Chapter 9 - The Betrayal Comes HomeThe first bullet struck the front window before anyone moved.
Glass exploded into the room.
Dominic shoved Claire behind the kitchen wall as Leo and Grant returned fire. Nicky killed the lights, plunging the safe house into darkness broken only by flashes from the street.
Claire hit the floor hard.
Dominic covered her body with his.
“Stay down.”
“I know how bullets work.”
“Good. Then stop trying to look at them.”
“I’m trying to see if anyone is hit.”
Another shot slammed into the refrigerator.
Dominic cursed.
“Nicky?”
“Back exit clear!” Nicky shouted.
Leo fired twice.
“Three shooters across the street. Maybe more.”
Dominic pulled Claire toward the hallway.
“We move.”
Claire grabbed the laptop bag.
Dominic stared.
“Leave it.”
“No. This is Hale’s map.”
“You can rebuild it.”
“My brother may not have time.”
His jaw tightened.
Then he snatched the bag himself.
“Move.”
They ran low through the hallway toward the rear exit. Grant opened the door and immediately jerked backward as a shot hit the frame.
“Rear compromised!”
Claire’s pulse hammered.
Marcus knew the safe house.
Elena had warned them.
Dominic’s face hardened with a terrible kind of understanding.
“He didn’t come to kill us,” he said.
Claire stared.
“What?”
“He came to herd us.”
A sound came from above.
Soft.
A single floorboard creak.
Everyone froze.
Dominic looked at the ceiling.
Then at Claire.
Basement.
She understood before he spoke.
The safe house had another exit beneath it.
And Marcus knew that too.
Smoke began filling the hallway.
Nicky coughed.
“They lit the back stairs!”
Dominic turned to Claire.
“Can you run?”
“Yes.”
“Can you shoot?”
“No.”
He handed her a small flashlight instead.
“Then see.”
They moved toward a hidden pantry door. Dominic pressed a panel behind the shelves. A narrow stairwell opened beneath the floor.
Claire descended first, then Nicky, Grant, Leo. Dominic came last, closing the panel behind them as smoke thickened above.
The tunnel beneath Harbor Road was old, damp, and low-ceilinged.
Claire’s flashlight beam shook over brick walls.
“Why does every place you own have secret tunnels?”
Dominic’s voice came behind her.
“Because people keep trying to kill me.”
“Maybe make different career choices.”
“Working on it.”
Despite everything, Nicky laughed.
They reached a split in the tunnel.
Dominic stopped.
“Left goes to the bait shop. Right goes to the drainage outlet.”
Leo frowned.
“Bait shop is closer to the cars.”
Dominic shook his head.
“Marcus will expect that.”
Claire looked at the tunnel floor.
Mud.
Fresh boot marks.
Leading right.
She crouched.
Dominic looked down.
“What?”
“Someone already used the drainage route.”
Leo swore.
Dominic’s expression darkened.
Marcus had guessed his second guess.
Claire moved the flashlight slowly.
The boot marks were heavy, but beside them was something else.
A smear of dark red on the brick wall.
“Someone’s injured.”
Grant checked his arm.
“Not us.”
Dominic looked at the blood.
“Marcus?”
Claire stood.
“Maybe.”
A voice echoed through the tunnel.
“Dominic.”
Everyone raised their weapons.
Marcus stepped from the shadows twenty feet ahead.
He held no gun.
That was worse.
His coat was torn, and blood stained his side. But his eyes were steady.
Dominic aimed at his chest.
“Move aside.”
Marcus smiled faintly.
“You still think this is about money.”
Dominic said nothing.
Marcus took one step forward.
“It was never just Calder. Never just Hale. They were opportunities. This was about you.”
Claire’s grip tightened on the flashlight.
Dominic’s voice was low.
“You betrayed my sister to hurt me?”
“I betrayed you because you forgot what we built.”
“I remember exactly what we built.”
“No. You let Elena make you ashamed of it.”
Dominic’s face tightened.
Marcus’s voice rose.
“We crawled out of nothing. We made men kneel. We made this city whisper. Then your little sister went to college, learned words like ethics and reform, and suddenly you wanted clean hands.”
“She was right.”
Marcus’s expression twisted.
“She made you weak.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“No. She made me look.”
For the first time, Marcus seemed struck.
Dominic continued.
“I saw you. Hale. Calder. All the rot I ignored because it was profitable and far enough away.”
Marcus spat blood onto the floor.
“You think the FBI will forgive you?”
“No.”
“You think the nurse will?”
Dominic’s eyes did not move.
“No.”
Claire felt the words more than she wanted to.
Marcus smiled.
“Then why change?”
Dominic looked past him toward the tunnel exit.
“Because Elena almost died believing I could.”
Marcus’s face hardened.
From behind him came a mechanical click.
Claire saw it first.
Wires along the wall.
A small device taped beneath a pipe.
“Bomb,” she shouted.
Dominic grabbed her.
The tunnel erupted.
Not into fire, but into pressure, dust, and a deafening crack that threw Claire off her feet.
When she opened her eyes, her ears rang. The flashlight lay broken nearby. Smoke filled the tunnel.
Dominic was over her again, bleeding from a cut along his temple.
“You hurt?”
She coughed.
“No. You?”
“No.”
A groan came from behind them.
Nicky was pinned under broken brick.
Claire crawled to him.
His leg was trapped.
“Don’t move,” she ordered.
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
Dominic and Leo cleared debris while Claire checked circulation, breathing, pain response. Grant covered the tunnel ahead.
Marcus was gone.
The blast had opened the wall to a drainage passage. Cold harbor air rushed in.
Claire looked at Dominic.
“He’s leading us somewhere.”
Dominic nodded grimly.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
His phone buzzed.
A video message.
He opened it.
The screen showed Elena’s recovery room at Blackridge.
Empty bed.
Overturned chair.
Marcus’s voice played over the image.
“You want to become clean, brother? Then come confess where it all began.”
Dominic’s face went white.
Claire whispered, “Where is she?”
The video shifted.
A lighthouse appeared against a black sky.
Dominic stopped breathing.
Claire touched his arm.
“What is that place?”
May you like
Dominic’s voice was almost nothing.
“The old Vale house.”
