Chapter 12 - THE LAST MOVE
Victor thought he was escaping with Evelyn.
He didn't realize thirty federal agents were tracking him.
The problem was that nobody knew exactly where he had taken her.
The vehicle disappeared beneath Boston's underground garages before surveillance lost it.
Dominic blamed himself.
I refused to let him.
“Think.”
He looked at me.
“Victor wants control of the harbor companies. Why?”
Michael answered.
“Access.”
“To what?”
“Warehouses. Ships. Routes.”
Daniel opened a map.
There were six possible waterfront properties.
Five were active.
One had been closed for renovation.
“Warehouse Nine,” Dominic said.
We moved.
Federal vehicles surrounded the location from three directions.
I was ordered to stay behind.
This time, I listened.
For almost three minutes.
Then I saw a side door open.
Evelyn appeared.
Alone.
She was running.
I ran toward her.
A man came through the doorway behind her.
I grabbed a loose metal cart and shoved it into his path.
He crashed over it.
Evelyn reached me.
“Claire!”
I wrapped my coat around her.
Dominic appeared seconds later.
He saw his mother alive.
Everything in his face broke.
He hugged her so tightly she laughed through her tears.
“You're crushing me.”
“Good.”
Agents entered the warehouse.
Victor was arrested before midnight.
No grand shootout.
No dramatic execution.
Just handcuffs.
For a man who had controlled people through fear for thirty years, being led past cameras like an ordinary criminal was punishment enough.
As Victor passed Dominic, he smiled.
“You think this ends because I'm gone?”
Dominic said nothing.
Victor leaned closer.
“Your father tried to escape too.”
Dominic finally answered.
“I'm not my father.”
Victor's smile disappeared.
That was the moment I knew Dominic would survive this.
Not because he was stronger than Victor.
Because he had chosen not to become him.
Later, Evelyn sat inside an ambulance while paramedics examined her.
She took my hand.
“I remembered something else.”
My heart sank.
“What now?”
She reached into the lining of her coat.
And pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“Victor never found this.”
Dominic opened it.
It was the missing page from Anthony's journal.
The page my mother had supposedly taken eighteen years earlier.
At the bottom was Sarah Bennett's handwriting.
May you like
And beneath it were six words meant for me:
CLAIRE MUST NEVER KNOW ABOUT US.
