Chapter 5 - The Midpoint Shift
The silence in the private dining room grew heavy enough to suffocate us. Sophie had finally grown quiet, resting her head exhaustedly against my shoulder, her breathing slow and even as she drifted off to sleep against the nightmare of our reality.
"So that's it," I said, my voice flat, drained of all fight. "You want me to hand over the key—whatever it is—so you can settle a score with your old partner, and you're using my daughter as bait to make sure I cooperate."
Dominic looked up from the vellum paper, his dark eyes flashing with sudden, sharp offense.
"If I wanted to use you as bait, Claire, I would have handed you over to Vance the second he sent that photograph," he said, his voice dropping into a harsh, intense register. "You think I brought you into this house to exploit you? Look around. You're standing in the safest square mile in Cook County. Vance wants that ledger because it's his ticket out of the country. But he wants you because he thinks your father told you where the physical book is hidden before he died."
"And did he?" I challenged bitterly. "Did my father tell me?"
Dominic stared at me for a long, agonizing moment. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly, measuring out the seconds of our lives.
"No," Dominic admitted quietly. "I don't think he did. Because Thomas Bennett knew that if you carried that secret, you wouldn't survive a week in this city. He left the ledger hidden somewhere safe, and he left the key buried inside a childish memory, hoping that if you ever needed to pull yourself out of the gutter, you'd find it on your own terms."
I looked down at Sophie's peaceful face. For six weeks, I had broken my back cleaning floors in this sprawling mansion, believing my life was defined by failure, poverty, and the crushing weight of being alone. Now I learned that my entire existence was built on the foundation of a massive, stolen secret—a secret that had just put a target on my daughter's back.
"Midnight," I whispered, looking back up at him. "The address on that paper. What happens if we don't go?"
"Vance finds us," Dominic said simply. "He has spotters all over the city. A fortress like this keeps out assassins, but it doesn't stop an information leak. If we stay here, he starts picking off everyone connected to you—your neighbors, your former coworkers, anyone who ever spoke to you."
"And if we do go?"
Dominic walked over to the mahogany sideboard, unlocked a small hidden drawer, and pulled out a sleek, matte-black firearm, checking the chamber with a crisp, practiced click before sliding it into a concealed holster beneath his arm.
"Then we end this," Dominic said, his voice devoid of fear. "Once and for all."
"I'm coming with you," I said.
Dominic stopped cold. He turned around, his expression darkening into a scowl. "Absolutely not. You and Sophie stay here in the panic room. It's impregnable."
"No," I said, stepping forward, shifting Sophie carefully into my other arm. The fear that had paralyzed me ten minutes ago had curdled into something cold, heavy, and unbreakable. "You said it yourself—this is my father's ledger, my family's ghost, and my daughter's life on the line. You think I'm going to sit in a dark concrete box while two warring criminals decide my future? If Vance wants the key, he has to talk to me. Because I'm the only one who knows the rest of that lullaby."
Dominic stared at me, the hard lines of his face tightening. For a second, I thought he was going to order his guards to lock me away by force.
Instead, a slow, grim realization settled into his features—a look of profound respect mixed with absolute dread.
"Fine," Dominic said, reaching into his pocket and tossing a heavy steel key onto the table beside the ledger. "We leave in two hours. But before we walk out those doors, Claire... there's something you need to know about your father's death certificate."
May you like
My breath caught. "What?"
"It wasn't your father who died in St. Louis eleven years ago," Dominic said quietly. "It was your mother."
