Chapter 3 - Someone Inside the House
The estate went into lockdown within ninety seconds.
Exterior gates closed.
Phones were collected.
Vehicles were blocked.
Dominic ordered every member of staff into separate areas while Russell’s remaining security team searched for hidden cameras.
They found eleven.
Library.
Kitchen.
Hallways.
Dominic’s office.
Guest rooms.
Even inside the small sitting room where Lily often waited for Elena to finish work.
That camera made Dominic angrier than the others.
Elena stood beside him as technicians removed it from a smoke detector.
“He watched my daughter.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Elena looked exhausted.
The physician had treated dehydration and bruising, but she refused to leave the estate.
Not until whoever had done this was found.
Dominic understood.
He also knew she was afraid to sleep.
“Take Lily somewhere safe.”
“Where is safe?”
The question stopped him.
His estate was guarded.
Controlled.
Fortified.
And someone had built a surveillance station beneath his marble floor.
He had no answer.
Elena saw that.
“Exactly.”
Dominic nodded.
“Then stay near me.”
She gave him a tired, skeptical look.
“I work for you.”
“Not today.”
“What am I today?”
“The only person in this house I know they tried to silence.”
That almost made her smile.
Almost.
Dominic spent the next six hours rebuilding his understanding of the organization.
Every financial record from the previous eighteen months was pulled.
Henry Cole examined them under supervision.
Rebecca Sloan contacted independent forensic accountants.
Russell mapped security access.
The hidden underground room required construction.
Electrical work.
Internet connection.
Ventilation.
Materials.
Someone had done all of that without triggering a single official invoice.
Unless the invoices were hidden.
Mrs. Alvarez provided the first useful clue.
She approached Dominic while he stood in the kitchen.
“Mr. Vale?”
“Yes?”
“Last winter there were contractors.”
Dominic turned.
“What contractors?”
“Marcus said you approved repairs.”
“What repairs?”
“Pipe work.”
“Where?”
“Near the foyer.”
Dominic’s gaze sharpened.
“How long?”
“Maybe three weeks. Mostly at night.”
“Why wasn’t I told?”
She looked uncomfortable.
“I thought you knew.”
Everyone had thought Dominic knew.
That realization was becoming dangerous.
Marcus had borrowed Dominic’s authority simply by speaking with confidence.
He had built an entire secret beneath the estate because no one questioned the man who supposedly spoke for Dominic Vale.
“Do you remember the company?”
Mrs. Alvarez did.
Kane Property Restoration.
Dominic almost laughed.
Marcus had barely hidden it.
They searched corporate records.
The company technically belonged to a man named Peter Kane.
Marcus’s younger brother.
Dead for eight years.
Rebecca looked across the desk.
“He registered a corporation under his dead brother’s identity.”
“And paid contractors through it.”
“Most of the contractors probably believed they were performing legitimate renovation.”
“Find them.”
Russell entered.
“We have another problem.”
“What?”
“Marcus accessed the north garage before he disappeared.”
“What did he take?”
“One vehicle.”
“You said his car was still here.”
“Not his.”
Russell handed Dominic a tablet.
Security footage showed Marcus entering the garage at 4:13 a.m.
He drove away in a maintenance van.
Four hours before Dominic returned.
“He knew I was coming.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Russell looked grim.
“Your travel schedule.”
Only six people had access.
Dominic.
His assistant.
Russell.
Marcus.
Rebecca.
And Dominic’s private driver.
Someone had either leaked it or hacked it.
The forensic accountants called before noon.
They had identified nineteen shell entities.
Total transfers: $31.6 million.
But the money was not stolen in the usual sense.
It had been moved.
Layered.
Then placed into accounts designed to look as though Dominic had personally funded illegal operations that were never his.
Rebecca explained.
“This isn’t theft.”
Dominic already understood.
“It’s evidence.”
“Fabricated evidence.”
“Designed for law enforcement.”
“Yes.”
Someone was constructing a legal case around him.
And if executed properly, Dominic would be arrested while the people behind the scheme took control of everything remaining.
“Leadership transfer,” he murmured.
Rebecca nodded.
The succession document.
Russell’s name.
“Someone wants you to think Russell is behind this,” Rebecca said.
Russell stood across the room.
“Or I am.”
Dominic looked at him.
Russell held his gaze.
Smart response.
Too many people would have rushed to defend themselves.
Dominic preferred a man willing to admit the obvious.
Elena entered carrying a folder.
“I found this in my room.”
Dominic stood.
“Where?”
“Under Lily’s mattress.”
She placed it on the desk.
