PART 2.
“The vote is postponed.”
Arthur Voss’s jaw tightened.
“On what grounds?”
“Mine.”
Dominic Vale stood in front of him, weight resting carefully on the injured leg everyone had been told was failing.
Behind him, four-year-old Ellie Rowan still pointed through the glass.
Directly at Arthur.
And for the first time in fifteen years, Arthur Voss looked afraid.
—
The first thing Dominic did was make everyone surrender their phones.
No arguments.
No calls.
No messages.
No warnings sent beyond the iron gates of the Vale estate.
Vincent Hale personally collected each device and sealed it inside a steel document case from Dominic’s office.
Arthur watched with visible amusement.
“You’ve turned your home into a prison.”
Dominic lowered himself into the leather chair at the head of the conference table.
“No.”
His cane rested beside him.
“A prison is where people are kept after guilt is established.”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed.
“What is this, then?”
“A room where I decide who deserves one.”
The six council members exchanged glances.
Samuel Mercer stood near the wall, pale and uncomfortable.
Clare and Ellie had been moved to a sitting room upstairs with two trusted female staff members.
Dominic had ordered food brought to them and security placed outside the door.
Not because he feared Clare would leave.
Because he feared someone else would reach Ellie.
Vincent entered carrying a laptop.
“We have the recordings.”
“Complete?”
“Mostly.”
Dominic looked up.
“Mostly?”
Vincent turned the screen around.
“Yesterday between two thirteen and two thirty-eight, three cameras in the rehabilitation corridor went offline.”
Arthur leaned back.
“Convenient.”
Dominic ignored him.
“Technical failure?”
Vincent shook his head.
“System says maintenance override.”
“Authorized by?”
“No record.”
Samuel frowned.
“That shouldn’t be possible.”
Vincent gave him a cold look.
“And yet it happened.”
Dominic tapped one finger against the table.
“Show me everything before the blackout.”
Vincent played the footage.
At 2:07 p.m., Clare appeared in the corridor pushing her linen cart.
Ellie walked beside her carrying the wooden latch board.
At 2:09, Clare entered the west guest wing.
Ellie remained in the hall.
At 2:10, a rehabilitation assistant named Angela Pierce passed through.
At 2:11, Ellie wandered toward the open therapy room.
Then—
Arthur Voss appeared at the far end of the corridor.
The room became still.
Arthur watched himself on the screen.
He did not react.
In the recording, he walked toward Ellie, paused, and appeared to speak to her.
Ellie showed him the toy.
Arthur bent down.
Then he continued into the therapy room.
At 2:13, every camera went black.
Vincent stopped the playback.
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Arthur finally smiled.
“Well.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Well?”
“You wanted evidence that I was in the rehabilitation wing.
There it is.”
“You told me yesterday you spent the afternoon downtown.”
“I did.”
“You were here.”
“For ten minutes.”
“Why?”
Arthur shrugged.
“To speak with Samuel.”
Every eye turned toward the doctor.
Mercer blinked.
“With me?”
Arthur looked genuinely surprised.
“Don’t be ridiculous.
You remember.”
“I didn’t see you yesterday.”
Arthur’s smile disappeared.
Dominic leaned forward.
“Interesting.”
Arthur turned toward Mercer.
“You’re lying.”
Mercer’s face flushed.
“I’m not.”
“You met me outside Dominic’s therapy room.”
“No.”
Arthur’s voice sharpened.
“You asked whether Dominic would be strong enough for the council meeting.”
Samuel stared at him.
“I spoke to you about Dominic’s recovery three days ago.
On the telephone.”
Arthur stopped.
Dominic saw it.
Not fear.
Calculation.
Arthur had prepared one version of the story.
Samuel had just destroyed it.
Vincent said, “There’s more.”
He restarted the video from another camera facing the rear courtyard.
At 2:27, while the rehabilitation cameras were still disabled, a man exited through the side entrance.
He wore a maintenance uniform and carried a black medical case.
His face remained hidden beneath a cap.
Arthur glanced at Vincent.
