Chapter 10 - For the first time, Dominic understood the scale of the deception.They were not simply being watched.
They were being manipulated.
Every photograph.
Every document.
Every piece of evidence.
Could have been planted.
Could have been altered.
Could have been designed to push one person against another.
Vincent shut down the surveillance room.
“Whoever built this knows the estate better than I do.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Then we're going underground.”
They moved through the oldest section of the property.
Behind the wine cellar was a concrete staircase that descended farther than the original plans showed.
At the bottom was a steel door.
No keypad.
Just a physical lock.
Ellie stepped forward.
“Daddy used that.”
Clare grabbed her hand.
“Ellie, stay with me.”
Ellie stared at the lock.
“He said never open it.”
Dominic crouched.
“Why?”
“Because bad people sleep inside.”
Nobody laughed.
Vincent opened the door.
Inside were rows of medical cabinets.
Files.
Equipment.
Old photographs.
And one bed.
Empty.
Dominic stepped closer.
There were restraints attached to it.
Mercer looked at them.
“These are hospital restraints.”
“Why would my father have a medical facility under the estate?”
Adrian looked around.
“He wasn't treating patients.”
Dominic turned.
“What then?”
Adrian pointed to the wall.
“Experiments.”
A file fell from a shelf.
Dominic picked it up.
The cover read:
SUCCESSION CONDITION: V-17
Inside were medical projections.
Not for Dominic.
For his entire family.
Every person had a calculated vulnerability.
Adrian.
Dominic.
Their father.
And Ellie.
Dominic stopped at her name.
SUBJECT: ELLIE ROWAN.
Under it:
Psychological leverage potential: EXTREME.
Clare whispered:
“They knew about her.”
Adrian looked sick.
“Before she was born.”
Dominic closed the file.
“Who wrote this?”
Adrian pointed to the final page.
The signature was unmistakable.
Their father's.
But beneath it was another signature.
A current signature.
One Dominic recognized.
Dr. Samuel Mercer.
Mercer stepped backward.
“No.”
Dominic turned.
“Explain.”
Mercer shook his head.
“I never signed this.”
Dominic walked toward him.
“That's what Reed said.”
Mercer stared at the page.
Then his face changed.
“I know this.”
“From where?”
“I saw it fifteen years ago.”
Adrian whispered:
“Where?”
Mercer swallowed.
“At the Vale Foundation.”
Dominic frowned.
“My father had a charity.”
“Not exactly.”
Mercer lowered his voice.
“It was a research foundation.”
“What did it research?”
Mercer looked at Ellie.
“Behavioral conditioning.”
The room went silent.
Dominic felt his stomach tighten.
“You're saying my father experimented on people?”
“Not publicly.”
“Who?”
“Employees. Prisoners. People connected to the organization.”
Adrian spoke softly.
“And children?”
Mercer didn't answer.
That was enough.
Dominic looked at Clare.
She held Ellie tightly.
Then something moved behind the glass wall.
A shadow.
Vincent raised his weapon.
“Show yourself.”
Nothing.
Then the speaker crackled.
A man's voice.
“Dominic.”
Dominic recognized it.
His father's voice.
Impossible.
A recording began.
“Everything you think happened was necessary.”
Dominic stared at the speaker.
“You're dead.”
The recording continued.
“I knew you would distrust Adrian.”
“I knew Arthur would become ambitious.”
“I knew Daniel would eventually rebel.”
“And I knew someone would come looking for the ledger.”
Adrian stared at the speaker.
“Our father planned his own succession.”
Dominic whispered:
“Where is the ledger?”
The recording answered.
“Where the family sleeps.”
Then the speaker died.
Vincent looked at Dominic.
“The family crypt.”
Dominic realized what that meant.
They raced toward the old chapel.
The crypt had been sealed for twelve years.
Inside, beneath their father's tomb, they found a steel box.
Dominic opened it.
The ledger was there.
Hundreds of names.
Payments.
Deals.
Murders.
Government contacts.
Judges.
Police officers.
Businessmen.
Council members.
Everything.
Arthur's name appeared.
So did Elliot Crane's.
So did Gideon's.
Then Dominic reached the final page.
His own name was there.
Not as a recipient.
As a target.
Under it was a single sentence:
THE HEIR MUST BE BROKEN BEFORE THE TRUTH IS REVEALED.
Dominic stared.
Adrian walked closer.
“Who wrote that?”
Dominic slowly turned the page.
At the bottom was a date.
The date was twenty years earlier.
He looked at Adrian.
“Our father knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That one day someone would try to destroy me.”
Adrian looked at the page.
Then whispered:
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because he wrote the sentence twenty years ago.”
Dominic stared.
Twenty years.
Long before the crash.
Long before Daniel.
Long before Arthur.
Before Ellie was born.
Before any of this had happened.
Adrian's face went pale.
“This was never about you.”
Dominic looked toward the chapel door.
“What do you mean?”
Adrian answered:
“It was about the person who would come after you.”
Dominic turned.
Ellie stood at the doorway.
May you like
Holding the wooden latch.
And behind her stood Arthur Voss.
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