Chapter 8
Arthur’s arrest should have made the house feel safer.
It did not.
By noon, three attorneys had arrived, two detectives had returned, and every news channel in Chicago had decided I was either a victim, a criminal, or a wounded king fighting a palace coup.
I did not care what they called me.
I cared that Clare’s phone would not stop ringing.
Unknown numbers.
Blocked numbers.
One text with no words.
Only a photograph of her apartment building.
Vincent took the phone from her hand before she finished reading it.
Clare went so still I thought she might faint.
Ellie was upstairs with Rosa, sleeping in a guest room under guard. We had told her the guards were helpers.
Children deserved truth.
Not all of it at once.
Clare stood in my study with her arms wrapped around herself.
“They know where we live.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s a fact on paper. That’s our home.”
I looked at the text again.
A brick building.
Fire escape.
Third-floor window with a cracked shade.
A place I had never visited but now knew too well.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She looked surprised.
Maybe because men like me rarely said those words without strategy.
I meant them.
She looked away.
“I can’t go back there.”
“No.”
“And I can’t stay here forever.”
I did not answer quickly enough.
Her expression changed.
“You were about to say I could.”
“You can.”
“No, Mr. Vale.”
“Dominic.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“My name is Dominic.”
“I work for you.”
“Not today.”
Her eyes filled with something too tired to be pride and too wounded to be trust.
“I don’t know how to stand in rooms like this.”
I looked around my study.
Dark wood.
Leather chairs.
Books no one touched.
A portrait of my father watching from the far wall like judgment had a frame.
“Neither do I,” I said.
She almost smiled.
Almost.
Vincent entered without knocking.
“We traced the text. Burner. Signal bounced.”
“Arthur’s men?”
“Maybe. But there’s more.”
He handed me a folder.
Inside were photographs from the crash investigation.
My black SUV under Lower Wacker.
Front end crushed.
Driver side twisted.
Rainwater under the tires.
I remembered the impact in fragments.
Headlights.
A horn.
A sudden blur from the left.
Then pain.
Then hospital lights.
Vincent pointed to one photograph.
“Initial report said brake failure contributed.”
“I remember.”
“We had the vehicle stored after insurance inspection. Arthur pushed to scrap it.”
“Of course he did.”
“We didn’t.”
For the first time that day, I smiled.
Vincent had always been suspicious.
It was one of the reasons I trusted him.
He continued.
“I sent our own mechanic this morning. Brake line was cut. Clean. Then damaged further by impact.”
Clare covered her mouth.
“So the crash wasn’t an accident.”
“No,” I said.
The word settled into the room.
Arthur had not used my injury as an opportunity.
He had created it.
Vincent flipped another page.
“There’s a shop stamp on a replacement clamp near the line. Small place in Cicero. Owned by a man named Niko Sarris.”
I knew the name.
Arthur’s nephew by marriage.
Not officially involved in Vale business.
That meant officially useful.
“Bring him in.”
Vincent shook his head.
“He’s gone.”
“When?”
“Last night. Before Arthur was arrested.”
Of course.
Arthur’s failed call.
The hand outside the gate.
“Niko knows enough to bury Arthur,” I said.
“Or enough to disappear.”
Clare spoke quietly.
“What about my apartment?”
Vincent looked at me.
“I already sent two cars. They’ll collect essentials discreetly.”
Clare stiffened.
“You sent men to my home?”
“To protect it.”
“To go through it?”
“No,” I said. “To make sure no one else does.”
Her jaw trembled.
“I know you’re trying to help. I do. But every decision keeps happening around me.”
The room went silent.
She was right.
Again.
I had moved quickly because danger moved quickly. But speed could become control. Control could look too much like the thing I claimed to fight.
I set the folder down.
“What do you want?”
She stared at me.
“I want to get my daughter’s clothes myself. I want to know who is near her. I want people to ask before moving us like furniture.”
Vincent opened his mouth.
I stopped him.
“Done.”
Clare blinked.
“I’ll go with security,” she said. “But I choose what comes back. And no one enters without me.”
“Done.”
“And Ellie sees me before I leave.”
“Of course.”
She breathed out shakily.
For the first time, I saw her shoulders lower.
Trust did not arrive all at once.
Sometimes it entered through one unlocked door.
An hour later, Clare left with Vincent and two cars.
I stayed behind because if I went, cameras would follow. I hated it. I wanted to stand between her and every threat.
But protection was not always presence.
Sometimes it was restraint.
Ellie woke while Clare was gone.
Rosa brought her downstairs in pink socks and a sweater too large for her small frame. She clutched the latch toy with one hand and rubbed her eyes with the other.
“Where’s Mommy?”
“She went to get your clothes.”
Ellie frowned.
“From home?”
“Yes.”
“Is home safe?”
I looked at Rosa.
Then back at Ellie.
“We are making it safe.”
She climbed onto the chair across from my desk without asking.
Children did that when they had not learned to fear furniture.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Looking for the man who helped Arthur.”
“Another bad click?”
“Yes.”
She set her toy on my desk.
“You need to look where the piece doesn’t match.”
I leaned back.
“What?”
She pointed to her latch board.
“When I put the wrong hook here, it still closes. But it looks funny.”
I looked at the crash photos again.
The brake line.
The clamp.
The stamped shop mark.
The replacement part that should not have been there.
The piece that did not match.
A thought hit me.
“Lena,” I called.
She stepped in from the hall.
“Yes?”
“The clamp on the brake line. Did insurance photograph the undercarriage before the vehicle was moved?”
“I can check.”
“Check date metadata. I want to know if that part was installed before or after the crash.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“You think the evidence was planted?”
“I think Ellie just reminded me to look.”
Ellie smiled faintly.
“My toy is good.”
“The best.”
Lena worked fast.
Twenty minutes later, she came back pale.
“The clamp wasn’t in the first responder photos.”
Vincent called at the same time.
I answered.
“What is it?”
His voice was tense.
“Clare’s apartment was turned over before we arrived.”
My chest tightened.
“Is she safe?”
“She’s with me. Shaken. Not hurt.”
“What did they take?”
A pause.
Then Clare’s voice came through.
“Ellie’s baby pictures. My husband’s settlement papers. And the little metal box from under my bed.”
“What was in the box?”
She breathed unevenly.
“Letters from my husband. And a USB drive.”
I stood.
“What USB drive?”
“I didn’t know what was on it. He told me if anything happened to him, I should keep it safe.”
My office went silent.
Arthur had not threatened Clare only because Ellie saw him.
He had known her before that.
Or someone had.
“Clare,” I said carefully, “where did your husband work?”
“At a construction warehouse.”
“Which company?”
She answered.
And the room seemed to tilt.
Vale Industrial Storage.
My company.
My building.
May you like
Her husband had died under my name.
And whatever he left behind was dangerous enough for someone to tear apart her home.
