Chapter 5 - What Happened to Dominic’s Mother
Dominic had spent twenty-three years believing his mother died in a car accident.
Thomas Vale destroyed that belief in six words.
“Richard Carver murdered your mother.”
Richard laughed from behind the overturned table.
“You always were theatrical, Thomas.”
Thomas raised his weapon.
“And you were always a coward.”
Dominic stepped between them.
“Enough.”
Both men looked at him.
“I’ve spent one day learning that almost everyone in my life is either alive when they should be dead or lying about someone who is.”
Thomas lowered his gun slightly.
“So now everybody talks.”
Richard smiled.
“Finally behaving like a Carver.”
Dominic’s stare sharpened.
“Call me that again and you’ll lose teeth.”
Daniel almost smiled despite the danger.
Grace clutched his arm.
Mercer had disappeared during the blackout.
That concerned Dominic more than anything else.
“What happened to my mother?” Dominic asked.
Thomas looked at Richard.
“Tell him.”
Richard said nothing.
Thomas continued.
“Your mother, Evelyn Vale, discovered Lazarus before it was called Lazarus.”
Dominic’s stomach tightened.
“She knew?”
“She helped build the first version.”
Richard interrupted.
“She benefited from it.”
Thomas ignored him.
“She thought it was a witness-protection network for people escaping criminal organizations.”
Daniel whispered, “That’s what it started as?”
Thomas nodded.
“Then Richard realized identities were more valuable when sold.”
Dominic looked at Richard.
“You sold protected witnesses.”
Richard shrugged.
“Information is currency.”
Thomas’s face hardened.
“Evelyn tried to expose him.”
“What happened?”
“She contacted federal investigators.”
Dominic already knew the answer before Thomas spoke.
“Richard found out.”
Richard said calmly, “Your mother was going to destroy everything.”
“So you killed her.”
“She made a choice.”
Dominic moved so fast Daniel barely reacted.
He grabbed Richard by the collar and slammed him against the wall.
“You murdered her.”
Richard smiled through the impact.
“And still I raised you.”
Dominic hit him.
Once.
Hard.
Richard fell.
Dominic could have continued.
He wanted to.
Instead he stepped back.
Thomas watched carefully.
“That’s where we differ.”
Dominic looked at him.
“You think I care how I compare to you?”
Thomas absorbed that.
“No.”
“Good.”
A gunshot sounded outside.
Then Marcus’s voice.
“Boss!”
Dominic turned.
Marcus entered with Ava and two trusted men.
“You told me to stay two blocks away.”
“You’re fired.”
Marcus nodded.
“Tomorrow?”
“If we live.”
“Fair.”
Ava held up a tablet.
“Mercer accessed the archive remotely.”
Daniel looked at the decoy drive.
“How?”
“He doesn’t need that drive. He needs Richard’s biometric code.”
Everyone looked at Richard.
Dominic understood.
“The yacht bomb.”
Thomas nodded.
“It was meant to kill you and force Richard out of hiding.”
“Mercer wanted Richard exposed.”
“Yes.”
“And Lily’s warning ruined the timing.”
Grace looked at Daniel.
“How did you know about the bomb?”
Daniel hesitated.
“I was following Mercer.”
“For how long?”
“Six months.”
“You were that close and never came home?”
His face broke.
“I couldn’t risk you.”
Grace stepped toward him.
“You keep using that sentence as if it fixes something.”
“It doesn’t.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
Lily’s absence sat between them like another person.
Grace’s voice lowered.
“Our daughter asked me every birthday if heaven had mailboxes.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“She wrote you letters.”
Dominic looked away again.
Some wounds were too private even for a room full of criminals.
Then Ava spoke.
“I found Mercer.”
Everyone turned.
“Where?”
“He triggered an internal access door three levels below us.”
Richard suddenly stood.
“No.”
Dominic looked at him.
“What’s down there?”
Richard didn’t answer.
Thomas did.
“The original Lazarus server.”
Daniel stared.
“You said it was distributed.”
“It is now. The original system isn’t.”
Ava checked her tablet.
“If Mercer reaches it with Richard’s biometric token, he can release everything.”
“Why would that matter?” Grace asked.
“Because thousands of people whose identities were hidden could be exposed,” Thomas said. “Witnesses. families. undercover officers.”
Dominic understood the stakes.
Mercer wasn’t simply trying to blackmail people.
He could get innocent people killed.
“Move.”
They descended.
Richard remained under guard.
Thomas came with Dominic.
Neither trusted the other.
At the final security door, Ava connected a bypass cable.
Thirty seconds.
