Chapter 4 - What Adrian’s Father Hid
Victor approached the table.
Samuel blocked him.
“You won’t touch him.”
Victor laughed softly.
“You disappeared twelve years ago and somehow became brave?”
“I became tired.”
“Of what?”
“Men like you.”
Victor’s smile vanished.
Mara heard movement behind the wall.
A ventilation grate.
Leo.
He was listening.
Mara needed time.
“What’s in Room Nine?” she asked.
Victor looked at her.
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
“Then my brother trusted you more than he should have.”
Adrian’s voice suddenly came from the table.
“She earned it.”
Victor turned.
Adrian’s eyes were open.
Weak.
But awake.
“Brother.”
Victor stepped closer.
“You always were difficult to kill.”
Adrian whispered, “You tried twice.”
“Three times.”
Adrian managed a faint smile.
“Then you’re getting worse.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
Mara leaned near Adrian.
“Don’t move.”
Victor laughed.
“She gives you orders?”
“She saved my life.”
“That sounds inconvenient.”
Adrian looked at Samuel.
“The files.”
Samuel hesitated.
“Now.”
Samuel opened a locked cabinet.
Inside were dozens of folders.
Photographs.
Financial records.
Audio tapes.
Victor went pale.
Their father had built Room Nine during the final years of his life.
Not simply as a hidden medical facility.
As an archive.
Evidence documenting decades of corruption inside the Vale organization.
Names of officials.
Account numbers.
Payoffs.
Murders.
And, most importantly, instructions dismantling the criminal side of the family empire.
Victor stared at Adrian.
“You knew?”
“Six months.”
“And you were going to destroy everything Father built?”
“No.”
Adrian slowly pushed himself upright despite Mara trying to stop him.
“I was going to destroy what we turned it into.”
Victor’s face hardened.
“Our family survived because people feared us.”
Adrian looked toward the security-room camera.
“My son fears me sometimes.”
Silence.
“That’s when I knew we’d already lost.”
Victor stepped closer.
“You became weak.”
“No.”
Adrian looked directly at him.
“I became a father.”
A phone began ringing.
Victor frowned.
His own.
Then another.
One of his men answered.
His expression changed.
“Sir.”
“What?”
“Police are coming.”
Victor stared at him.
“How?”
Mara smiled.
Everyone looked at her.
“When I brought Leo into the security room, I saw an external emergency line.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“You called them?”
“No.”
Leo’s voice suddenly came through the ceiling speaker.
“I did.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“My son.”
Leo continued.
“And I sent Dad’s recording.”
Victor ran toward the security room.
Adrian tried to rise.
Mara shoved him down.
“You tear those stitches and I swear I’ll let your brother win.”
Adrian stared at her.
“You have a terrifying bedside manner.”
“Stay.”
Samuel triggered the facility lockdown.
Steel doors slammed shut.
Victor was trapped in the corridor.
Sirens became audible above them.
Victor turned toward Adrian through the glass.
“You think this ends anything?”
Adrian met his eyes.
“It ends you coming near my son.”
Police entered minutes later.
Victor Vale was arrested before sunrise.
But the night still had one surprise left.
Because when Mara returned to Adrian’s bedside, she found Leo asleep beside him.
And Adrian was holding a photograph.
Mara recognized the woman immediately.
May you like
Her mother.
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