Chapter 6 - The Little Girl Who Was Never Supposed to ExistDominic reached the mansion in eleven minutes.
He had never driven so recklessly in his life.
The front doors stood open. A glass vase lay shattered across the marble floor, and the guards who should have protected Ellie were lined against the wall, bruised and furious with themselves.
Margaret stood near the staircase, clutching the stuffed rabbit.
“I was downstairs for less than five minutes,” she said. “I heard a noise. By the time I reached her room, the window was open.”
Dominic looked toward the second-floor landing.
The curtains moved in the cold breeze.
“Did she scream?”
“No.”
“Did anyone see a vehicle?”
“One of the guards saw a delivery van leaving through the west gate. We thought it was authorized.”
Dominic turned toward Marco.
“Find the van.”
“Already tracking it.”
“Then move faster.”
Marco disappeared into the security room.
Dominic entered Ellie's bedroom.
The bed was rumpled. The pancake plate was still on the bedside table. The stuffed rabbit's ribbon had been removed, and a small drawing lay on the floor.
He picked it up.
It showed three stick figures standing beside a red bicycle. One was a little girl. One was a tall man wearing a black suit. The third had long dark hair.
Above them, in uneven letters, Ellie had written:
MOMMY, DADDY, ME.
Dominic stood absolutely still.
There was a time when he had believed family meant blood, loyalty, and obedience. He had treated the world as a board on which people could be moved into useful positions.
Ellie had taught him something different in less than a day.
Family meant saving a pancake for someone.
It meant trusting a stranger enough to ask him to stay.
It meant believing that tomorrow might be better, even after seven years of sleeping in places where nobody wanted you.
Dominic folded the drawing and put it inside his jacket.
Then he noticed a faint scratch on the windowsill.
Someone had left a symbol there: a crescent moon split down the middle.
Beside it was a phone number.
Dominic called it.
A man's voice answered immediately.
“You're late.”
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
“If you hurt her, I'll tear this city apart looking for you.”
“That's what everyone says when they discover they care about something.”
Dominic recognized the voice.
Victor.
“Why Ellie?”
“Because she's the only person left who knows the truth.”
“She was a baby when you started this.”
“And Elena made certain she'd grow up knowing just enough to become dangerous.”
Dominic gripped the phone.
“What truth?”
Victor laughed.
“You really didn't read the whole letter, did you?”
Dominic's blood ran cold.
“The ledger.”
“Exactly.”
“The financial records?”
“The records are a small part of it. Ellie possesses the only surviving copy of a recording that proves our father knew what happened at the docks. Elena hid it before she disappeared. She told me the child would lead me to it.”
Dominic glanced at the pendant in his hand.
“Ellie doesn't know anything about your business.”
“Then why does she have the pendant?”
Dominic said nothing.
Victor continued, “Bring me the silver crescent and the contents of the cabinet. Tonight. The waterfront warehouse. If you bring your men, Ellie dies.”
“You'll have to kill me first.”
“That's always been the problem, brother. You believe you're the hero of every story.”
The line went dead.
Dominic stared at the phone.
He had spent seven years hunting Elena's killer, convinced that justice meant finding one man and making him pay.
Now the truth was uglier.
Victor had been manipulating him from the beginning. The warehouse fire, the false funeral, the missing records, the sudden reappearance of Elena, and now Ellie.
It was all connected.
But the most disturbing question remained.
How did Victor know about the pendant?
Dominic looked at Marco, who had returned to the room.
“Tell me what you've found.”
“The van was registered to a shell company. We recovered a partial plate from a traffic camera. It was headed toward the waterfront.”
“Anything else?”
Marco hesitated.
“There's an eyewitness.”
“Bring him in.”
A young security officer entered, pale and visibly shaken.
“I saw the girl, sir,” he said. “She wasn't fighting. She was holding a man's hand.”
“What man?”
The officer swallowed.
“Mr. Evans, it was you.”
Silence filled the room.
Dominic's face hardened.
“Explain.”
“The man who took her looked exactly like you. Same height, same face, same hair. Ellie called him Daddy.”
Dominic slowly lowered his hands.
Victor wasn't hiding behind another man.
He was using Dominic's own face.
And Ellie, who had only just begun to trust someone enough to call him her father, had been taken by the one person who could impersonate him perfectly.
Dominic turned toward the window.
The old waterfront warehouse stood somewhere beyond the glittering skyline, waiting for midnight.
“Prepare the cars,” he ordered.
Marco nodded.
“What are your orders?”
Dominic slipped the silver pendant into his pocket.
“I'm going to bring my niece home.”
May you like
He paused at the doorway.
“And this time, I'm bringing her mother back too.”
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