Chapter 9 - The Daughter of a Dead ManThey took me to a house outside Philadelphia.
It stood behind a high stone wall on a road lined with empty fields. No lights shone from the neighboring properties. No cars passed. Even the rain seemed quieter there.
The men searched my pockets and took my phone.
Then they locked me in a room with a chair, a bare bulb, and a narrow window covered by metal bars.
I sat in the chair and forced myself to breathe.
My father was alive.
My mother was missing.
Dominic had walked into a trap because he had promised to protect me.
And Marcus had betrayed us.
I wanted to hate him, but all I could picture was the frightened little girl in the photograph.
A child who had done nothing wrong.
The door opened.
Silas Vale entered wearing a dark suit and my father's gold ring.
He was in his late sixties, with silver hair and a face that might once have been handsome. His smile was polished, his eyes cold.
“Lily Carter,” he said. “You look remarkably like your mother.”
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
“Where is my father?”
“Also safe, for the moment.”
I rose from the chair.
“If you've hurt either of them—”
He laughed softly.
“What will you do? Scratch me with your fingernails?”
I hated that he wasn't afraid of me.
I hated even more that he had every reason not to be.
“Why are you doing this?”
Silas removed his gloves and placed them on the table.
“Because your father stole something that belongs to me.”
“The ledger.”
“Ah, you've been talking to Dominic.”
He studied me with quiet amusement.
“Did he tell you how your father betrayed his own family? How he helped my brother turn against me?”
“You murdered Dominic's father.”
Silas sighed.
“Your generation has such a fondness for dramatic conclusions.”
“Wasn't it murder?”
“It was business.”
I slapped him.
The sound cracked through the room.
For one second, his expression emptied.
Then he caught my wrist.
His fingers tightened until pain shot through my arm.
“Your mother had the same terrible habit of confusing courage with intelligence.”
I tried to pull away.
He leaned closer.
“Let me tell you something about Dominic Vale. He believes himself untouchable because everyone around him fears him. But fear is temporary. Control is permanent.”
He released me.
“Your mother understood that. She chose to disappear instead of fighting me.”
“She chose to protect her daughter.”
Silas's smile faded.
For the first time, I had struck something real.
“You have no idea what she chose.”
He crossed to the window and looked into the dark.
“Your father was supposed to bring me the ledger. Instead, he gave it to you. He thought you were too young to understand what it contained, which made you the perfect hiding place.”
“I don't know where it is.”
“Perhaps not consciously.”
He turned.
“Children remember things adults forget. A song. A smell. A phrase repeated before bedtime. The mind can protect a secret by burying it.”
I thought of the wooden music box.
The song remembers.
Silas saw recognition in my face.
“There it is.”
He smiled.
“Your father taught you something, didn't he?”
I said nothing.
Silas leaned against the table.
“Tell me where the box is, and I'll let your parents live.”
“You expect me to believe you?”
“No. I expect you to understand arithmetic. Three lives are worth one little wooden box.”
He took out his phone and played a video.
My mother sat in a dark room, her hands tied in front of her. She looked exhausted, but alive.
Then the camera moved.
A man sat in a chair across from her.
My father.
He raised his head, and I saw the familiar scar on his chin.
“Lily,” he whispered. “If you're seeing this, I'm sorry.”
The video cut off.
I stared at the blank screen.
Silas put the phone away.
“Midnight tomorrow. The old Vale warehouse. Bring the ledger, or I'll put your parents in the ground.”
He started toward the door.
I forced myself to speak.
“Why are you afraid of Dominic?”
Silas stopped.
“I'm not.”
“Then why don't you kill him?”
He turned slowly.
For several seconds, he looked almost amused.
Then his face hardened.
“Because your mother made one mistake fifteen years ago.”
He leaned toward me.
“She saved Dominic Vale when she should have let him die.”
The door slammed behind him.
I sat frozen in the room.
Not because I believed him.
Because I finally understood the shape of his fear.
Silas didn't merely want the ledger.
He wanted to erase the person who could destroy him.
And that person was Dominic Vale.
A soft scraping sound came from beneath the door.
I looked down.
A folded piece of paper had been pushed into the room.
I unfolded it.
Three words were written in a familiar hand.
May you like
TRUST THE BODYGUARD.
Marcus.
Related Stories
