Chapter 8 - The Price of Betrayal
Selena did not scream.
That surprised everyone.
She looked at the photograph.
Then at Dempster.
“Bring my sister home.”
Three words.
Dempster nodded.
The mansion changed instantly.
Security teams moved.
Vehicles left.
Phones lit up.
Selena saw the other Dempster now.
The man newspapers hinted at.
Cold.
Precise.
Feared.
But he never told Selena to stay behind.
Instead he asked, “Do you want to come?”
“Yes.”
Brooke’s photograph contained reflections from industrial windows.
Selena recognized freight markings in the background.
Her own algorithm identified the likely warehouse from routing records.
Irony tasted bitter.
The technology Alidoro stole led them directly to him.
They reached the warehouse before midnight.
Police could not be trusted; Meridian had names inside law enforcement.
Dempster’s security team surrounded the building.
Selena entered beside him.
Victor waited.
Alidoro stood nearby.
Brooke was alive.
“Sign the trust away,” Alidoro said.
Selena looked at him.
For the first time, she saw nothing attractive.
Nothing charming.
Nothing powerful.
Only a weak man standing behind stronger criminals.
“You dated me because of my mother.”
Alidoro smiled.
“At first.”
The words should have hurt.
They didn't.
“And later?”
“You became useful.”
There it was.
The final cruelty.
Selena nodded calmly.
“Thank you.”
He frowned.
“For what?”
“For making this easy.”
She held up her phone.
Recording.
Alidoro lunged.
Dempster moved faster.
Chaos exploded.
Brooke kicked the chair backward.
A guard rushed Victor.
Alidoro grabbed Selena.
For one terrifying second, his arm locked around her throat.
“You ruin everything,” he hissed.
Old Selena might have frozen.
The woman he trained to doubt herself.
The woman who apologized for taking space.
She was gone.
Selena drove her heel into his foot, threw her weight backward and broke his balance.
Dempster pulled him away.
He could have killed him.
Selena saw it.
“Dempster.”
One word.
He stopped.
Alidoro stared up at him.
Dempster released him to security.
Because Selena asked.
Brooke was freed.
Victor escaped through a rear loading bay.
But Alidoro was captured.
In his pocket they found a flash drive.
Back at the mansion, Selena opened it.
Records.
Payments.
Threats.
And one audio file.
Victor speaking to Charles Wright.
Marianne has to disappear before Gabriel talks.
Selena closed her eyes.
They had it.
Evidence.
Not enough for everything.
But enough to begin.
Then another file appeared.
Recorded only three days earlier.
Victor’s voice again.
The girl doesn't know Flores married her for the same reason we needed Wright to control her.
Selena froze.
Dempster looked at the screen.
The recording continued.
Because whoever controls Selena controls Meridian.
Selena turned toward Dempster.
“What does that mean?”
Before he answered, the mansion alarm began screaming.
A guard shouted from the hallway.
“Sir, someone opened Gabriel’s vault.”
Dempster drew his weapon.
May you like
The vault door stood open.
And the emerald ring Selena had left upstairs was sitting in the middle of the floor.
