Chapter 4 - The Lie That Cost Him Two Years
When the lights returned, Marcus was gone.
So was the folder containing the payment records.
Dominic did not shout.
That terrified Ethan more than rage would have.
Dominic simply stared at the empty doorway.
“Find him.”
Every exit in the Halcyon building was sealed within four minutes.
Marcus was nowhere inside.
A rear security camera showed a dark sedan leaving the alley during the blackout.
Someone had planned the escape before they arrived.
Emma sat on a crate while a medic checked a small cut on her cheek caused by flying debris.
Dominic watched from across the room.
The sight of blood on her face created a feeling he had not experienced in years.
Helplessness.
Not the physical helplessness of being unable to stand.
Something worse.
The realization that another person could now be used to hurt him.
Emma caught him staring.
“I'm fine.”
Dominic's face hardened.
“You're not coming back to the estate.”
“What?”
“You'll stay somewhere else.”
“Why?”
“Because Marcus knows you matter.”
Emma stared.
“Matter to what?”
Dominic did not answer.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Or to whom?”
“Emma.”
“No. You don't get to order me out of my life every time you're frightened.”
Dominic's expression turned dangerous.
“I am not frightened.”
Emma looked directly at him.
“You are terrified.”
Ethan pretended to become extremely interested in the opposite wall.
Dominic wheeled closer.
“You nearly got shot.”
“So did you.”
“I've been shot before.”
“That isn't the argument you think it is.”
Dominic stared at her.
Emma did not back down.
“I am not leaving my mother. I'm not quitting my jobs. And I'm not disappearing because Marcus Vale might be dangerous.”
“Then you're foolish.”
“Maybe.”
“You could die.”
Emma's eyes softened.
“So could you.”
Something passed between them.
A truth neither had intended to say aloud.
Dominic looked away first.
That afternoon, Emma agreed to temporarily move into a protected guest suite at the Kane estate only after Dominic arranged for Linda to be transferred from Willow Glen to a private neurological facility under discreet security.
Emma hated accepting the help.
Dominic knew it.
“You can pay me back,” he said.
“With what?”
“Work.”
“I already work for you.”
“Then work longer.”
Emma gave him a look.
Dominic almost smiled.
Again.
The estate changed after Emma moved in.
Not dramatically.
Not at first.
She brought a small radio into the laundry room.
Mrs. Caldwell began leaving it on.
Emma convinced the chef to make cinnamon rolls because the smell reminded her of childhood.
Dominic complained.
Then ate two.
She started opening curtains in rooms no one used.
Dominic ordered them closed.
The next day, she opened them again.
“Why do you enjoy irritating me?” he asked.
Emma arranged flowers on a table.
“Because everyone else is scared of you.”
“You should consider joining them.”
“I've tried.”
“And?”
“You're less scary when you complain about cinnamon.”
Dominic glared.
Emma smiled.
Ethan watched from the doorway.
The house was changing.
So was Dominic.
He allowed his sister to visit for dinner.
Then his nephew.
When the boy accidentally bumped the wheelchair, Dominic's entire body stiffened.
Everyone fell silent.
The old wound flashed in his expression.
Then Emma, passing with a tray, said casually, “Careful, kid. He charges by the scratch.”
The nephew laughed nervously.
Dominic looked at Emma.
Then at the boy.
“She's right. Very expensive.”
The room breathed again.
But beneath those small changes, danger moved closer.
Marcus disappeared.
Three safe houses were empty.
Two trusted men vanished with him.
Money had been transferred from accounts Ethan thought no one else knew existed.
Worst of all, Dominic discovered that someone had manipulated parts of his medical records after the shooting.
The discovery came from Dr. Rebecca Shaw, a spinal specialist Ethan brought in from Boston.
Dominic hated her before she entered the room.
“No therapy speeches.”
Rebecca placed a folder down.
“I don't care whether you ever attend therapy again.”
Dominic narrowed his eyes.
“No optimism.”
“I find forced optimism annoying.”
“No miracles.”
“Those are outside my department.”
Emma, standing near the fireplace, whispered, “I like her.”
Dominic ignored her.
Rebecca opened the medical scans.
“I was asked to review your original injury.”
“Why?”
“Because the surgical notes and imaging don't fully match.”
The room became still.
Dominic stared.
“Explain.”
Rebecca pointed to a scan.
“The bullet caused severe damage. That part is real. But there were decisions made during your emergency surgery that are difficult to justify.”