Twenty.
Ten.
The door opened.
Mercer stood inside the server room.
He held a pistol in one hand.
In the other was a portable biometric scanner.
“Stop,” Dominic said.
Mercer smiled.
“You’re late.”
Ava checked her screen.
“Upload at six percent.”
Marcus fired at the control panel.
Sparks flew.
“Still uploading,” Ava said.
Mercer laughed.
“You think I didn’t build redundancy?”
Daniel moved toward a second terminal.
“Can we stop it?”
Ava joined him.
“Maybe.”
Mercer raised his weapon.
Dominic fired first.
The shot hit Mercer’s shoulder.
He fell behind the server rack.
Thomas moved left.
Marcus moved right.
Grace stayed behind the concrete entrance.
Daniel and Ava worked.
“Twenty-two percent,” Ava said.
Mercer fired blindly.
Thomas returned fire.
Dominic advanced.
“Elias.”
No answer.
“End this.”
Mercer’s voice came from behind the rack.
“You don’t understand what Richard built.”
“I understand enough.”
“No. You don’t.”
Mercer laughed weakly.
“Lazarus isn’t just names.”
Dominic stopped.
“What is it?”
“Ask your father who Candidate Seven is.”
Thomas froze.
Richard, still upstairs, wasn’t there to answer.
Dominic looked at Thomas.
“You know.”
Thomas went pale.
“Dominic.”
“What is Candidate Seven?”
Ava shouted, “Forty percent!”
Thomas stared at him.
“You.”
The room fell silent except for the servers.
Dominic’s voice lowered.
“Explain.”
“Richard didn’t raise you only as an heir.”
Thomas looked sick.
“He raised you as an experiment.”
Dominic almost laughed.
“What kind?”
“A behavioral program.”
Daniel looked up.
Thomas continued.
“Children placed inside controlled environments. Trauma, reward, isolation, loyalty conditioning.”
Grace whispered, “Children?”
“Seven subjects.”
Dominic stared at Thomas.
“And I was seven.”
“Yes.”
Mercer laughed from the floor.
“His masterpiece.”
Dominic felt suddenly cold.
Memories flashed.
Locked rooms.
Tests.
Richard asking questions after funerals.
Punishments for showing fear.
Rewards for obedience.
Training that began far too young.
His childhood had not simply been cruel.
It had been engineered.
Ava shouted, “Sixty-eight percent!”
Dominic forced himself back to the present.
“Stop the upload.”
Daniel typed faster.
“I found the mirror process.”
“Can you kill it?”
“Yes.”
He hit ENTER.
The percentage stopped.
68%.
Then dropped.
Mercer screamed and lunged from behind the server rack.
Gun raised.
Dominic turned.
Thomas fired.
Mercer fell.
Silence.
The upload dropped to zero.
Ava exhaled.
“We stopped it.”
Grace sank against the wall.
Daniel went to her.
Dominic stared at Mercer’s body.
Then at Thomas.
“You knew what Richard did to me.”
“I found out later.”
“How much later?”
Thomas didn’t answer quickly enough.
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“How much later?”
“When you were sixteen.”
“And you left me there.”
“I tried to get you out.”
“You failed.”
“Yes.”
Dominic turned away.
Thomas spoke behind him.
“I have spent nineteen years trying to correct that failure.”
Dominic looked back.
“You don’t get nineteen years of credit for failing a child once.”
Thomas accepted the blow.
“No.”
Ava suddenly frowned at her tablet.
“What?”
“The upload didn’t go nowhere.”
Dominic turned.
“What do you mean?”
“Mercer routed sixty-eight percent to an external receiver before we shut it down.”
“Where?”
She traced the signal.
Then her face changed.
“Dominic.”
“Where?”
“The receiver is moving.”
Marcus looked at the map.
“A vehicle?”
Ava zoomed in.
Grace stepped closer.
The tracking dot moved north.
Toward the safe house where Lily had been taken.
Daniel went white.
“No.”
Ava’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered on speaker.
Lily’s voice whispered through the line.
“Mr. Dominic?”
Dominic’s blood went cold.
“Lily.”
“Someone’s in the house.”
Daniel grabbed the phone.
“Baby, hide.”
“I am.”
“Where?”
“Daddy, I’m scared.”
Daniel’s face crumpled.
“I know. Stay quiet.”
A floorboard creaked through the call.
Lily stopped breathing.
Then an adult male voice sounded in the background.
“Lily Harper.”
Dominic reached for his keys.
The voice moved closer.
May you like
“We know you’re here.”
Then the call went dead.
