Chapter 16 - Alexander’s Choice
Thirty seconds.
That was what the digital timer inside the lighthouse showed.
Vincent shouted for everyone to move.
Sebastian ran toward a waiting boat below the cliff.
Gabriel started after him.
Elena grabbed her son.
“No!”
Twenty-five seconds.
Alexander pulled me toward the vehicles.
“Run.”
Daniel Cross stumbled behind Vincent.
Nathan had remained at the estate with Marianne.
Julian and Emily were safe.
Twenty seconds.
We would not reach the cars.
Vincent pointed toward an old concrete drainage trench running away from the lighthouse.
“Down!”
We jumped into it.
Alexander landed beside me.
Gabriel covered Elena with his body.
Ten seconds.
Alexander pulled me against his chest.
It should have been terrifying.
Instead one strange thought entered my mind.
I had already once held him while believing he might die.
I refused to do it again.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Nothing happened.
We waited.
No explosion.
Vincent slowly raised his head.
The beeping continued.
Then stopped.
Gabriel laughed.
A broken, disbelieving sound.
“Fake.”
Elena stared toward the water.
Sebastian’s boat disappeared into the fog.
“He wanted us to run.”
Alexander understood.
“From what?”
Vincent ran back into the lighthouse.
Upstairs, the communications equipment was gone.
Sebastian used the fake bomb to clear the building long enough to steal something.
“What was here?” I asked.
Elena closed her eyes.
“My father’s archive.”
“Your father?”
“The Romano family maintained records here before Vittorio moved everything to the estate.”
“What kind?”
“Original corporate documents.”
The partnership papers.
Proof Elena had invested in the company.
Sebastian still needed them.
Not only for control.
For destruction.
If those documents showed Elena’s ownership, they might change trust succession.
Gabriel could legitimately inherit a significant part of Romano Holdings.
Sebastian wanted leverage over Gabriel.
Again.
Alexander looked toward the ocean.
“He’ll take the papers somewhere he can authenticate or destroy them.”
Elena whispered, “The courthouse.”
“What?”
“When Vittorio and I created the first company, our attorney stored notarized duplicates in a private legal vault beneath the old county courthouse.”
Sebastian would compare the lighthouse documents against the originals.
Vincent called federal agents.
Roadblocks went up.
Marinas closed.
But Sebastian never arrived.
Because his boat was found abandoned twenty minutes later.
Inside was Elena’s archive.
Untouched.
No Sebastian.
No originals missing.
“He wanted us to believe this was about the papers,” Alexander said.
“Another distraction.”
From what?
My phone rang.
Rebecca.
Her voice came fast.
“Where are you?”
“Lighthouse.”
“Alexander with you?”
“Yes.”
“Put me on speaker.”
I did.
“Alexander, the hospital called. Someone accessed your medical records fifteen minutes ago.”
“Who?”
“Claire.”
My blood went cold.
“My name?”
“Her credentials.”
“I don’t have hospital credentials.”
“I know.”
The account wasn’t mine.
Someone had created one.
Using my name.
It accessed not Alexander’s treatment records but stored biological samples.
Blood.
Genetic material.
“Why?” I asked.
Rebecca went silent.
Then she said, “They requested emergency transfer of Alexander’s stored blood sample.”
“To where?”
“A private laboratory.”
Vincent traced it.
Owned indirectly by one of Sebastian’s companies.
Alexander understood.
“The trust.”
A beneficiary’s death required DNA verification under certain circumstances.
Sebastian didn’t need Alexander dead.
He needed biological evidence he could manipulate to prove Alexander dead.
The false funeral had been step one.
The blood sample was step two.
If he forged the correct documentation, he could trigger trust succession even while Alexander lived.
But control would still pass through Julian and Gabriel before Sebastian.
Unless…
Julian called.
Panicked.
“Alex.”
“What?”
“Emily and I are at the safe house.”
“Stay there.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Gabriel’s name just appeared on every news outlet.”
I checked my phone.
Breaking headline.
GABRIEL VALE, SECRET ROMANO HEIR, FOUND DEAD.
A body had been discovered in a burned car.
DNA reportedly matched Gabriel.
The real Gabriel stood ten feet from us.
Sebastian was killing heirs on paper.
Alexander already publicly dead.
Gabriel now legally dead.
Only Julian remained.
Alexander called him.
“Do not leave that house.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re next.”
Silence.
Then Julian whispered, “Someone is outside.”
Vincent grabbed the phone.
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
A crash sounded.
Emily screamed.
Alexander’s face transformed.
We ran.
The safe house was forty minutes away.
Vincent drove it in twenty-three.
Federal teams arrived first.
Two attackers were arrested.
Julian was alive.
Emily safe.
But the attackers carried forged documents declaring Julian mentally incapacitated.
Sebastian’s plan became clear.
He didn’t need to kill anyone anymore.
He could erase them legally.
Alexander dead.
Gabriel dead.
Julian incompetent.
Trust transfers to administrator.
Sebastian.
“He’ll file within hours,” Nathan said over the phone.
“Can we stop it?”
“Only if Alexander publicly proves he’s alive.”
That sounded simple.
It wasn’t.
If Alexander reappeared publicly before Sebastian filed, Sebastian might disappear permanently with enough hidden money to rebuild.
Alexander wanted him caught.
So he faced a choice.
Reveal himself and protect the trust.
Or remain dead and lure Sebastian into completing the fraud.
The second option risked everything.
Julian looked at his brother.
“What are you going to do?”
Alexander looked at me.
I realized everyone expected the mafia boss to choose money.
Power.
Empire.
The Romano legacy.
Instead he said, “I’m going public.”
Nathan stared.
“We lose our chance to trap Sebastian.”
“I don’t care.”
“The trust—”
“I don’t care.”
Alexander looked at Julian.
“My brother and his daughter aren’t bait.”
Then at Gabriel.
“Neither is he.”
Finally his eyes met mine.
“And neither is Claire.”
He had spent his life being taught that power came first.
Now, when the choice finally arrived, he chose people.
At 3:00 p.m., Alexander Romano walked into a live press conference.
The room erupted.
A man declared dead less than forty-eight hours earlier stood before cameras.
“My reported death,” he said calmly, “was part of an effort to expose an internal conspiracy.”
Reporters shouted.
Alexander continued.
“I am alive.”
Three words destroyed Sebastian’s trust scheme.
But they also warned him the game was over.
Or so we believed.
Because fifteen minutes later, federal agents called.
Sebastian Vale had walked voluntarily into their Manhattan office.
He surrendered.
No chase.
No negotiation.
No explanation.
And when Alexander entered the interview room, Sebastian smiled.
“I was wondering how long it would take you.”
Alexander sat across from him.
“You surrendered.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sebastian leaned forward.
“Because I was never the person you should have feared most.”
Then he said a name.
One that made Alexander stop breathing.
May you like
“Your father.”
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