Chapter 4: The House Turns
For three seconds, no one moved.
Then Dominic’s office erupted.
Griffin shot the nearest speaker. Celeste screamed for the guards. Dominic drove his elbow into one man’s throat and ripped the gun from his hand.
Mara dropped low as the second guard fired.
The bullet shattered Dominic’s desk lamp.
Dominic fired once.
The guard fell.
Mara ran for the office doors, but Celeste grabbed her hair from behind and slammed her against the wall.
“You little insect,” Celeste hissed. “You think you can destroy me?”
Mara’s vision blurred.
Then she remembered her father’s voice.
Respect the knife.
Don’t trust the dress.
Mara drove her elbow back into Celeste’s ribs, grabbed the diamond necklace at Celeste’s throat, and yanked hard.
Celeste crashed into the bookshelves.
The office doors burst open.
But it was not Griffin’s men.
It was the families.
Old men in expensive suits. Women with stone faces. Security chiefs with hands already on their weapons.
They had heard everything.
Behind them stood Captain Armand Leclerc, the same police captain who had buried Raymond Brooks’ murder under lies.
His face was gray.
Dominic stepped into the center of the room, gun lowered.
Griffin pointed at him. “He planned this! He brought the girl in!”
Dominic’s voice was cold. “Yes.”
The room went silent.
Dominic looked at every criminal in that office.
“I brought her in because this family rotted under my father, under Griffin, under men who thought power meant owning every life beneath them.”
Mara stared at him.
Dominic continued.
“The ledger is already with the federal prosecutors.”
Griffin’s face emptied.
Mara understood then.
The flash drive had never been the only copy.
Dominic had made his move before entering the kitchen.
Before saying please.
Before asking for one night with the truth.
Celeste backed toward the window.
“You gave them everything?” she whispered.
Dominic looked at her with no love left in him.
“No,” he said. “You did.”
Police sirens rose below.
Not local police.
Federal.
Griffin lunged for Mara.
Dominic stepped between them.
The gunshot was deafening.
Dominic staggered backward, blood spreading across his white shirt.
Mara screamed his name before she could stop herself.
Griffin tried to fire again.
But Celeste, desperate to escape, shoved him aside and ran.
The second shot hit the glass wall.
May you like
The window cracked like ice.
Then Griffin Vale was tackled to the floor by men who had once feared him.
