Chapter 7 - The Man on the Warehouse Floor
“Daddy!”
Sophie’s scream tore through the warehouse.
Vivienne lunged forward, but Agent Sloan caught her around the waist.
“Stay down!”
Senator Reed fired twice toward the federal officers and ran through the harbor exit. Dominic lay on his back beside the laptop, one hand pressed against his upper chest.
Blood spread beneath his fingers.
A tactical officer chased Reed into the rain.
Others secured the remaining gunmen.
The shooting stopped almost as suddenly as it had begun.
Vivienne tore free from Sloan and ran to Dominic.
Sophie followed before anyone could stop her.
Dominic’s eyes found his daughter.
“Hey, princess.”
His voice was weak.
Sophie dropped beside him.
“You got hurt.”
“I know.”
“You said you were coming home after your speech.”
Vivienne pressed both hands over the wound.
“Don’t talk.”
Dominic looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t get to die after saying two words.”
His mouth moved in something like a smile.
“Still giving orders.”
“Someone has to.”
Paramedics rushed in with a stretcher.
One pulled Vivienne’s hands away and examined the injury.
“The bullet entered below the collarbone. We need transport now.”
Sophie clung to Dominic’s sleeve.
“I want to go with Daddy.”
Vivienne knelt in front of her.
“You’re coming with me. The doctors need room to help him.”
“Is he going to die?”
Vivienne could not lie.
“I don’t know.”
Noah came closer and took Sophie’s hand.
“He saved us,” he said.
Dominic heard him.
His face twisted with pain that had nothing to do with the bullet.
“Noah.”
The boy hesitated.
Dominic reached out.
Noah did not take his hand.
“You lied to Mom,” he said.
“I did.”
“You lied to Sophie’s mom.”
“Yes.”
“You lied to us.”
“Yes.”
Noah’s chin trembled.
“Why?”
Dominic looked at both children.
“Because I was a coward.”
The paramedics lifted him onto the stretcher.
As they carried him away, Agent Sloan approached Vivienne.
“The children need medical evaluations. So do you.”
“I’m going to the hospital.”
“So is Dominic.”
“Did you get Reed?”
“Not yet.”
Vivienne stared toward the open harbor door.
Rain swept across the concrete.
“What about the drive?”
Sloan held up the evidence pouch.
“We have the original and the duplicate.”
“The files opened?”
“Yes.”
“What did Dominic trigger?”
“A distress beacon embedded in the encryption program. It gave our team the exact location and disabled the warehouse security grid.”
Vivienne looked toward the blood on the floor.
He had known he might be shot.
He had come anyway.
That did not erase anything.
But it mattered.
At the hospital, Sophie was treated for dehydration and bruising around her wrists. Noah had a shallow cut on one knee. Neither child had suffered serious physical injury.
Celeste remained beside Noah while Vivienne sat with Sophie in a quiet pediatric room.
The child wore a hospital blanket over her green gown.
“Mommy?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Is Noah really my brother?”
Vivienne smoothed damp hair away from her face.
“Dominic is his father.”
“So yes?”
“Yes.”
“Does that mean I have to be mad at him?”
“No.”
“At Celeste?”
“No.”
“At Daddy?”
Vivienne paused.
“You’re allowed to feel anything you feel.”
“I’m mad and sad at the same time.”
“That happens.”
“I still love him.”
Vivienne swallowed.
“That happens too.”
Sophie looked down at the marks on her wrists.
“If Daddy was bad, why did he save us?”
“People aren’t always only one thing.”
“Is he a good person or a bad person?”
Vivienne wished adulthood provided simple answers.
“Your father made terrible choices. Tonight he made one brave choice.”
“Does brave fix terrible?”
“No.”
Sophie’s eyes filled.
“Then what does?”
“Truth. Responsibility. Time. Sometimes forgiveness.”
“Are you going to forgive him?”
Vivienne looked through the glass wall toward the surgery floor.
“I don’t know.”
Julian entered carrying two cups of coffee and a bag of clothes.
His wound had required six stitches, but he had refused to remain in bed.
“Sloan has news,” he said.
Vivienne stepped into the hallway.
Agent Sloan waited with Miriam.
“Reed escaped by boat,” Sloan said. “The Coast Guard found the vessel abandoned three miles south.”
“So he’s still free.”
“For now.”
“What did you find on the drive?”
“Enough to open multiple federal investigations. Payment schedules, coded membership lists, evidence of bribery, bid manipulation, illegal surveillance, and possibly two suspicious deaths.”
Celeste joined them.
“Who was the masked attacker at the hotel?”
“We identified him as Grant Keller, a former private military contractor. He was arrested at the warehouse.”
“Did he start the fire?”
“He claims Chloe ordered it.”
Vivienne stared at Sloan.
“Chloe?”
“She wanted to destroy the hotel’s security server. She believed it contained footage of her passing the drive.”
“Where is she?”
“Under guard at another hospital. She has a fractured wrist and minor head injuries.”
“Will she talk?”
“She already is.”
Dominic’s surgeon appeared at the end of the hallway.
Everyone turned.
“Family of Dominic Vale?”
Vivienne and Celeste both stepped forward.
The surgeon noticed.
“Mr. Vale lost significant blood. The bullet damaged a major vessel near the shoulder, but it missed his heart and lung. We repaired the injury.”
“He’ll live?” Vivienne asked.
“If there are no complications, yes.”
Sophie heard from the room.
She rushed into the hallway and hugged Vivienne.
“Daddy’s okay?”
“He survived the surgery.”
Sophie began sobbing with relief.
Noah stood beside Celeste, silent.
The surgeon continued.
“He is sedated and will remain in intensive care. No visitors tonight.”
Agent Sloan’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, and looked toward Vivienne.
“We found Reed.”
“Where?”
“At your family’s estate.”
Vivienne stared at her.
“What?”
“He entered Hartwood House approximately twenty minutes ago.”
Julian’s expression changed.
“Our grandmother is there.”
Vivienne’s blood ran cold.
Eleanor Hart was eighty-three years old and refused to leave the estate where she had raised Julian and Vivienne after their parents died.
“Is she safe?”
“We don’t know.”
Julian was already moving toward the elevators.
Sloan blocked him.
“My team is handling it.”
“That is my grandmother.”
“And Reed may be armed.”
Vivienne looked at the photograph on Sloan’s phone.
A security camera showed Reed standing inside the library of Hartwood House.
He was not holding a weapon.
He was holding a framed photograph.
Vivienne recognized it.
Her father stood in the picture beside Senator Reed and three other men.
On the back wall behind them was the emblem of the Meridian Circle.
Vivienne looked at Julian.
“Our father knew him.”
Julian’s face went still.
“No.”
Sloan enlarged the image.
The photograph had been taken more than thirty years earlier.
Before Dominic built Vale Meridian.
Before Vivienne inherited the trusts.
Before either of them knew the Circle existed.
May you like
Reed had not gone to Hartwood House to escape.
He had gone home.