“That could be anyone.”
Vincent paused the frame.
The man wore a distinctive gold watch.
Dominic studied the image.
Then he looked across the table.
Arthur’s left wrist was bare.
Vincent noticed too.
“Where’s your watch?”
Arthur smiled again.
“At home.”
“Which one?”
“You’ve become a jeweler now?”
Vincent stepped toward him.
Dominic lifted one hand.
Vincent stopped.
Dominic said, “Arthur has worn the same Patek almost every day for twelve years.”
Arthur’s expression hardened.
“So?”
“So tonight you aren’t wearing it.”
“I had it serviced.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Where?”
Arthur leaned forward.
“Be careful, Dominic.”
The room changed.
Not because Arthur raised his voice.
Because he no longer sounded like a subordinate.
He sounded like a rival.
“You are already weak,” Arthur continued.
“Your organization is nervous.
Your captains are nervous.
Your partners are nervous.
You cannot drag everyone into paranoia because a child played with your brace.”
Dominic stared at him.
Then smiled.
It was not a pleasant smile.
“Thank you.”
Arthur frowned.
“For what?”
“For finally saying what you came here to say.”
Dominic pushed himself upright.
The pain in his leg had continued easing since Mercer corrected the brace.
He still needed the cane.
But less than an hour earlier, standing had felt like stepping onto broken glass.
Now it felt possible.
That frightened Arthur more than anything else in the room.
Dominic walked around the table.
Slowly.
One step.
Then another.
“You wanted tonight’s vote because you believed I couldn’t walk ten feet.”
Arthur’s mouth tightened.
“You wanted the council frightened.”
Dominic took another step.
“You wanted them watching me limp.”
Another.
“You wanted them imagining what would happen if I collapsed during a negotiation.”
Arthur remained silent.
Dominic stopped beside him.
“But someone made a mistake.”
Arthur looked up.
“A four-year-old girl understands buckles.”
The conference-room door opened.
Everyone turned.
A security guard stood there.
“Mr.
Hale?”
Vincent frowned.
“I said nobody interrupts.”
“It’s Angela Pierce.”
Samuel straightened.
“What about her?”
The guard hesitated.
“She’s missing.”
—
Angela Pierce had left the rehabilitation clinic at 4:46 that afternoon.
According to her supervisor, she had said she was going home.
She never arrived.
Her apartment was empty.
Her car had been found abandoned beneath the Kennedy Expressway.
Keys still inside.
Purse on the passenger seat.
No phone.
No blood.
No Angela.
Vincent received the information through an encrypted security terminal thirty minutes after the lockdown began.
Dominic listened without interrupting.
Arthur did too.
When Vincent finished, Arthur said softly, “Now do you understand?”
Dominic looked at him.
“Explain it to me.”
“Someone wants you suspicious.”
“Of you?”
“Of everyone.”
Arthur stood.
His old confidence had returned.
“This brace may have been sabotaged.
Fine.
But if I wanted to remove you, Dominic, I would not crawl into a therapy room and reverse a metal plate like some mechanic.”
“No?”
“No.”
Arthur stepped closer.
“I would win the vote.”
Dominic’s gaze remained fixed on him.
Arthur lowered his voice.
“And I was going to.”
That was the Arthur Voss Dominic knew.
Proud.
Patient.
Dangerous.
But not foolish.
Dominic turned toward Vincent.
“Search Arthur.”
Arthur’s face went blank.
Two guards entered.
“This is beneath you,” Arthur said.
“Probably.”
Dominic leaned against the table.
“Do it anyway.”
They searched his jacket, pockets, shoes.
Nothing.
Then Vincent examined the inside lining of Arthur’s coat.
His fingers stopped.
“What?”
Vincent pulled free a small plastic object.
A key card.
Samuel stared at it.
“That’s from my clinic.”
Arthur’s expression changed.
He reached for it.
Vincent stepped back.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Mercer approached carefully.
The card carried the clinic emblem and an identification number.
Samuel entered the number into the security system.
A name appeared.
