly.
She backed away.
“Don't come closer.”
He stopped.
“Isabella, it's me.”
“I know.”
“Why are you afraid of me?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Because I don't know whether the man I married is still there.”
The words cut deeper than any bullet.
Dominic lowered his hands.
“I never stopped loving you.”
“You buried me.”
“I buried an empty coffin.”
“You believed the people who told you I was dead.”
“I was shown your wedding ring, your bloodied coat, and a death certificate signed by your doctor.”
“And you never questioned it?”
He had no defense.
Isabella wiped her cheeks.
“I tried to contact you. Dozens of times. Every letter disappeared. Every call was intercepted. When I escaped the first time, someone followed me and I nearly lost Lucas.”
“Why didn't you come to me?”
“Because I was told you'd ordered the crash.”
Dominic stared at her.
“What?”
“Adrian said you wanted me gone. He showed me documents with your signature.”
“My signature was forged.”
“I know that now.”
“Then who arranged the accident?”
Isabella looked toward the window.
“Your brother.”
Dominic felt the world narrow around him.
His younger brother, Matteo, had died two years before Isabella's accident in what police called a boating incident.
Dominic had mourned him, too.
“No,” he whispered.
“He was alive when the car went over the embankment,” Isabella said. “I saw him standing beside the road.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Matteo died two years before your crash.”
“That's what they wanted you to believe.”
A loud crack echoed from outside.
The lighthouse window shattered.
Dominic grabbed Isabella and pulled her behind the stone wall as a bullet struck the stair railing.
Anthony shouted from below.
“Boss! Sniper!”
Dominic drew his weapon and moved toward the exit.
Isabella caught his arm.
“Don't chase him. That's what they want.”
He looked at her.
“Who?”
She reached into her sweater and pulled out a photograph.
It showed Matteo standing beside Vanessa.
Both were smiling.
On the back, written in Isabella's handwriting, were five words:
YOUR BROTHER NEVER DIED, DOMINIC.
A second shot shattered the lighthouse lamp.
May you like
And from the road below, a black car accelerated toward the building.
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