Chapter 9 - Blood BrothersSilas moved first.
He grabbed Samuel by the collar and pulled him upright, keeping his pistol against the old man's neck.
"Nobody moves."
Vincent aimed at Silas's head.
I raised one hand to stop him.
A bullet fired too early would kill Samuel.
And with him might die the only remaining path to the truth about my father.
"Let him go," I said.
Silas's gaze never left Noah.
"The boy remembers me. That's inconvenient."
Noah stood beside Goliath, shaking so badly that his boots tapped against the concrete floor.
"You hurt my mom," he whispered.
Silas didn't answer.
"You hurt her, didn't you?"
Something in the assassin's face changed, though it vanished almost immediately.
"Noah," I said carefully, "you don't have to explain anything right now."
"But I remember."
His voice rose.
"Mom told me to hide under the desk. She said I had to be quiet. Then the man with the black ring came in, and she started crying."
Silas tightened his grip on Samuel.
"Enough."
Noah flinched.
Goliath lunged.
The dog struck Silas's legs, knocking him sideways. Samuel twisted free and rolled across the platform.
Vincent fired once.
Silas dropped behind a steel support as the bullet smashed into the wall.
I seized Noah and dragged him behind a concrete pillar.
"Stay down!"
Gunfire erupted.
Silas was fast, but my men had the advantage of position. Within seconds, two of his hired guards lay wounded near the loading door.
Silas disappeared through a side passage.
I started after him.
Then I heard Noah cry out.
I turned.
Samuel had fallen against the platform railing. Blood spread across his shirt where a bullet had grazed his ribs.
The boy knelt beside him.
"Grandpa!"
I abandoned the chase.
Vincent covered the exit while I pressed a cloth against Samuel's wound.
"Look at me," I said. "Stay awake."
Samuel grimaced.
"I'm old, not dying."
"Today those are the same thing."
He managed a weak laugh.
Noah clutched his hand.
"I remembered him, Grandpa."
Samuel touched the boy's cheek.
"I know."
"What did he do to Mom?"
The old man's expression tightened.
I answered before he could.
"We're going to find out."
We got Samuel to a private clinic outside the county. His injury was painful but not life-threatening, and the doctor promised he would recover.
Noah refused to leave his bedside.
I waited in the hallway with Vincent.
"Silas escaped," he said.
"Yes."
"He's becoming a problem."
"So is the fact that he knew Noah's memories mattered."
Vincent folded his arms.
"Maybe Adrian told him."
"Or Marcus did."
"Either way, we have enough to go after them."
"No. We have enough to make them nervous. There's a difference."
I took the folded note from my pocket.
The lake remembers everything.
My father had hidden something at the Pennsylvania estate, perhaps the original ledger or evidence of the payments that connected Adrian, Marcus, and the men who had killed Rachel.
We needed it before my brother found it.
Vincent studied the note.
"There's something you should know."
"What?"
"Adrian is holding a press conference tomorrow."
"About what?"
"He plans to announce that you've been missing for several days and that the board has appointed him acting chairman of every Vale company."
I smiled without humor.
"He intends to inherit everything before the body is cold."
"He's telling the press you were struggling with your health. He's also claiming your disappearance may be connected to internal instability."
"That's clever."
"He's trying to make your return look like an act of desperation."
I stared at the clinic window.
My brother wanted the world to believe I was dead because he had spent his entire life standing in my shadow.
Now he wanted to turn my survival into proof that I was too unstable to lead.
I should have been furious.
Instead, I felt disappointed.
Adrian had been the only person in the world who knew what it felt like to grow up beneath our father's expectations. We had buried our mother together, endured our father's brutal lessons, and promised each other that the family would never be divided.
I had kept that promise long after he had forgotten making it.
"Prepare the cars," I told Vincent.
"Where are we going?"
"To see my brother."
He stared at me.
"Personally?"
"Personally."
"That's the stupidest thing you've said all week."
"Then the competition must be getting fierce."
For the first time, he didn't smile.
"Boss, if Adrian sees you alive, he'll panic. He might kill you before we can get close."
"Good."
Vincent frowned.
"Good?"
"Let him panic."
I looked toward Samuel's room, where Noah sat beside his grandfather.
Then I looked at the photograph of my father.
"I want Adrian to understand that the brother he tried to bury is coming home."
That night, while we prepared to leave, an envelope appeared beneath Samuel's hospital room door.
Inside was a single photograph.
Rachel Mercer stood outside the hospital three years earlier, holding Noah in her arms.
A man had been captured in the reflection of the window behind her.
My father.
Alive.
The photograph was dated six months after the police said he had died.
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On the back, someone had written:
YOUR FATHER DIDN'T DIE IN AN ACCIDENT. ASK ADRIAN WHY HE WAS STILL ALIVE.
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