“What decisions?”
“A fragment near the thoracic vertebra was left in place.”
“I was told removing it would kill me.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“Removing it immediately carried risk. But according to the scan, a later procedure should at least have been considered.”
Dominic's voice dropped.
“Considered for what?”
“Potentially reducing compression.”
Emma took a step closer.
“Would he have walked?”
Rebecca's face remained careful.
“I cannot tell you that.”
Dominic looked away.
He hated the question.
Rebecca continued.
“But there is another issue.”
She slid a toxicology report toward Ethan.
“You were heavily sedated for almost five days after surgery.”
“I was in intensive care.”
“The level was unusually high.”
Ethan's expression changed.
“Same drug as Linda Harper?”
Rebecca looked at him.
“How did you know?”
Silence.
Emma's face drained.
She understood instantly.
“You told me my mother's stroke was natural.”
Dominic turned toward her.
“Emma—”
“You knew.”
“I knew there was a sedative.”
“When?”
He did not answer quickly enough.
Emma backed away.
“You knew before we went to Mercer Street.”
“I didn't know what it meant.”
“You hid it.”
“To protect you.”
“Stop saying that.”
Her voice cracked.
Dominic had never heard Emma raise her voice like that.
“You don't protect people by deciding what truth they're allowed to know.”
“Marcus was still inside my house.”
“And my mother might have been poisoned!”
“I needed evidence.”
“You needed control.”
The words struck deeper than she knew.
Dominic's hands tightened on the wheelchair arms.
Emma's eyes filled.
“My mother spent three years forgetting my name.”
“Emma—”
“I thought it was disease. I thought it was something terrible but random. I blamed myself for not noticing sooner. And you knew somebody might have done it to her.”
“I suspected.”
“And you said nothing.”
Dominic looked at her.
“I was afraid if you knew, you'd run toward the danger.”
Emma laughed bitterly.
“And instead you led me straight to Mercer Street.”
He had no answer.
Emma turned and walked out.
Dominic did not follow.
He could not.
The thought came instantly, cruelly.
He could order a guard to stop her.
He could send Ethan.
He could wheel after her.
But he could not run.
He hated himself for even thinking it.
That night Emma stayed beside her mother at the private clinic.
Dominic remained awake until four.
At three thirty, Ethan entered the study.
“You should call her.”
“She doesn't want to hear from me.”
“Probably.”
Dominic glared.
Ethan shrugged.
“You pay me for honesty.”
“I pay you because no one else tolerates me.”
“That too.”
Dominic looked toward the rain outside.
“I lied to her.”
“Yes.”
“I was trying to keep her safe.”
“Yes.”
“She was safer not knowing.”
“No.”
Dominic turned.
Ethan's expression was serious.
“You keep making the same mistake Anthony made.”
Dominic went still.
“What?”
“Your father believed secrecy was protection. He hid everything. From you. From Marcus. From Linda. Look where that got us.”
Dominic looked away.
Ethan left him with that.
The next morning, Emma's phone rang.
She almost ignored it.
Unknown number.
She answered because the clinic had several lines.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a familiar male voice.
“Emma Harper.”
Her blood turned cold.
“Marcus.”
“Good.”
She looked toward the nurse's station.
“Where are you?”
“Close enough.”
Emma stood.
“What do you want?”
“To tell you what Dominic won't.”
Her heart raced.
“What?”
“The bullet wasn't meant to kill him.”
Emma's grip tightened around the phone.
“It was meant to put him in that chair.”
She stopped breathing.
Marcus continued.
“Ask Dominic why his father changed his will six weeks before he died. Ask him why Anthony left a sealed envelope in Linda Harper's name.”
Emma whispered, “What envelope?”
Marcus laughed softly.
“The one Dominic has never seen.”
The line disconnected.
Emma stood motionless.
Then her mother's voice came from behind her.
Weak.
Broken.
But unmistakable.
“Emma.”
She turned.
Linda Harper was awake.
Clear-eyed.
For the first time in months.
Emma rushed to her bedside.
“Mom?”
Linda grabbed her wrist with surprising strength.
Her lips trembled.
“Dominic.”
Emma leaned closer.
“What about Dominic?”
Linda's eyes filled with fear.
“His legs…”
She fought for the words.
Emma's heart pounded.
“What about his legs?”
Linda whispered the truth Marcus had wanted hidden for two years.
May you like
“They were never supposed to stay paralyzed.”
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