Chapter 6 - Someone Inside the Rossi House
The warehouse was empty.
No Ethan.
No Victor.
No captives.
Only a chair beneath a hanging light and a phone positioned on the floor.
Dominic knew immediately.
“Don’t touch anything.”
Clara stayed beside him.
Rossi security spread through the building.
Arthur checked the adjoining rooms.
At exactly midnight, the phone rang.
Dominic answered on speaker.
Victor Hale’s voice filled the warehouse.
Older than Clara expected.
Calm.
Cultured.
“Dominic.”
“Victor.”
“Still alive.”
“Disappointing you since 2019.”
Victor laughed softly.
“And Clara. Is she there?”
Dominic looked at her.
She stepped toward the phone.
“Where is my brother?”
“So direct.”
“Where?”
“Safe.”
“I want proof.”
A photograph arrived.
Ethan sat in an unfamiliar room holding that day’s newspaper.
No obvious injuries.
Clara exhaled.
“Let him go.”
“I might.”
“What do you want?”
“You.”
Dominic answered.
“No.”
Victor sounded amused.
“She asked, Dominic.”
“She’s my wife.”
Clara immediately looked at him.
Victor laughed.
“Such devotion from a contractual husband.”
Dominic’s face remained still.
Victor continued.
“Did you tell her why you married her?”
“She knows.”
“No. She knows the polite version.”
Clara looked at Dominic.
He frowned.
Victor enjoyed the silence.
“Ask your husband why his people investigated you six months before Ethan’s debt reached fifteen million.”
Clara’s eyes narrowed.
Dominic looked at Arthur.
Arthur’s face changed.
Victor said, “Ah. He doesn’t know either.”
Then the call ended.
Clara stared at Dominic.
“You investigated me?”
“Not that I knew.”
Arthur avoided his gaze.
Dominic’s patience snapped.
“Arthur.”
The older man sighed.
“I ran background checks.”
“Why?”
“Your father left instructions.”
“My father was dead.”
“Standing instructions.”
Clara almost shouted.
“About me?”
Arthur nodded.
“If Clara Hayes ever entered Rossi business circles, I was supposed to investigate quietly.”
“Why?” Dominic demanded.
“I didn’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
Arthur reached inside his coat.
Dominic’s guards moved instinctively.
Arthur raised one hand.
“Relax.”
He removed a small notebook.
Old leather.
“Your father gave me this shortly before he died. I never understood several pages.”
Dominic opened it.
Most entries contained dates and coded financial notes.
Then Clara saw her surname.
HAYES.
Below it:
The girl must never be used against him.
Clara looked up.
“Against Dominic?”
Arthur nodded.
Dominic read further.
Another line.
Victor knows who saved D. If he ever returns, protect C.H.
Dominic’s face hardened.
“My father knew Victor survived?”
“Apparently.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I believed Victor was dead. Your father’s mind was deteriorating near the end.”
Dominic looked ready to explode.
Clara interrupted.
“Later.”
He turned.
“Excuse me?”
“You can fight with Arthur later. Ethan is still missing.”
Dominic inhaled slowly.
She was right.
He hated that she was right.
They returned to the mansion before dawn.
Security doubled.
Every employee was questioned.
Phone records were reviewed.
Cameras checked.
By noon, they discovered something disturbing.
Someone inside the Rossi household had accessed Dominic’s private schedule two days before the dock ambush.
Only six people had authorization.
Dominic.
Arthur.
His security chief Marco Bellini.
His assistant Rebecca Sloan.
The estate manager.
And Clara.
Dominic read the report.
Clara noticed his expression.
“What?”
He handed it over.
She read.
Then laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
“No one is accusing you.”
“Not yet.”
“I’m telling you now. I don’t believe it was you.”
“Why?”
Dominic stared at her.
“Because seven years ago, you saved my life when you had nothing to gain.”
“That is not evidence.”
“It is to me.”
Clara looked away.
She had spent months believing Dominic viewed everyone as a transaction.
Yet he trusted her on something objectively suspicious without hesitation.
It unsettled her.
Marco entered.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We traced the access.”
Dominic straightened.
“Which account?”
“Yours.”
Dominic stared.
“Impossible.”
“Credentials were copied.”
“From where?”
Marco hesitated.
“The mansion.”
“Time?”
“Three seventeen in the morning.”
Clara remembered.
“That was the night of the charity gala.”
Dominic nodded.
They had returned around two thirty.
Dozens of staff had still been awake.
Clara remembered a maid in the hallway.
Rebecca collecting documents.
Arthur taking a phone call.
Marco checking security.
Too many possibilities.
Then she remembered something else.
“A man came upstairs.”
Dominic looked at her.
“What man?”
“I assumed he was security. Tall. Dark hair. He carried a folder.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“No.”
Marco immediately contacted the camera room.
Ten minutes later, footage appeared.
A man in a black suit entered the mansion through the catering entrance.
His face remained turned from cameras almost constantly.
Professional.
But one frame captured him looking sideways.
Arthur went pale.
Dominic noticed.
“You know him.”
Arthur whispered the name.
“Michael Trent.”
“Who?”
“Victor Hale’s former security chief.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“We were told he died with Victor.”
“Apparently neither of them has been especially committed to staying dead.”
Clara studied the footage.
Michael walked directly toward Dominic’s private office.
Meaning someone had given him instructions.
Possibly access.
Possibly help.
“Someone inside let him in.”
“Yes,” Dominic said.
The house suddenly felt less safe.
They had spent days worrying about an enemy outside.
Victor already had someone inside.
That evening, Dominic insisted Clara move into the bedroom beside his.
She argued.
He refused.
“You can hate me tomorrow.”
“You’re becoming repetitive.”
“Good.”
“I don’t need twenty men outside my room.”
“You have eight.”
“That’s not better.”
Dominic paused at her doorway.
“I know this marriage wasn’t your choice.”
Clara folded her arms.
“That’s an understatement.”
“But keeping you alive is mine.”
For once, she had no answer.
Dominic turned away.
“Dominic.”
He stopped.
“What?”
“Thank you for believing I didn’t leak your schedule.”
He looked back.
“I never considered it.”
That meant more than she wanted it to.
At 2:07 a.m., Clara woke to glass breaking.
The alarm sounded.
Security voices filled the hall.
She opened her door.
Dominic appeared instantly.
“Inside.”
“What happened?”
“Stay inside.”
Then smoke rolled from the far end of the corridor.
Not fire.
A distraction.
Dominic pulled Clara behind him.
Marco shouted from downstairs.
“Perimeter breach!”
Arthur appeared with two guards.
The lights went out.
Emergency lighting flickered red.
In the confusion, someone grabbed Clara from behind.
She screamed.
Dominic spun.
A masked man pulled her toward the service stairwell.
Dominic lunged.
The attacker released Clara and fled.
Dominic caught her before she fell.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
His hands moved over her shoulders checking anyway.
Then Clara saw something on the floor.
A folded piece of paper.
She picked it up.
Dominic opened it.
A handwritten message.
You saved him once.
Below that:
Next time, choose differently.
Dominic stared at the words.
Someone had entered his home.
Reached Clara.
And escaped.
But beneath the threat was something even more revealing.
Victor did not simply want revenge.
He believed Clara’s decision seven years ago had destroyed his entire future.
May you like
And now he intended to make her pay for saving Dominic Rossi.
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