Chapter 5 - The Man Who Stole Three Years
Dr. Malcolm Voss tried to leave the city before sunrise.
He didn’t make it.
Rachel’s investigators found him at a private airfield forty miles north, carrying two passports and enough cash to prove that innocent men sometimes pack very strangely.
By noon, lawyers were involved.
Then police.
Then federal investigators.
When money crosses enough borders, authorities become remarkably interested.
Victor Strand disappeared.
That was worse.
A guilty doctor could talk.
A frightened Victor could act.
Dominic moved Marcus and me out of my apartment that evening.
I protested.
“I’m not moving into your house.”
He typed.
“You’re not.”
“Then where?”
He showed me an address.
A townhouse owned by one of his companies.
Security on both ends of the street.
Temporary.
I crossed my arms.
“I don’t want charity.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
He typed.
“It isn’t.”
“What is it?”
“Security.”
That was difficult to argue with.
Then he added:
“You can deduct the rent from your paycheck if that makes you stubbornly happy.”
I stared.
He raised one eyebrow.
I laughed despite myself.
“Fine.”
Marcus announced, “New house!”
Apparently negotiations were complete.
Two days later, Dr. Voss talked.
Not because he suddenly discovered morality.
Because prosecutors discovered his bank records.
The truth came in pieces.
Four years earlier, Dominic had been considering restructuring his companies.
Several senior managers would lose access to accounts, contracts, and private security operations.
Victor Strand stood to lose millions.
He needed leverage.
He also needed Dominic weakened.
Not dead.
A dead billionaire brings lawyers, heirs, boards, police.
A damaged billionaire can be managed.
Voss had developed an experimental conductive monitoring device meant to sit near the middle ear during temporary testing.
It was never approved for long-term implantation.
Victor paid him to place a modified fragment during a minor procedure Dominic underwent months before the explosion.
The device caused inflammation.
Vertigo.
Increasing hearing distortion.
Then came the warehouse explosion.
The blast severely damaged Dominic’s left auditory nerve.
His right side, however, might have remained functional.
Except the foreign object and untreated infection worsened the injury.
Voss falsified the prognosis.
Victor controlled access.
Dominic adapted to silence.
And the world moved on.
“How much can be recovered?” I asked the independent surgeon.
Dr. Lena Park looked toward Dominic.
“Possibly nothing.”
My heart sank.
She continued.
“Possibly limited hearing in the right ear. Speech discrimination may remain difficult. We won’t know until we remove the fragment and assess the tissue.”
Dominic read her lips.
No reaction.
Dr. Park continued.
“This is not a miracle procedure.”
Dominic typed.
“I don’t need a miracle.”
He glanced at Marcus.
“Only the truth.”
That night, I found him alone in the conservatory.
The same room where everything had started.
He stood by the windows.
I approached.
“You’re scared.”
He looked at me.
Then typed.
“You say that often.”
“Because you keep pretending you aren’t.”
He put the tablet down.
For a moment, I thought he would end the conversation.
Instead, he signed slowly.
I am.
I understood only because he had taught me the sign the previous day.
I sat beside him.
“What if nothing changes?”
He looked toward the dark garden.
Then signed something I didn’t understand.
He picked up the tablet.
“Then nothing changes.”
“That’s not true.”
He looked at me.
“You know the truth now.”
His expression tightened.
I continued.
“You spent three years believing something was permanently taken from you because people you trusted lied.”
He looked away.
“That matters even if the surgery fails.”
Dominic studied me.
Then typed.
“Evan tried to warn me.”
“Yes.”
“He saved me.”
“Yes.”
“And disappeared.”
I swallowed.
“Yes.”
The question still haunted me.
Where was Evan?
Voss provided that answer the following morning.
Evan had discovered payments between Victor and Voss.
He copied records.
Victor discovered him.
On the night of the explosion, Evan arranged to meet Dominic privately at the warehouse.
He intended to expose everything.
Someone triggered the blast first.
Evan pulled Dominic into the stairwell.
Then returned toward the security office to retrieve the original evidence.
He was never seen again.
“Did Victor kill him?” I asked.
