Chapter 6 - The Secret Chloe Found
Chloe Bennett had spent three weeks rebuilding her life.
She rented a desk inside a small consulting firm downtown and began working as an independent executive coordinator.
It was quieter.
Safer.
Normal.
She hated it.
Nobody corrected her commas.
Nobody silently placed coffee beside her desk when she forgot lunch.
Nobody terrified an entire conference room merely by removing his watch and setting it on the table.
Most importantly, nobody was Dominic.
She refused to think about that.
At least she tried.
Then David called.
“I found something.”
Chloe closed her laptop.
“What?”
“One final account Vincent used.”
“I thought investigators froze everything.”
“They did.”
David hesitated.
“This one isn’t financial.”
“What is it?”
“Personnel.”
He sent her a file.
Chloe opened it.
Her blood went cold.
Employee records.
Background checks.
Photographs.
Her photograph.
The file had been created eight months before she applied to Russo Holdings.
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
She scrolled.
Her education.
Address.
Family.
Mother.
David.
Everything.
Then a line at the bottom.
Candidate suitable for placement near D. Russo.
Chloe stopped breathing.
“I wasn’t randomly hired.”
“No.”
“Vincent put me there.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I think he knew Adrian gave you something.”
Chloe felt sick.
Her entire career had been engineered.
Every proud moment.
Every promotion.
Every compliment.
Had Vincent arranged all of it?
“Does Dominic know?”
“No.”
“I need to tell him.”
“I agree.”
She grabbed her coat.
Someone knocked.
Chloe froze.
“David?”
“What?”
“Someone’s at my door.”
“Don’t open it.”
Another knock.
Then a voice.
“Chloe?”
She recognized it.
She opened the door.
Adrian stood there.
“Dominic knows.”
Her heart jumped.
“How?”
“Someone sent him a message.”
“Who?”
“That’s the problem.”
Adrian entered.
“We still have a leak.”
Ten minutes later, headlights swept across the windows.
Chloe looked outside.
Black Mercedes.
Her heart betrayed her immediately.
Dominic emerged.
No rain this time.
No midnight panic.
Yet when Chloe opened the door and saw him standing there, the memory returned so vividly she almost forgot how to speak.
“Hi.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Hi.”
Adrian glanced between them.
“This is painful.”
“Leave,” Dominic said.
“Gladly.”
Adrian walked out.
Chloe folded her arms.
“You didn’t need to come personally.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
Dominic entered.
“Because apparently sending someone else isn’t something I’m good at where you’re concerned.”
Chloe looked away.
He placed the personnel file on her table.
“Vincent arranged your interview.”
“Yes.”
“But he didn’t hire you.”
She looked up.
“I did.”
“Dominic—”
“I rejected the recruiter’s first recommendation.”
Chloe blinked.
“What?”
“You weren’t the preferred candidate.”
“Why did you choose me?”
He hesitated.
“During the interview, I deliberately gave you a schedule with two conflicting meetings.”
“I remember.”
“You corrected me.”
“That was my job.”
“No candidate had corrected me in three years.”
Chloe stared.
“You hired me because I told you that you were wrong?”
“Yes.”
“That is incredibly strange.”
“I’m aware.”
A smile tugged at her mouth.
Dominic’s expression softened.
“Vincent got you into the building. You earned everything after that.”
The words hit deeper than Chloe expected.
“Thank you.”
He nodded.
Neither moved.
Then Chloe asked the question she had avoided for weeks.
“Why did you really come that night?”
Dominic’s eyes remained on hers.
“You were afraid.”
“That’s not enough.”
“For me it was.”
“Why?”
He could have lied.
Dominic Russo had built an empire partly because he knew exactly what to say and what never to reveal.
But Chloe had already seen too much.
“I noticed you long before that message.”
She became very still.
“I noticed when you changed coffee brands because the old one gave me headaches. I noticed you stayed late every Thursday because you thought I didn’t know you were fixing the finance department’s mistakes. I noticed you never took the last pastry from meetings.”
Chloe laughed softly.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I know.”
“You notice pastries?”
“I notice you.”
Silence.
Chloe’s eyes lifted.
Dominic stepped closer.
“But you worked for me.”
“Past tense.”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m trying very hard not to make another decision for you.”
Chloe smiled.
“Progress.”
His phone rang.
Leo.
Dominic answered.
His expression changed almost immediately.
“What?”
Chloe’s smile disappeared.
Dominic listened.
Then looked at her.
“David’s missing.”
Chloe’s face went white.
“What?”
“He left his apartment forty minutes ago.”
Adrian rushed back inside.
“Dominic.”
He held up his phone.
A message had arrived from David’s number.
One sentence.
Come to Pier 19. Alone.
Chloe shook her head.
“No.”
Dominic looked at Adrian.
“Trace it.”
“Already trying.”
Chloe grabbed her coat.
Dominic stopped her.
“You’re not coming.”
She stared at him.
“We already had this argument.”
“This is different.”
“It’s my brother.”
“And whoever sent that message wants you involved.”
“Then why send it to you?”
Dominic had no answer.
Adrian did.
“Because Chloe isn’t the target.”
They both looked at him.
Adrian’s face had gone pale.
“Dominic is.”
An hour later, the truth finally emerged.
Pier 19 was empty.
David was found safe at a police station after discovering someone had cloned his phone.
The message was bait.
And the person responsible was not another Russo enemy.
It was Russo Holdings’ former chief security officer, Marcus Hale.
A man Dominic had fired two years earlier.
A man who had helped Vincent access security systems.
A man who blamed Dominic for destroying his career.
But Marcus made one mistake.
He underestimated Chloe.
She recognized the metadata pattern in the cloned messages because she had processed hundreds of company communications.
David traced it.
Federal investigators located Marcus before anyone reached the pier.
By sunrise, the final piece of Vincent’s network was gone.
The war that had haunted the Russo brothers for three years was finally over.
Yet as Chloe stood beside Dominic watching morning light spread across Chicago, another question remained.
“What happens now?” she asked.
Dominic looked at her.
“With the company?”
“With us.”
He became silent.
Chloe waited.
Finally Dominic said, “I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?”
“This.”
He gestured between them.
Chloe smiled faintly.
“Neither do I.”
“I’m good at contracts.”
“I know.”
“Negotiations.”
“Yes.”
“Risk.”
“Obviously.”
“This feels worse.”
She laughed.
Dominic smiled.
A real smile this time.
Then Chloe reached for his hand.
The terrifying Dominic Russo looked down at their joined fingers as though she had handed him something priceless.
“Start small,” she said.
“How small?”
“Dinner.”
“Tonight?”
“Dominic.”
“What?”
“That sounded like a board meeting.”
He sighed.
“Fine.”
He tried again.
“Chloe Bennett, would you have dinner with me tonight?”
She pretended to consider it.
“I’ll check my schedule.”
His eyes narrowed.
She laughed.
“Yes.”
Dominic’s phone buzzed.
He ignored it.
For perhaps the first time in his adult life, Dominic Russo ignored a ringing phone.
But across the city, David was opening one final encrypted file recovered from Vincent’s server.
Inside was a document that made him sit perfectly still.
Because at the top was Dominic’s father’s name.
May you like
And beneath it were three words:
BENNETT FAMILY AGREEMENT.