ANGELA PIERCE.
Arthur went completely still.
One council member whispered, “Jesus.”
Arthur’s face flushed.
“This was planted.”
Dominic studied him.
“For once, I believe you.”
Arthur looked up.
Everyone else did too.
Vincent frowned.
“You do?”
Dominic held out his hand.
Vincent gave him the key card.
Dominic examined it.
“If Arthur had Angela’s card, why would he bring it into my house tonight?”
Arthur said nothing.
Dominic continued.
“He knew there might be questions about the clinic.
He knew I would have security around me.
Yet he walked into a closed council meeting carrying the identification card of a missing rehabilitation specialist?”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“Too obvious.”
“Exactly.”
Arthur slowly exhaled.
Dominic looked at him.
“That does not make you innocent.”
“I know.”
“It makes someone else ambitious.”
Arthur’s expression darkened.
“And reckless.”
A sound came from the doorway.
A small click.
Everyone turned.
Ellie stood there.
Clare rushed behind her.
“I’m sorry.
She slipped past me.”
Ellie held the wooden latch toy against her chest.
Vincent stared at the guards outside.
Neither looked pleased with themselves.
Dominic crouched slightly.
“What is it, Ellie?”
She pointed at the key card.
“The man had one.”
Clare froze.
Dominic held the card up.
“You saw this?”
Ellie nodded.
“Yesterday?”
Another nod.
“Arthur had it?”
Ellie looked at Arthur.
Then shook her head.
The room became silent.
Dominic’s attention sharpened.
“Who?”
Ellie turned.
Her eyes moved across the people in the room.
Past Vincent.
Past Samuel.
Past the council members.
Then she pointed toward the doorway.
At no one.
“He went away.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“What man?”
Ellie frowned, trying to remember.
“The one with the funny hand.”
Clare crouched beside her.
“What funny hand, baby?”
Ellie tucked two fingers against her palm.
“Like this.”
Dominic’s face changed.
Vincent saw it immediately.
“You know someone?”
Dominic did.
A man with two missing fingers on his right hand.
Someone who had worked for the Vale family before Vincent Hale ever carried a gun.
Someone Dominic had watched being buried fourteen years earlier.
“Leon Rusk,” Dominic whispered.
Arthur’s chair scraped backward.
“That’s impossible.”
One of the council members crossed himself.
Samuel looked confused.
“Who is Leon Rusk?”
Arthur answered.
“A dead man.”
—
Leon Rusk had been Dominic Vale’s father’s most loyal enforcer.
Loyal, at least, until twenty-two million dollars vanished from a shipping account in 2012.
Leon was accused of stealing it.
Three weeks later, his car exploded outside Gary, Indiana.
Dominic had identified the remains himself.
Or what remained of them.
Two missing fingers.
Gold dental bridge.
A signet ring.
Enough for everyone to believe Leon Rusk was dead.
Dominic had inherited the organization two years later.
He had never spoken Leon’s name again.
Until now.
Vincent opened archived personnel records.
They found photographs.
Dominic called Ellie back into the room despite Clare’s fear.
He placed five photographs on the table.
“Is the man here?”
Ellie climbed onto a chair.
She studied them seriously.
One face.
Then another.
Then her tiny finger touched Leon Rusk.
Older photograph.
Thick neck.
Dark hair.
Cold eyes.
Missing ring and little finger on his right hand.
“That’s him.”
Arthur stepped away from the table.
“No.”
Dominic stared at the photograph.
“Children confuse faces,” Samuel said quietly.
Vincent looked toward him.
“Not usually after seeing them yesterday.”
Mercer swallowed.
Dominic turned to Ellie.
“What did he do?”
“He clicked the leg thing.”
“My brace?”
“Yes.”
“Was I there?”
Ellie shook her head.
Dominic remembered.
Yesterday afternoon he had been upstairs resting after medication.
The brace had remained in the therapy room because Mercer’s staff planned to inspect it before his evening session.
“What else did he do?”
Ellie thought.
“He put something under the table.”
