Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN MARCUS UNDERESTIMATED
Marcus destroyed the phone against the wall.
Dominic watched the pieces scatter.
“You've always had a temper.”
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
Marcus struck him.
Dominic smiled through the blood.
That frightened Marcus more than anger would have.
Because Dominic knew something Marcus did not.
Elena had succeeded.
Marcus ordered his men to move Dominic immediately.
But moving a prisoner created opportunities that keeping one chained did not.
Outside, rain hammered Boston.
Dominic was forced into the rear of an SUV between two guards.
Marcus sat in front.
They traveled south.
Dominic counted turns.
Fourteen minutes later, he saw a familiar highway sign.
Marcus was moving him toward the private airfield.
That meant panic.
Good.
Panicked men made mistakes.
Meanwhile, Elena sat beside Evelyn inside Samuel's safe house.
Evelyn held her hands around a cup of tea she had not touched.
“You went back for my son?”
Elena nodded.
“Why?”
The question sounded painfully familiar.
Dominic had asked essentially the same thing.
“I couldn't leave him there.”
Evelyn studied her.
“You have a child.”
“Yes.”
“Then you had every reason to leave.”
“Maybe.”
Elena looked down.
“But I spent years teaching my son that being afraid doesn't mean we stop doing the right thing.”
Evelyn's expression softened.
“What happened to his father?”
Elena hesitated.
“Derek wasn't a good man.”
That was the simplest version.
The fuller version involved control disguised as love.
Money withheld as punishment.
Doors punched instead of faces until the night he finally stopped distinguishing between them.
Elena had left with Noah and forty-three dollars.
She had never gone back.
Perhaps that was why the basement had affected her so deeply.
She knew what locked doors meant.
Samuel entered.
“Marcus is moving Dominic.”
Elena stood immediately.
“How do you know?”
“The SIM card gave us access to one of his vehicle trackers.”
A map appeared.
Private airfield.
Evelyn went pale.
“He'll take Dominic offshore.”
Samuel nodded.
“And then he'll disappear permanently.”
Elena stared at the moving dot.
There was another road approaching the airfield.
A service road.
She recognized it.
“I know that place.”
Samuel looked at her.
“Of course you do.”
Despite everything, Elena almost laughed.
“I cleaned the administration building.”
Samuel shook his head.
“I'm beginning to think Boston's criminal underworld is going to be defeated by your cleaning schedule.”
Twenty-five minutes later, Elena and Samuel reached the airfield.
Police were not an option yet.
Marcus's files showed enough compromised officers to make any call dangerous.
So Samuel contacted federal investigators through an attorney Dominic trusted.
They needed time.
Elena intended to give them some.
Marcus's convoy entered the airfield.
A private jet waited.
Dominic was dragged from the SUV.
Then every runway light went dark.
Marcus stopped.
“What happened?”
Inside the maintenance room, Elena held the emergency cutoff.
Samuel stared at her.
“You've done this before?”
“No.”
“Comforting.”
Marcus's men scattered.
That was the point.
Dominic drove his elbow into the guard beside him.
He ran.
Gunfire cracked across the runway.
Samuel's men answered from cover.
Dominic reached a hangar.
Marcus followed.
The brothers faced each other beneath emergency lights.
Marcus raised his weapon.
“You took everything.”
Dominic stopped.
“No.”
“You got his name. His money. His respect.”
“I got his cruelty too.”
“You don't get to complain about being the favorite.”
Dominic looked at him.
For the first time, he saw not only the man who had tortured him but the boy their father had rejected.
It did not excuse Marcus.
But it explained the wound beneath the hatred.
“Our father did this to us.”
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“And now you want therapy?”
“No. I want it to end.”
Marcus lifted the gun.
A voice sounded behind him.
“Then put it down.”
Elena.
Marcus turned.
She stood twenty feet away.
She had no weapon.
Only her phone.
Recording.
Marcus laughed.
“The maid.”
“The witness.”
His smile disappeared.
Sirens sounded beyond the gates.
Federal vehicles.
Marcus looked toward the noise.
Then at Dominic.
Then Elena.
He fired.
Dominic moved without thinking.
He threw himself toward Elena.
The bullet struck metal behind them.
Samuel tackled Marcus.
Seconds later, agents flooded the hangar.
Marcus was forced onto the ground.
Handcuffs closed around his wrists.
Elena looked at Dominic.
He was lying beside her.
Blood spread across his shirt.
“No.”
She dropped to her knees.
“Dominic.”
His eyes opened.
“Not mine.”
She stared.
The blood came from his reopened wound.
Relief nearly made her collapse.
He looked at her.
“You came back again.”
Elena laughed through tears.
“You're getting repetitive.”
For the first time, Dominic smiled without bitterness.
Then agents pulled Marcus to his feet.
As he passed, he looked at Dominic.
“You still don't know.”
Dominic frowned.
Marcus smiled.
“You think I started this?”
He leaned closer.
“I was trying to beat someone else to you.”
Dominic's expression changed.
Marcus was taken away.
Elena looked at Dominic.
“What did he mean?”
Dominic stared after his brother.
“I don't know.”
But he did know one thing.
May you like
Marcus had been terrified when he said it.
And Marcus Crane was afraid of almost nobody.
