Chapter 7 - THE LAST PLACE THOMAS FALLON WENT
Nicholas did not sleep that night.
Neither did Audrey.
At 5:40 A.M., they were sitting opposite each other in the mansion kitchen while Liam demolished a stack of pancakes as though family conspiracies required carbohydrates.
Nicholas's investigators traced the sedan from the Harbor Nine footage.
It had belonged to a private medical transport company.
The company closed eleven years earlier.
Its owner was dead.
But one driver remained alive.
Elias Grant.
Seventy-three.
Retired.
Living in New Jersey.
They found him before noon.
He refused to speak to Nicholas.
Audrey went alone.
Nicholas didn't like it.
He respected it anyway.
Elias opened the door three inches.
“Thomas Fallon's daughter?”
“Yes.”
His face changed.
“Lord.”
Thirty minutes later, they sat in his kitchen.
Elias's hands shook around his coffee.
“I didn't know they were going to kill anyone.”
Audrey's heart pounded.
“Tell me what happened.”
He had been called to Harbor Nine shortly before midnight.
Two injured men were placed in the back.
Thomas Fallon.
Julian Rainer.
“Your father was conscious.”
Audrey gripped the table.
“He talked?”
“The entire drive.”
“What did he say?”
“That Audrey would be angry because he'd promised to make breakfast.”
Her face crumpled.
That was her father.
Even now, that was him.
Elias continued.
Julian was worse.
Burns.
Smoke inhalation.
Head injury.
But alive.
They were driven not to a hospital.
To an abandoned private clinic Victor Rainer once owned.
A doctor treated them.
Then Victor arrived.
“What happened?”
Elias looked away.
“I was told to leave.”
“You stayed.”
His eyes met hers.
“Yes.”
From the parking lot, he'd heard shouting.
Thomas demanding to call the police.
Julian repeatedly saying his brother's name.
Nicholas.
Then two gunshots.
Audrey's breathing stopped.
Elias cried.
“I drove away.”
She wanted to hate him.
Instead she saw an old man who had apparently hated himself for twelve years.
“Did you ever tell anyone?”
“One person.”
“Who?”
“Alessandro Rainer.”
Nicholas's father.
Audrey went completely still.
“When?”
“Three days later.”
“What did he do?”
“He nearly killed me.”
That sounded plausible.
“But then I showed him what Thomas gave me.”
Elias disappeared into another room.
He returned carrying a small metal object.
Half of a brass medallion.
One side showed the Rainer family crest.
The other had a number engraved into it.
Julian had shoved it into Elias's hand during the drive.
“Give it to Nick,” Julian had said.
Elias had given it to Alessandro.
So why did he have it now?
“Mr. Rainer returned it.”
“When?”
“Four months before his stroke.”
Elias swallowed.
“He said if anything happened to him, I should wait until Nicholas became a man who could hear the truth without starting a war.”
Audrey almost laughed.
Apparently every dead person in Nicholas's life worried about his temper.
“What does it open?”
“I don't know.”
Then Elias told her the worst part.
Alessandro had investigated his son's death privately.
He discovered Victor's role.
But he couldn't act openly.
Too many police officers, union officials, employees, and family members were tied to Victor's network.
So Alessandro began quietly separating legitimate Rainer companies from criminal operations.
He intended Nicholas never to inherit the illegal side.
Audrey closed her eyes.
Just like Julian.
“What happened?”
“Alessandro had the stroke before he finished.”
She looked at the medallion.
Then Elias said:
“He didn't believe it was natural.”
Audrey stared.
“His stroke?”
“He believed somebody had been changing his medication.”
Nicholas hadn't only inherited power after his brother was murdered.
May you like
His father may have been silenced too.
And the man who managed Alessandro's private security and medication deliveries at the time had been Graham Keene.
