Chapter 10 - The Man Inside the Company
Helena surrendered the gun before entering.
She had been hiding for months.
Victor wanted her dead.
Charles wanted her silent.
Alidoro believed she was overseas.
She placed Marianne’s diary before Selena.
“I failed your mother.”
Helena explained that she, Marianne and Celia had once worked together.
They discovered Meridian.
Gabriel Flores wanted out.
Charles Wright wanted control.
Victor wanted everything.
Marianne gathered evidence.
Helena lost her nerve.
On the night Marianne died, Helena warned Charles she was going to the authorities.
Charles told Victor.
“I didn't know they would kill her.”
Selena’s voice was quiet.
“But you knew afterward.”
“Yes.”
“And stayed silent.”
“Yes.”
Selena hated her.
But hatred did not make the information useless.
“Who is inside Dempster’s house?”
Helena looked toward the doorway.
“His head of security.”
Marco DeLuca.
Dempster’s oldest friend.
The man who had protected him for fifteen years.
Dempster said nothing.
Marco was summoned.
He entered calmly.
Then saw Helena.
His hand moved toward his jacket.
Dempster’s weapon was already aimed.
“Don't.”
Marco stopped.
Selena watched grief enter Dempster’s face.
Not anger.
Grief.
“You opened the vault,” Dempster said.
Marco smiled sadly.
“Your father should have burned it.”
“You served Victor?”
“I served your family.”
“My father was my family.”
“Your father became weak.”
Dempster flinched as if struck.
Marco admitted feeding information to Victor.
The gala.
The locker.
Brooke’s location.
Everything.
“Why leave the ring?”
“To remind you that attachment makes men stupid.”
Dempster looked at Selena.
“No.”
His voice was calm.
“It reminds men what matters.”
Marco moved.
Security tackled him.
His phone fell.
Selena picked it up.
One outgoing message had been sent seconds earlier.
SHE KNOWS. MOVE THE ASSET.
“What asset?”
Marco laughed.
Dempster grabbed him.
“What asset?”
Marco looked directly at Selena.
“Your mother’s final witness.”
Selena went cold.
“Who?”
Marco smiled.
“The person who watched Victor cut the brake line.”
Dempster’s team traced the message.
An abandoned private clinic in Pennsylvania.
They drove through the night.
The building looked empty.
Inside, they found medical equipment.
Records.
A room with restraints.
Someone had been kept there.
Recently.
Selena found a photograph taped beneath a table.
Her mother.
Beside her stood a teenage boy.
Dempster.
On the back:
He saw everything.
Selena turned slowly.
“Dempster.”
He stared at the picture.
Then his face drained of color.
A memory returned.
Not fully.
Fragments.
A garage.
Victor.
Marianne’s car.
His father dragging him away.
Dempster staggered.
“My father made me forget.”
“No.”
“He sent me away the next morning.”
Selena approached.
“You were a kid.”
“I was nineteen.”
“You were still his son.”
A noise sounded behind the clinic wall.
Knocking.
Three times.
Pause.
Three more.
Dempster found a hidden door.
Selena reached for the handle.
May you like
It was already unlocking from the inside.
And someone whispered, “Dempster, don't open it.”