Vincent was moving before she finished.
“Which table?”
Ellie pointed down the hall.
The rehabilitation room.
Dominic felt something cold move through him.
“Everyone stays here.”
Vincent drew his pistol.
Two guards followed.
Samuel started after them.
Dominic grabbed his sleeve.
“No.”
“But if it’s medical—”
“If it’s medical, Vincent will call you.”
He looked through the conference-room glass.
Arthur had gone pale.
Not performatively.
Actually pale.
“You recognize what this means,” Dominic said.
Arthur stared at the old photograph.
“If Leon is alive, someone protected him.”
“Yes.”
“Someone gave him access to your house.”
“Yes.”
“Someone erased cameras.”
“Yes.”
Arthur looked toward the other council members.
“And someone wanted you to think I did it.”
Dominic said nothing.
A minute passed.
Then two.
Then Vincent appeared in the doorway.
His expression was unlike anything Dominic had seen from him in years.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We found something.”
—
Under the therapy table, magnetized beneath the steel support frame, was a thin black device no larger than a deck of cards.
Samuel examined it without touching.
“It isn’t medical.”
Vincent swept the room.
Then the adjoining hallway.
Then Dominic’s private office.
They found another device beneath the office desk.
A third behind the television in the sitting room.
Listening devices.
Professionally installed.
Dominic stared at them in plastic evidence bags.
“How long?”
Vincent examined the battery markings.
“Maybe months.”
Arthur gave a humorless laugh.
“And you thought tonight was about a brace.”
Dominic ignored him.
His mind moved backward.
Private meetings.
Calls.
Negotiations.
Names.
Routes.
Payments.
Everything discussed inside the estate.
Compromised.
Vincent found the fourth device in the conference room itself.
Under Dominic’s chair.
That was when the council stopped whispering.
Someone had not merely entered Dominic Vale’s house.
Someone had lived inside his secrets.
Vincent began checking security-access logs.
There were hundreds of entries.
Staff.
Doctors.
Contractors.
Council members.
Family associates.
Dominic watched silently.
Then a name appeared repeatedly over the previous six months.
Maintenance authorization.
V.H.
Vincent Hale.
Nobody moved.
Vincent stared at the screen.
“That’s impossible.”
Arthur looked at Dominic.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Dominic did not look back.
“Vincent.”
“Yes.”
“Your access code?”
“Yes.”
“Your biometric authorization?”
Vincent shook his head.
“Someone copied it.”
“Can they?”
Samuel said, “With the right equipment.”
Arthur gave a short laugh.
Vincent spun toward him.
“You think this is funny?”
“I think tonight has become educational.”
Vincent stepped forward.
Dominic said one word.
“Enough.”
Vincent stopped.
Dominic approached the laptop.
Every unauthorized camera shutdown.
Every maintenance override.
Every suspicious entry.
Authorized by Vincent’s credentials.
For six months.
Dominic felt something worse than anger.
He felt uncertainty.
Vincent Hale had saved his life twice.
Once in Miami.
Once outside St.
Agnes Hospital.
He had stood beside Dominic’s father before Dominic himself had been old enough to enter council meetings.
There were men Dominic trusted with money.
Men he trusted with information.
Vincent was one of the few he trusted while sleeping.
Arthur watched him.
“Now you understand why trust is dangerous.”
Dominic looked at Vincent.
“Give me your gun.”
Silence.
Vincent stared at him.
Then slowly removed the pistol from his holster.
He placed it on the table.
His backup weapon followed.
Then the knife from his ankle.
Arthur smiled faintly.
Vincent looked directly at Dominic.
“I didn’t do this.”
Dominic believed him.
Which meant absolutely nothing.
“Take him downstairs.”
Two guards approached.
Vincent did not resist.
As he passed Dominic, he whispered, “Don’t trust Mercer.”
Dominic’s eyes moved toward the doctor.
Samuel had heard.
His face turned white.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Vincent was taken away.
The doors closed.
Dominic turned to Mercer.
The doctor lifted both hands.
“I have treated you for seven years.”
