Chapter 6 - THE SECRET MIA KEPTDominic did not question Mia in front of Harper.
That mattered.
Even now.
Especially now.
He ordered the estate searched and moved Harper into the most secure bedroom on the second floor. Two guards stood outside. Mrs. Gable remained with her.
Then Dominic returned to the library.
Mia waited by the fireplace.
“What happened in Rome?”
She closed her eyes.
“I was hoping you’d never ask me that.”
“That isn’t encouraging.”
“I went there five years ago.”
“With Adam?”
“No.”
Dominic waited.
“After he died.”
She reached into her pocket and rubbed the edge of her pendant.
“Adam left instructions with an attorney. If anything happened to him, I was supposed to receive an envelope.”
“The one hidden in the cellar?”
“No. Another one.”
“What was inside?”
“A plane ticket. A hotel address. And a note telling me to meet a woman named Isabella.”
Dominic’s face changed.
“You met my mother?”
“I didn’t know who she was.”
Mia’s voice softened.
“She was maybe sixty. Elegant. Gray streak in her hair. She knew everything about Adam.”
“What did she want?”
“To know whether he gave me records.”
“Did you?”
“I told her about the music box.”
Dominic stared at her.
“You told a stranger about it?”
“I was twenty-five, pregnant, widowed, and terrified. She knew things only Adam could have told her.”
“What things?”
“The name we had chosen for Harper. The apartment where Adam proposed. The stupid song he sang when he cooked.”
Mia looked down.
“I thought she was helping him.”
“What happened?”
“She told me never to open the music box. She said if anyone learned what Adam had hidden, Harper and I would become targets.”
“So you came here.”
“Three years later.”
“Why?”
“Because Isabella contacted me again.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“My mother arranged your employment.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She said the safest place for Harper was beneath your roof.”
Dominic laughed bitterly.
“Mia spent three days tied beneath that roof.”
Claire flinched.
Mia did not.
“Isabella was wrong about Nathan,” Mia said.
“No. She knew exactly who Nathan was.”
Dominic’s anger sharpened.
“She used you to bring Adam’s evidence into my house.”
Mia’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“And you let me believe you were simply an employee.”
“Yes.”
“Every cup of coffee. Every dinner. Every conversation.”
“I never lied about those.”
“You lied about why you were here.”
“I was trying to keep my daughter alive.”
That stopped him.
Mia’s voice cracked.
“I buried my husband at twenty-five. I gave birth without him. For four years I woke up wondering whether the fire that killed him would someday come for Harper. So yes, Dominic. When your supposedly dead mother told me your estate was the safest place available, I took the job.”
She wiped a tear angrily.
“I’m sorry your trust got damaged. My concern was keeping my child breathing.”
Dominic said nothing.
She was right.
He hated that she was right.
Marcus entered.
“We found the man who approached Harper’s window.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Security room.”
Dominic walked there with Mia.
The intruder was seventy years old.
Thin.
Gray-haired.
Unarmed.
Dominic recognized him.
“Father Michael?”
The priest smiled sadly.
“You’ve gotten older.”
Dominic had not seen him since Victor Vale’s funeral.
“What are you doing in my house?”
“Keeping a promise to your mother.”
“Where is she?”
Father Michael studied him.
“Closer than you think.”
Dominic’s patience disappeared.
“Do not speak to me in riddles.”
“She lives in Rhinebeck under another name.”
Mia inhaled.
Dominic stared.
Thirty miles.
His mother had been thirty miles away.
For years.
“Take me to her.”
An hour later, Dominic stood outside a small stone cottage overlooking the Hudson.
No guards.
No gates.
No armored cars.
An elderly woman was trimming dead roses beside the porch.
She looked up.
The shears fell from her hand.
Dominic knew her immediately.
Time did not matter.
Neither did gray hair.
“Dominic.”
His mother said his name the way she had when he was a boy.
He did not embrace her.
“You let me bury you.”
Isabella Vale began crying.
“I know.”
“You let me stand beside an empty coffin.”
“I know.”
“For twenty-one years.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Because your father tried to kill me.”
Dominic stopped.
Isabella invited them inside.
There, she told the story.
Victor Vale had not merely created Lantern.
He tried to destroy it.
But Isabella believed destroying the network would collapse businesses, expose officials, and trigger violence. She wanted to dismantle it gradually.
They fought.
Nathan exploited the division.
When Isabella discovered Nathan was manipulating both sides, he arranged an attempt on her life.
Victor helped fake her death to save her.
“Your father didn’t try to kill me,” Isabella finally admitted. “I told you that because I needed you angry enough to listen.”
Dominic stared at her.
“You lied to me within thirty seconds of seeing me.”
Isabella gave a broken smile.
“You always did notice quickly.”
Mia almost laughed.
Almost.
Dominic did not.
“Why stay dead?”
“Because Nathan believed I possessed the master ledger.”
“Do you?”
Isabella looked at Mia.
“No.”
Then at Dominic.
“Evelyn did.”
Dominic felt his chest tighten.
“Where is it?”
“She hid it the night she died.”
“Where?”
Isabella’s gaze lowered.
“In the only place Nathan would never willingly search.”
Dominic understood before she said it.
Evelyn’s grave.
That night, they returned to the family cemetery behind the estate.
Dominic stood beneath the trees while Marcus opened the small stone compartment beneath Evelyn’s memorial plaque.
Inside sat a waterproof metal box.
Dominic lifted it out.
Mia stood beside him.
He opened the lid.
A ledger.
A flash drive.
And a letter.
For Dominic.
His hands shook as he unfolded it.
My love,
If you found this, the truth finally reached you.
Please do not avenge me by becoming the worst part of yourself.
End this.
Then live.
Dominic read the final line twice.
There is one person Nathan will protect even at the cost of Lantern.
His daughter.
Dominic looked up.
Nathan had no daughter.
At least none Dominic knew about.
Then Mia picked up the ledger.
A photograph slipped from between the pages.
Claire saw it first.
Her face collapsed.
“No.”
Dominic turned the photograph.
Nathan Cross stood outside a hospital twenty-nine years earlier.
In his arms was a newborn baby.
May you like
On the back, Evelyn had written one name.
Claire.
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