Chapter 5 - CLARA'S MOTHERClara called her mother seventeen times.
No answer.
By the eighteenth, panic had swallowed every rational thought.
“She's always awake early,” Clara said. “Tyler's medication schedule starts at six.”
Dominic was already moving.
“Car.”
Agent Carter blocked him.
“You're under investigation.”
“My employee's mother may be in danger.”
“You don't leave without an escort.”
“Then escort me.”
Twenty minutes later, three black SUVs tore down Lake Shore Drive toward Cicero.
Clara sat beside Dominic gripping her phone.
Noah remained at the estate with a federal child specialist and two guards Dominic trusted with his life.
Clara hated leaving him.
But this was her mother.
Her family.
When they reached the apartment building, the front door stood open.
Clara ran upstairs.
“Mom!”
The apartment had been destroyed.
Cabinets emptied.
Couch cushions cut open.
Drawers overturned.
Tyler's medication scattered across the floor.
“Mom!”
A sound came from the bathroom.
Clara rushed in.
Maria Reed lay unconscious beside the bathtub.
Blood stained her hair.
“Mom!”
She dropped to her knees.
Dominic checked Maria's pulse.
“She's alive.”
Paramedics were called.
Clara held her mother's hand until Maria's eyes fluttered open.
“Clara?”
“I’m here.”
Maria panicked.
“Tyler.”
Clara looked around.
Her heart stopped.
“Where is he?”
Maria began crying.
“They took him.”
Everything inside Clara went silent.
“Who?”
“Two men.”
“When?”
“Maybe an hour ago.”
“Why?”
Maria's eyes found Dominic.
Recognition crossed her face.
Then fear.
“You.”
Dominic stared.
“You know me?”
“I know your name.”
Clara gripped her mother's hand.
“Mom, what is happening?”
Maria closed her eyes.
“I hoped this would never find you.”
“What?”
“Elena Vale.”
Clara's stomach twisted.
“You knew her.”
Maria nodded.
“I was her nurse.”
Twenty-three years earlier, before Clara was born, Maria had worked for a private medical service treating wealthy families.
Elena came into her life much later.
After Noah's birth, Maria had occasionally provided overnight postpartum care.
She became Elena's confidante.
“Elena was terrified,” Maria whispered from the ambulance stretcher. “Not of Dominic. Of people around him.”
Dominic stood nearby, face unreadable.
“She found financial records,” Maria continued. “Marcus Sloan and Victor Shaw were using Vale businesses to wash money. Helen Hargrove helped them access accounts.”
“Why didn't Elena tell me?” Dominic asked.
“She tried.”
Maria looked at him.
“You were at war with another family. Every time she tried to speak, someone interrupted. Someone watched.”
Dominic's face hardened.
“She called the FBI.”
“Yes.”
“What happened the night she died?”
Maria began shaking.
“I was there.”
Clara stared at her mother.
“What?”
“Elena asked me to meet her near the rose garden. She planned to leave with Noah until federal protection could be arranged.”
Dominic looked devastated.
“She was taking my son.”
“She was protecting him.”
“From whom?”
“Victor.”
Maria swallowed.
“He discovered what she knew.”
Clara's fingers turned cold.
“What did you see?”
“Hargrove brought Elena outside. Marcus arrived. Then Victor.”
Maria's voice broke.
“They argued. Elena said she had copies. Victor struck her. She tried to run.”
Dominic's eyes went dead.
“And Noah?”
“He was in the greenhouse.”
Clara covered her mouth.
The child had seen everything.
“He saw them hurt her,” Maria whispered. “Elena ordered me to take Noah. But before I reached him, gunfire started near the road. Victor's men staged the ambush.”
“Why didn't you go to police?”
“I did.”
Agent Carter leaned forward.
“What happened?”
“A detective told me to disappear if I wanted my children alive.”
Carter's face tightened.
“Name?”
“Frank Delaney.”
Carter cursed under her breath.
Former Chicago detective.
Retired eighteen months ago.
Currently a private security consultant.
For Victor Shaw.
Dominic turned away.
His fists clenched.
Maria grabbed Clara's wrist.
“I moved apartments. Changed jobs. Never spoke of the Vale family again.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I thought silence kept you safe.”
Clara's eyes filled.
“And now Tyler is gone.”
Maria began sobbing.
Dominic stepped closer.
“They took him because of me.”
Clara looked at him.
“No. They took him because they're afraid.”
His expression hardened.
“I'll bring him back.”
“You don't even know where he is.”
“I will.”
There was something in his voice that made even Agent Carter stop speaking.