“So had the people who inspected my brace.”
“I didn’t sabotage it.”
“Then help me find who did.”
Samuel swallowed.
Dominic held out the device recovered from beneath the therapy table.
“Can this transmit outside the estate?”
Samuel shook his head.
“I wouldn’t know.”
Arthur looked at it.
“But whoever installed it would.”
Dominic’s gaze shifted.
A thought formed.
“Vincent.”
Arthur frowned.
“He’s downstairs.”
“No.”
Dominic looked at the devices.
“If these are transmitting, someone may be listening now.”
Arthur understood.
“We feed them something.”
Dominic smiled.
For the first time that night, so did Arthur.
—
The message was simple.
Dominic announced in the conference room that security had found nothing conclusive.
He said the council vote would proceed at midnight.
He said he intended to sign temporary authority to Arthur Voss.
And he said Clare and Ellie would be driven away from the estate at eleven thirty through the south gate.
None of it was true.
At 11:27, a black SUV left through the south gate.
Inside were two armed Vale guards and an empty child seat.
Dominic watched from the security room.
Arthur stood beside him.
Samuel remained upstairs under supervision.
Vincent was still locked in the wine cellar.
The SUV traveled half a mile.
Then Vincent’s deputy reported movement.
A gray sedan emerged from a side road.
Followed the SUV.
Dominic leaned closer to the monitor.
“Plate?”
“Stolen.”
“Driver?”
“No visual.”
The sedan followed for three miles.
Then another vehicle appeared.
Black pickup.
No lights.
It accelerated.
Rammed the SUV from behind.
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
The guards inside returned fire.
The pickup swerved away.
The gray sedan fled in the opposite direction.
“They took the bait,” Arthur said.
Dominic nodded.
Someone wanted Ellie silenced.
Not Clare.
Ellie.
Because she had seen Leon.
Then an alarm began screaming inside the estate.
Dominic turned.
Red lights flashed on the security panel.
“Where?”
The guard at the console stared.
“Wine cellar.”
Dominic’s blood went cold.
Vincent.
They ran.
Dominic moved faster than he had in weeks.
Pain struck his knee, but he ignored it.
Down the service corridor.
Past the kitchen.
Down the stairs.
They reached the cellar.
One guard lay unconscious outside.
The door was open.
Vincent was gone.
Blood marked the stone floor.
Not much.
Enough.
Arthur looked at Dominic.
“He escaped?”
“No.”
Dominic crouched.
The guard’s weapon remained in his holster.
Someone had opened the door using legitimate access.
Then another scream echoed from upstairs.
Clare.
Dominic turned and ran.
This time he did not care about the cane.
He left it on the cellar floor.
By the time he reached the second level, Vincent’s deputy was already outside the sitting room.
The door stood open.
Clare was inside.
Alone.
“No,” she kept saying.
Dominic entered.
“Where’s Ellie?”
Clare looked at him.
Her face had collapsed in terror.
“She was right there.”
Dominic’s stomach turned.
“Who came in?”
“No one.”
“Think.”
“I went to the bathroom.
Ten seconds.
Maybe fifteen.”
Dominic looked toward the window.
Locked.
Ventilation grille.
Too small.
Closet.
Empty.
Then he saw something on the carpet.
Ellie’s latch toy.
Open.
A small piece of folded paper had been tucked beneath one of the wooden mechanisms.
Dominic picked it up.
Three words.
ASK YOUR DOCTOR.
Arthur entered behind him.
Dominic turned slowly.
Samuel Mercer was gone.
The guard assigned to him had been found unconscious in an upstairs hallway.
Clare began sobbing.
Dominic felt the world narrow.
The brace.
Leon.
The surveillance devices.
Vincent’s compromised credentials.
Angela’s disappearance.
Ellie.
Every path now pointed toward Samuel Mercer.
Except one thing bothered Dominic.
Mercer had been the first person to confirm the brace had been sabotaged.
Why reveal the crime if he had helped commit it?
Unless the revelation itself was part of the plan.
