Chapter 5 - The Last Witness
Police blocked the facility within minutes.
The car disappeared before officers reached it.
Samuel was moved under protection.
Natalie refused to leave him.
Dominic understood.
For two years she had believed her father abandoned her.
Now she knew he had been hidden.
Drugged.
Silenced.
Samuel's memory returned in fragments.
He had worked as an accountant for Bellwether Holdings.
He discovered payments to Mercer.
Antonio had noticed irregularities independently.
The two men began investigating.
Victor learned about it.
Samuel was poisoned first.
He survived.
Mercer declared him mentally incompetent after neurological complications.
Victor arranged his disappearance.
Antonio died three weeks later.
“Why didn't Victor kill my dad?” Natalie asked.
Samuel looked at her.
“He tried.”
Natalie became quiet.
Dominic sat across from Samuel.
“Who else was involved?”
Samuel hesitated.
“There was someone inside your family.”
“Victor.”
“No.”
Dominic stared.
“Someone besides Victor?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Samuel looked toward Marcus.
Then away.
Dominic noticed.
“Samuel.”
“I need to speak to you alone.”
Marcus immediately understood.
“I'll wait outside.”
After he left, Samuel whispered a name.
Dominic felt the room tilt.
Marcus Vale.
His chief of security.
His closest friend.
The man who had protected him for fifteen years.
“No.”
Samuel nodded.
“I saw payments.”
“You're mistaken.”
“I kept copies.”
Dominic remembered the storage facility.
Only three people knew the address.
The anonymous caller.
Dominic.
Marcus.
Someone had arrived before them and set the building on fire.
Dominic felt sick.
Marcus had saved him from that fire.
Or had he?
Perhaps saving Dominic had been necessary to preserve his cover.
Dominic didn't confront him.
Instead, he called Ortiz.
They created a trap.
Dominic told Marcus that Antonio's original ledger had been recovered and would be moved at midnight.
No ledger existed.
At 11:42 p.m., Marcus disappeared.
At 11:51, surveillance captured him entering the evidence-transfer garage.
Ortiz arrested him.
Marcus didn't resist.
Dominic stood across from him.
“Why?”
Marcus looked exhausted.
“Victor owned me before I ever worked for you.”
“You stood beside me at my father's funeral.”
“Yes.”
“You watched me bury him.”
“Yes.”
“And you've been lying to me every day since.”
Marcus looked down.
“I tried to protect you.”
“From what?”
“Becoming Antonio.”
Dominic laughed bitterly.
“You mean becoming a man who discovered the truth?”
“Your father wanted out.”
That surprised Dominic.
“Out of what?”
“Everything. The business. The violence. All of it.”
Marcus looked at Natalie through the observation glass.
“Samuel changed him.”
Samuel had shown Antonio the human cost of Bellwether.
Antonio planned to expose Victor publicly and dismantle the criminal side of the Moretti organization.
Victor couldn't allow it.
Dominic realized his father hadn't died because he was a mafia boss.
He had died because he was trying to stop being one.
That realization changed everything.
Marcus agreed to testify.
He provided locations.
Accounts.
Names.
Mercer's escape route.
Victor's safe houses.
But Mercer was still missing.
Then Natalie remembered the blue box.
The one Crane had handed Mercer.
Investigators reviewed hospital surveillance.
Mercer had placed it in a locker before disappearing.
Police opened the locker.
Inside were twelve vials.
One contained enough compound to kill dozens of people.
Another contained something unexpected.
An antidote.
Mercer had developed both.
Ortiz found a notebook.
The final pages contained patient initials.
A.M.
S.F.
D.M.
And N.F.
Natalie Foster.
Dominic stared.
“Why is Natalie listed?”
Samuel turned pale.
“She was never part of this.”
Ortiz examined the notation.
There was a date.
Tomorrow.
Natalie was a target.
Dominic immediately increased protection.
But the danger wasn't coming tomorrow.
It was already inside.
A nurse entered Samuel's room carrying a tray.
Natalie looked up.
Something bothered her.
The nurse's shoes.
Men's shoes.
Too large.
Natalie screamed.
“Dominic!”
The disguised man dropped the tray.
Crane.
He ran.
Dominic chased him through the corridor.
Police cornered him at the stairwell.
Crane surrendered.
Inside his pocket was a syringe.
The label read N.F.
Natalie had saved another life.
Her own.
Crane finally talked.
Victor was preparing to leave the country.
Mercer was with him.
They planned to depart from a private airfield before dawn.
Ortiz organized the arrest.
Dominic stayed with Natalie.
“You're not going?” she asked.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the police can handle Victor.”
Natalie studied him.
“And you?”
Dominic smiled faintly.
“I have somewhere more important to be.”
He sat beside Samuel.
For years Dominic believed power meant being the man everyone feared.
Natalie had taught him something different.
Power could also mean staying.
At 4:13 a.m., Ortiz called.
“We got Mercer.”
“And Victor?”
Silence.
“He wasn't there.”
Dominic stood.
“Where is he?”
“We don't know.”
His second phone vibrated.
Only family had the number.
Dominic answered.
Victor's voice came through.
“You've taken everything from me.”
“No. You did that yourself.”
Victor laughed.
“Look outside.”
Dominic walked toward the window.
A black sedan waited beneath the streetlight.
The rear door opened.
May you like
Victor stepped out.
And he was holding something that had belonged to Antonio Moretti.