Dominic Vale had spent years using fear as currency.
Now someone had stolen a sick nineteen-year-old boy who needed medication every six hours.
They had made the mistake of giving Dominic something personal to destroy them over.
By afternoon, every contact he had in Chicago was searching.
Warehouses.
Hotels.
Safe houses.
Private hangars.
Cameras.
License plates.
Phones.
Agent Carter objected to half his methods and quietly accepted the results.
At 3:17 p.m., a number called Clara.
Unknown.
She answered.
“Hello?”
Tyler's voice came through.
Weak.
“Clara?”
She nearly collapsed.
“Tyler! Where are you?”
A man's voice replaced his.
Victor Shaw.
Smooth.
Educated.
Old enough to sound trustworthy.
“Miss Reed.”
Clara's hands shook.
Dominic motioned for her to keep him talking.
“What do you want?”
“The flash drive Elena left.”
“What flash drive?”
Victor laughed.
“You're a poor liar.”
“Give me my brother.”
“Bring the drive to Pier Thirty-Nine at midnight.”
Dominic shook his head.
Clara ignored him.
“If I do, Tyler walks away?”
“If you do, he receives his heart medication.”
Her face went white.
Victor continued.
“Otherwise, his little medical problem becomes God's decision.”
The call ended.
Clara looked at Dominic.
“I’m going.”
“No.”
“He'll die.”
“Victor will kill you too.”
“I don't care.”
“I do.”
The room went still.
Clara looked at him.
Dominic seemed to realize what he had said.
His expression closed.
“We do this intelligently.”
Agent Carter stepped forward.
“We set a controlled exchange.”
Dominic laughed without humor.
“Victor has bought police before.”
“He hasn't bought me.”
“Yet.”
Carter's eyes hardened.
By midnight, rain fell over the Chicago River.
Clara walked alone toward the pier carrying a duplicate flash drive.
A wire was taped beneath her shirt.
Dominic watched from an SUV several hundred feet away.
Agent Carter's team surrounded the area.
Everything should have been controlled.
Then Clara saw Tyler.
He sat tied to a chair near a warehouse entrance.
Pale.
Sweating.
Victor stood behind him.
Late sixties.
Silver hair.
Tailored overcoat.
He looked like someone's grandfather.
“Bring it here.”
Clara walked forward.
“Release him first.”
Victor smiled.
“You have courage.”
“You kidnapped a sick teenager. Don't flatter yourself.”
His smile disappeared.
Dominic heard every word through the wire.
Victor motioned.
A man cut Tyler's ropes.
Tyler stumbled toward Clara.
She caught him.
“Medication?”
Victor tossed a bottle onto the concrete.
Clara bent to pick it up.
That was when Victor looked directly toward Dominic's hidden SUV.
And smiled.
“Now.”
An explosion tore through the parking area.
Dominic's vehicle flipped onto its side.
Clara screamed.
Gunfire erupted.
Federal agents moved.
Tyler collapsed.
Victor grabbed Clara by the hair and dragged her backward.
“You thought I didn't know about the wire?”
She fought.
He tore it from her shirt.
Then whispered into her ear:
“Dominic Vale's greatest weakness used to be his wife.”
He looked toward the burning vehicle.
“Now it's you.”
A gunshot cracked.
Victor jerked.
Blood spread across his shoulder.
Dominic emerged from the smoke.
His face was cut.
His suit burned at one sleeve.
But his gun remained steady.
“Take your hands off her.”
Victor laughed.
“You're just like your father.”
Dominic fired again.
Victor disappeared behind the warehouse door.
Clara dropped beside Tyler.
“Stay with me.”
He gasped.
“My pills.”
She shoved one beneath his tongue.
Dominic reached them.
For one second, he touched Clara's face.
Checking.
Making sure she was real.
Then gunfire thundered from inside.
Victor was escaping.
Dominic looked toward the warehouse.
Then at Clara.
She knew what he wanted to do.
“Go.”
He hesitated.
“Go!” she screamed.
Dominic ran.
He followed Victor through the warehouse and onto the river loading dock.
Victor climbed into a speedboat.
Dominic fired.
Missed.
The boat roared away.
But before Victor disappeared into the darkness, he shouted:
“Ask Clara who her father really was!”
Dominic stopped.
Clara, fifty yards away, heard it too.
Her mother had always said their father was a drunk who abandoned them.
But suddenly Clara remembered the photograph.
Elena.
Victor.
Maria.
May you like
And a question she had never once thought to ask.
Why had her mother been in possession of secrets powerful men were willing to kill for?
