Chapter 3 - Seven Weeks Missing
The first shot struck the rear quarter panel.
Carver pushed Nadine and Ada below the window line.
“Stay down.”
Nadine hated the command.
She hated even more that it made sense.
The driver accelerated.
Another shot cracked.
Carver’s men did not return fire.
“Why aren’t they shooting?” Nadine demanded.
“Because your sister is in that vehicle.”
Carver leaned forward.
“Take the south road.”
The SUV swerved.
Ada screamed.
Nadine covered the baby’s ears and whispered against her forehead.
“I’ve got you.”
Carver watched her.
Not frightened.
Not helpless.
Calculating.
That was when he understood something Dominic never had.
Nadine’s fear did not make her weaker.
It made her precise.
The pursuing vehicle disappeared after six miles.
Carver’s convoy continued to a secluded property in the mountains.
Nadine expected gates.
Armed men.
Locked rooms.
There were gates.
There were armed men.
But when Carver showed her the bedroom prepared for her and Ada, he handed Nadine the key.
“The inside locks.”
She looked at him.
“Only from inside?”
“Yes.”
She tested it.
Carver waited outside.
That mattered.
Later, Nadine sat at a desk with Ada sleeping nearby.
She reconstructed the seven weeks after Christmas.
Someone had always seemed half a step behind her.
A hotel clerk in Idaho asking whether her husband would be joining her.
A sedan outside a pharmacy.
A stranger at a bus terminal.
She had assumed Dominic.
What if it had been someone else?
Carver entered after knocking.
“Amber’s vehicle was registered to Bellweather Restoration.”
Nadine looked up.
“The shell company.”
“Yes.”
“Dominic controls it?”
“Apparently not.”
“Who does?”
“We’re finding out.”
Carver placed a folder on the desk.
Inside were photographs.
Amber leaving hotels.
Amber meeting a man Nadine recognized.
Judge Thomas Vail.
One of the names in Dominic’s ledger.
Another photograph showed Amber with Nadine’s father.
The date stunned her.
“Nine years ago?”
Carver nodded.
“My father knew her?”
“Apparently.”
“She was seventeen.”
“Look closer.”
Behind them was another man.
Carver’s father.
Nadine raised her eyes.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“Convenient.”
“I was estranged from him by then.”
Nadine studied Carver.
“Why did Dominic fear you?”
“Because I know where his empire came from.”
“Which is?”
“My family.”
The room went still.
Carver explained.
Twenty years earlier, his father and Dominic’s father had operated together.
Then money vanished.
Witnesses disappeared.
Carver’s father died.
Dominic’s family expanded overnight.
Carver had spent years rebuilding enough power to prevent the Castellanos from absorbing everything.
“You’re telling me this marriage proposal is part of a twenty-year feud?”
“No.”
“It certainly sounds like it.”
“The feud is why I knew what Dominic was capable of. It’s not why I offered.”
“Then why?”
Carver looked toward Ada.
“Because twenty years ago, my mother tried to leave a man like Dominic.”
Nadine said nothing.
“She didn’t make it.”
The simplicity of the words hurt more than detail.
Carver stood.
“That is all I’m going to say tonight.”
At the door, Nadine stopped him.
“Carver.”
He turned.
“Thank you for not firing at Amber.”
“I didn’t do it for Amber.”
“I know.”
That night Nadine could not sleep.
At 2:13 a.m., the second phone vibrated.
The phone Amber had carried into the clinic should have been with Dominic.
Yet an encrypted message appeared on Nadine’s laptop.
One line.
I NEVER BETRAYED YOU.
Then another.
THE KISS WAS FOR THE CAMERA.
Nadine stared.
A file followed.
Video.
Christmas Eve.
The drawing room.
A hidden camera angle.
Dominic entered first.
Amber followed.
There was no audio for the first thirty seconds.
Then Amber moved close.
Dominic kissed her.
But immediately afterward, while his face was hidden against her hair, Amber’s hand slipped inside his jacket.
She removed something.
A keycard.
Dominic never noticed.
Nadine replayed it.
Again.
Again.
Amber had kissed him back.
That part was real enough.
But so was the theft.
The video continued.
After Nadine walked away, Amber stepped into the corridor alone.
She looked directly toward the hidden camera.
Then held up the keycard.
On its surface was a number.
AC-0714.
Nadine’s stomach dropped.
Another message appeared.
YOUR FATHER LEFT SOMETHING FOR YOU.
Then a location.
Not Montana.
The Castellano estate.
The house Nadine had escaped.
Beneath the coordinates was one final instruction.
USE THE SERVANT STAIRCASE.
Nadine rose.
Carver appeared in the doorway after hearing movement.
“What happened?”
She showed him.
He watched the video.
His expression changed when he saw the keycard.
“You recognize it.”
Carver did not answer.
“Carver.”
“My father had one.”
Nadine stared.
“To what?”
“A vault.”
“Where?”
Carver looked at the coordinates.
Then at her.
“Apparently beneath your husband’s house.”
A sound came from the hallway.
Three soft knocks.
Carver immediately reached for his weapon.
Nobody should have been on that floor.
Nadine moved toward Ada.
The knocks came again.
Then a woman’s voice whispered through the door.
“Nadine, it’s Amber.”
Nadine reached for the handle.
Carver caught her wrist—not painfully, but fast.
“Amber is still sixty miles away.”
The voice outside whispered again.
May you like
“Nadine?”
Then it said something only Nadine’s dead father had ever called her.