Voss shook his head during the recorded interview.
“I don’t know.”
That wasn’t enough.
Rachel kept digging.
At three that afternoon, she found a hospital intake record in another state.
Unknown male.
Smoke inhalation.
Severe burns to one arm.
Head injury.
Admitted three years earlier.
Left before identification.
A photograph was attached.
I looked at the grainy image.
Evan.
Older.
Bandaged.
Alive.
At least two days after the explosion.
My knees weakened.
“He survived.”
Dominic steadied my arm.
I looked at him.
“He survived and never came back.”
Pain and anger collided.
Dominic typed.
“Or couldn’t.”
I wanted to believe that.
I also wanted to hate Evan.
Both were easier than uncertainty.
Rachel continued searching.
By evening she uncovered a trail.
Nevada.
Arizona.
Mexico.
Then nothing.
Evan had apparently spent months moving.
Running from someone.
Or toward someone.
The final file appeared on an abandoned cloud account linked to the memory card.
A scheduled message.
Never sent.
Addressed to me.
Elena,
If you ever see this, I failed to come home.
I need you to understand one thing before you hate me.
I didn’t leave because of Marcus.
I left because I found something that could get both of you killed.
I thought I could fix it before he was born.
I was wrong.
Keep the dog.
Inside it is enough to prove what they did to Cray.
If anything happens to me, give it to someone who can reach him.
I stared until the words blurred.
Marcus sat beside me coloring.
He had grown up hugging evidence his father had died—or vanished—trying to protect.
I covered my mouth.
Dominic touched my shoulder.
I turned.
For three years, anger at Evan had kept me standing.
Now grief came rushing into the space anger left behind.
“I told Marcus his father left.”
Dominic looked at me.
“I made him into a coward because that was easier than telling him I didn’t know.”
My voice broke.
Dominic didn’t type.
He simply sat beside me.
Close.
Not touching.
Waiting.
I leaned against him.
Only slightly.
He stayed.
That was enough.
Then Rachel entered.
Her face was pale.
“We found Victor.”
I straightened.
“Where?”
“He’s been watching the townhouse.”
Dominic’s expression became ice.
Rachel continued.
“And we intercepted a message sent from his phone twenty minutes ago.”
She placed the screen on the table.
A single line.
Tomorrow night. During the foundation gala. Get Cray alone.
I looked at Dominic.
“The gala is here.”
He nodded.
“Cancel it.”
Dominic typed.
“No.”
“Dominic.”
Another message appeared.
“If Victor believes he still has a plan, he will come.”
I understood.
“You want to trap him.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Dominic’s eyebrows rose.
“I’m serious.”
So was he.
I pointed at Marcus.
“You said we were in danger.”
Dominic typed.
“You won’t be here.”
My heart sank for a reason I didn’t expect.
“What?”
“You and Marcus leave tonight.”
I stood.
“So that’s it?”
His expression shifted.
“That’s what you wanted from the beginning, isn’t it? Protect us by sending us away?”
He typed.
“Yes.
I shook my head.
“You don’t get to decide everything because you’re afraid.”
His jaw tightened.
I continued.
“Evan decided for me. He kept secrets because he thought he was protecting me. Look how that ended.”
Dominic stared.
“Don’t do the same thing.”
Silence.
Then Marcus walked over carrying his stuffed dog.
He climbed onto the sofa between us.
“Dom sad?”
Dominic looked at him.
Marcus touched Dominic’s cheek.
“Don’t sad.”
The hardest man I had ever met closed his eyes.
Just for one second.
Then Marcus reached into his pocket.
Pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“Mr. Victor gave me.”
My blood turned cold.
“When?”
Marcus shrugged.
“Big party.”
The first night.
I unfolded it.
Inside was a handwritten number.
And four words.
ASK YOUR FATHER ABOUT PRAGUE.
Dominic stared at the note.
I looked at him.
“You said Prague was only a rumor.”
His face told me it wasn’t.
And suddenly the conspiracy was larger than Victor.
Because Dominic had been in Prague.
Evan had been there too.
May you like
And someone had spent three years making sure neither of them could tell anyone what happened.
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