CHAPTER 10 — THE FALL OF DOMINIC
Police entered Ashcroft headquarters through a maintenance tunnel.
From the hotel’s secure terminal, I watched the building sensors.
Samuel moved down the stairs.
Dominic remained in the archive.
Grant headed toward the roof.
The detective coordinated teams on three floors.
Then Dominic called me again.
His breathing was ragged.
“Vivienne, Samuel has lost his mind.”
“You helped him.”
“I didn’t know about Nicholas.”
“You knew enough.”
“He promised Bellamy a partnership. He said your father stole control of the company.”
“And you believed him because it gave you an excuse to betray me.”
Dominic began crying.
“I made terrible choices.”
“No. You made the same choice over and over.”
He whispered, “I love you.”
I looked down at the torn fabric beneath my father’s jacket.
“You stood there while they ripped my dress.”
Silence.
That was the answer.
A gunshot echoed through Dominic’s phone.
He shouted.
The security feed showed his signal leaving the archive and running toward the stairwell.
Samuel’s signal approached from below.
Dominic had nowhere to go except up.
Police reached Marissa first.
She was alive.
The gunshot had struck the wall beside her.
Officers carried her down.
On the roof, Grant tried to cross to the neighboring building using a maintenance bridge.
Police surrounded him.
He dropped the laptop bag and surrendered.
Dominic reached the twenty-first floor.
Samuel followed.
I could hear them arguing through Dominic’s open call.
“You said no one would get hurt!” Dominic shouted.
Samuel laughed.
“Your wife was supposed to sign. You were supposed to keep her obedient.”
“I’m done.”
“You were done the moment you married her.”
Then a struggle.
A crash.
Dominic’s phone struck the floor but remained connected.
Samuel’s voice came through.
“You weak little fool.”
Dominic cried out.
Police shouted from below.
Another gunshot rang through the stairwell.
Then silence.
I stopped breathing.
The detective listened to his radio.
“Suspect is down.”
“Which suspect?” I asked.
He didn’t answer immediately.
Then his expression eased.
“Samuel was shot in the shoulder by police after raising his weapon.”
“And Dominic?”
“Alive. Injured, but alive.”
I closed my eyes.
Relief came, but not love.
I did not want Dominic dead.
I wanted him alive enough to face everything he had done.
Twenty minutes later, police recovered the red folder.
Inside were the original trust papers.
They also found a sealed envelope written by Nicholas the night he died.
It was addressed to me.
My hands shook as I opened it.
The first line read:
Vivienne, if you are reading this, Uncle Samuel knows I found the accounts.
The final line was worse.
Dominic’s father helped him move the money.
Dominic’s father had died six years before our wedding.
May you like
That meant Dominic’s connection to my family’s crimes had begun long before he claimed to have met me by chance.
End of Chapter 10…
