Chapter 6 - THE NIGHT EVAN DIED
For a moment, I thought Caleb might attack his father.
His hands moved so rapidly that even I struggled to follow.
You let me believe she was dead. You watched me visit her grave.
Dominic flinched as I translated.
“I thought I was protecting you.”
Caleb slammed his palm against the desk.
Dominic stood.
“Victor said he'd kill you if I told anyone Isabel was alive!”
The confession hung between us.
Dominic explained that Victor had shown him photographs of Isabel in 2024, along with proof that he controlled the people guarding her.
Victor had warned him that any attempt to find her would end with Caleb's murder.
“Why didn't you go to the police?” I demanded.
Dominic laughed bitterly.
“Victor has police captains, judges, and half my security staff on his payroll.”
“You're supposed to be the most powerful man in Chicago.”
“I built an empire,” Dominic replied quietly. “And I gave the keys to a monster.”
Caleb signed something.
That doesn't excuse what you did to me.
I translated.
Dominic looked at his son.
For once, he had no answer.
Then he opened a locked drawer and removed a small external hard drive.
“I've been collecting evidence against Victor for two years.”
He connected it to his computer.
A grainy security recording appeared.
It showed the entrance to Evan's apartment building on the night my brother died.
I recognized the date immediately.
March 14, 2020.
At 9:42 P.M., Victor entered the building with two men.
At 10:07, they came back outside.
One of them was carrying a medical bag.
I gripped the desk.
“Why would they take Evan's medical bag?”
Dominic didn't answer.
At 10:11, an ambulance arrived.
But a black SUV blocked the entrance.
Two uniformed officers approached the paramedics.
The ambulance remained outside for several minutes.
My brother was upstairs, dying.
I could barely breathe.
Then another figure appeared on the recording.
A young man wearing a gray sweatshirt rushed through the building's side entrance.
Caleb.
He was twenty-one then.
I turned toward him.
His face had gone white.
“Caleb?”
He wouldn't meet my eyes.
I signed with trembling hands.
You were there?
He slowly nodded.
May you like
And suddenly, the most frightening question of all entered my mind.
If Caleb had been inside Evan's building that night, why had he spent six years pretending he knew nothing about my brother's death?