Inside were photocopies of bank records.
Different from those downstairs.
These listed payments from Marcus to someone identified only as R.D.
Russell stared.
“R.D.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Russell Dane.”
“I know what my initials are.”
Elena shook her head.
“There’s more.”
She removed a photograph.
Marcus and Russell stood outside a restaurant in Manhattan.
Date stamped two months earlier.
Russell frowned.
“That meeting happened.”
Dominic said nothing.
Russell explained.
“Marcus asked me to discuss security staffing.”
“Why off-site?”
“He said he didn’t want junior guards hearing complaints about them.”
Dominic looked at the payment records.
“Did he pay you?”
“No.”
“Any cash?”
“No.”
“Gifts?”
“No.”
Russell’s anger surfaced.
“Dominic, somebody is trying to frame me.”
“That appears likely.”
“Appears?”
Dominic leaned back.
“I don’t decide based on friendship.”
Russell’s face tightened.
“I know.”
That was why he had lasted so long beside Dominic.
Evidence mattered.
Not loyalty speeches.
Not history.
Evidence.
Dominic examined the papers again.
One transfer stood out.
$250,000.
Recipient: R.D. Holdings.
Rebecca searched it.
Her eyebrows rose.
“Not Russell.”
“Who?”
“Rachel Dane.”
Russell went completely still.
Dominic looked up.
“Your wife?”
“Ex-wife.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did you last speak?”
“Almost two years ago.”
Rebecca continued typing.
“Rachel Dane owns the company.”
Russell’s face hardened.
“We divorced six years ago.”
The next search result appeared.
Rachel had purchased a home in White Plains three months earlier.
Cash.
$1.4 million.
Russell stared at the screen.
Dominic asked, “Did she have that kind of money?”
“No.”
Nobody said the obvious.
Marcus had not simply framed Russell.
He had routed money through someone connected to him.
A believable trail.
Dominic’s phone rang.
Not his usual device.
One of the burner phones recovered from the underground office.
Everyone stared.
Dominic picked it up.
“Hello.”
Breathing.
Then Marcus’s voice.
“You found Rachel.”
Dominic motioned for the call to be traced.
Marcus laughed softly.
“You’re always faster than people expect.”
“Come back.”
“No.”
“Then why call?”
“To give you a chance.”
“At what?”
“To understand what’s actually happening.”
Dominic’s voice remained calm.
“You imprisoned Elena.”
“I kept her alive.”
“That’s not a defense.”
“It will be.”
Dominic glanced at Elena.
She was listening.
“Why photographs of her daughter?”
“To make sure Elena stayed quiet.”
Her face tightened.
Dominic’s fingers closed around the phone.
“You threatened a child.”
“I documented leverage.”
“You’re choosing dangerous words.”
“I learned them from you.”
Dominic ignored the provocation.
“Who are you working with?”
Silence.
Then Marcus said, “You’re asking the wrong question.”
“What’s the right one?”
“Who was I protecting you from?”
Dominic looked around the room.
Marcus continued.
“You still believe I built that room to destroy you.”
“Didn’t you?”
“I built it because I discovered someone else was already inside your organization.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“You expect me to believe you kidnapped Elena to protect me?”
“No.”
Marcus paused.
“I expect you to realize Elena didn’t accidentally find that room.”
Dominic turned toward her.
Elena stared back, confused.
Marcus whispered, “Someone sent her there.”
The line went dead.
Russell checked the tracing equipment.
“Nothing.”
Elena shook her head.
“He’s lying.”
“Maybe.”
“I was told to clean.”
“By Marcus.”
“Yes.”
Dominic looked at the brass key.
The initials.
The room.
The camera network.
Too obvious.
Marcus was many things.
Careless was not one of them.
Dominic went downstairs again.
He searched every drawer.
Every folder.
Every wall.
Then he noticed something beside the computer.
A tiny square of adhesive.
Something had been removed.
He shone his flashlight across the desk.
A second patch.
Then another.
Four objects had once been attached beneath the desktop.
Listening devices?
Storage drives?
He reached farther.
His fingers found one remaining item.
A slim memory card taped beneath the desk.
Dominic removed it.
Back upstairs, Rebecca loaded the card on an isolated laptop.
One video file appeared.
Recorded six weeks earlier.
The image showed the hidden room.
Marcus stood beside the desk.
Across from him was another man.
The camera angle concealed most of the visitor’s face.
But Dominic recognized the ring on his hand.
He had given that ring personally.
Ten years ago.
Dominic leaned toward the screen.
May you like
The visitor turned.
And Russell whispered, “That’s impossible.”