Dominic unfolded the paper again.
ASK YOUR DOCTOR.
Arthur said, “It’s Mercer.”
Dominic looked toward the hall.
“No.”
“No?”
“This note wants me to believe it’s Mercer.”
Arthur frowned.
“Then who?”
Dominic did not answer.
Because something had finally returned to him.
A memory.
Eleven weeks earlier.
Lower Wacker Drive.
Rain.
Headlights.
His driver shouting.
The truck that struck them had not appeared from nowhere.
Someone had called Dominic immediately before the crash.
Someone had told him to change routes.
Someone he trusted.
Dominic’s face went still.
Arthur noticed.
“What?”
Dominic walked to the nearest telephone.
The estate’s internal security line rang.
Once.
Twice.
Then someone answered.
No voice.
Only breathing.
Dominic said, “Leon.”
Silence.
Arthur stared.
Then a man laughed softly through the receiver.
Dominic had not heard that laugh in fourteen years.
“You always were slow when it mattered.”
Dominic gripped the phone.
“Where is the girl?”
“Safe.”
“If you hurt her—”
“If I wanted her dead, Dominic, the car outside your gate would have succeeded.”
Dominic looked at Arthur.
Leon continued.
“The girl isn’t your weakness.”
“Then why take her?”
“Because she can identify the only man in your house who knows I’m alive.”
Dominic’s heart slowed.
“Who?”
Leon laughed again.
“You still think this began eleven weeks ago.”
The line clicked.
Then Leon said something that emptied the room of air.
“Ask Arthur what happened to your father.”
Dominic looked up.
Arthur had heard.
His face became utterly still.
Dominic lowered the receiver.
“My father died of a heart attack.”
Arthur did not answer.
“Arthur.”
The older man looked toward the door.
Not toward Dominic.
Toward escape.
That was enough.
Dominic moved.
Arthur moved faster.
A pistol appeared from beneath his jacket.
Impossible.
He had been searched.
Dominic understood too late.
Arthur had retrieved it somewhere inside the house.
Arthur pointed the gun at him.
“Don’t.”
Dominic stopped.
Outside the room, security guards shouted.
Arthur dragged Dominic backward toward the service stairs.
“You planted Angela’s card on yourself,” Dominic said.
Arthur smiled bitterly.
“Not quite.”
“You knew Leon was alive.”
“I knew someone was alive.”
“Answer me.”
Arthur pressed the gun harder against Dominic’s ribs.
“Your father never had a heart attack.”
Dominic’s breath stopped.
“He was poisoned.”
“By Leon?”
Arthur looked at him.
“No.”
Footsteps thundered closer.
Arthur whispered, “By you.”
Dominic stared.
For the first time that night, he felt genuine confusion.
Arthur’s smile was almost sad.
“You don’t remember, do you?”
Then every light in the estate went out.
Darkness swallowed them.
Someone fired.
Arthur grunted.
Dominic hit the floor.
A second shot.
Then silence.
Emergency lights flickered red.
Arthur Voss lay against the wall.
Blood spreading across his shirt.
Dominic looked toward the far end of the corridor.
A man stood there holding Ellie’s hand.
Older now.
Gray at the temples.
Deep scar across his jaw.
Two fingers missing from his right hand.
Leon Rusk.
Ellie stared at Dominic.
“She said you were the good man,” Leon said.
Dominic rose slowly.
“Give her to me.”
Leon smiled.
“First, you should learn what you did to your father.”
From the floor, Arthur coughed.
Dominic turned.
Arthur was still alive.
Barely.
His lips moved.
“Don’t listen to him.”
Leon raised the gun.
Arthur looked at Dominic.
And whispered the words that would change everything Dominic believed about his own life.
“Leon Rusk isn’t Leon Rusk.”
Dominic froze.
The man beside Ellie smiled wider.
Then Ellie looked up at him and said something no one expected.
“Grandpa?”
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
READ FULL PART 2:
FULL STORY: THE VALE SECRET -PT04
Source: Stories of Destiny · Thao Thao
