Chapter 9 - Do Not Trust Dominic
The sentence on the screen changed the room more completely than any accusation Richard Halston had made all night.
Ava stared at her mother's handwriting until the words blurred.
If Richard already has the child, do not trust Dominic either.
Hearing Elena speak again broke through Ava's anger with a force nothing else that night had managed.
The recording preserved tiny habits memory had begun smoothing away.
Elena tilted her head before saying something difficult.
She rubbed her thumb against the edge of her wedding ring when nervous.
She smiled with only one side of her mouth when trying not to cry.
Ava had forgotten those details.
For several minutes, the conspiracy disappeared behind the simple fact that her mother was alive on a screen.
Then Elena did what she had always done best.
She refused to make grief comfortable.
She described Dominic's love and his failures in the same breath.
She described Richard's danger without pretending Julian or Dominic were flawless men.
She described Leah as frightened rather than foolish.
That balance made the message harder to dismiss.
Ava realized Elena had recorded it precisely because she expected powerful people to tell cleaner stories later.
Clean stories create heroes and villains quickly.
Messy evidence forces responsibility to remain attached to individual choices.
Adrian seemed to understand that too.
He stopped asking which father was good and began asking which action was true.
Ava did the same.
That shift did not reduce the pain.
It made the pain useful.
Her father stood three feet away and looked as though the dead had reached through the screen and taken him by the throat.
Adrian was the first person to speak.
"Why shouldn't she trust you?"
Dominic did not answer.
Ava turned toward him.
"Dad."
He rubbed one hand across his mouth.
"Your mother and I disagreed about how to handle Richard."
Ava felt anger rise instantly.
"That is not an answer."
"It is the beginning of one."
"Then finish it."
Dominic glanced toward Detective Ruiz.
"Not while an investigation is active."
Ava laughed in disbelief.
"You came into my wedding and accused a man of attempted murder in front of two hundred people."
Dominic's expression tightened.
"That was different."
"It was convenient."
The word struck him.
Ava stepped closer.
"You wanted Richard exposed when the evidence pointed at him."
She pointed to the screen.
"Now the evidence points at you and suddenly we need procedure."
Adrian watched Dominic with a hard expression.
"She's right."
Dominic looked at him.
"You have no idea what was happening then."
"Neither do I."
Adrian's voice sharpened.
"That is the entire problem."
Detective Ruiz closed the laptop.
"Nobody is deleting anything, and nobody is leaving with the original drive."
Dominic nodded.
Ava could tell he was grateful for the interruption.
She hated him for that gratitude.
"Open the folder labeled AVA."
Ruiz looked at her.
"We should do that in a controlled interview room."
"It's my mother's drive."
"And it may contain evidence in multiple crimes."
Ava stared at her.
Ruiz softened slightly.
"I am not saying you cannot see it."
"Then what are you saying?"
"I am saying your father just became relevant to whatever is on that drive."
Dominic's face hardened.
"I was always relevant."
Ruiz met his gaze.
"Not in the way your wife apparently believed."
Ava appreciated the detective more every minute.
The technician created a verified forensic copy and transferred it to an isolated machine.
Ruiz allowed Ava and Adrian to remain while Dominic was asked to wait outside.
He did not like it.
Ava did not care.
The door closed behind him.
For the first time that night, she could breathe without feeling his secrets in the room.
Adrian sat beside her.
He had put his wedding ring back on.
Ava noticed and looked away before he saw her reaction.
The technician opened the folder labeled AVA.
There were twenty-three files.
The oldest was dated the week Ava was born.
The newest was dated eight days before Elena died.
Most were letters.
Three were videos.
One was titled FOR AVA - WHEN YOU ARE READY.
Ava's hands went cold.
"Play that one."
The screen went black.
Then her mother appeared.
Elena Vale looked thinner than Ava remembered her.
A patterned scarf covered her hair.
She sat in the sunroom of the small Connecticut house where Ava had spent her childhood.
Ava knew the chair.
She knew the window.
She knew the chipped blue vase visible behind her mother's shoulder.
The sight of ordinary things nearly broke her.
Elena smiled toward the camera.
"Hello, my sweet girl."
Ava covered her mouth.
Adrian moved his chair closer without touching her.
Elena continued.
"If you are watching this, then someone decided you were finally old enough for truths that adults were too frightened to carry honestly."
Ava laughed through tears.
"That sounds like her."
Adrian nodded quietly.
On the screen, Elena's expression grew serious.
"There are three men whose names will probably appear in whatever brought you to this recording."
"Julian Cross was brave, impatient, and too willing to believe friendship could survive money."
"Richard Halston was brilliant, charming, and dangerous when he believed something belonged to him."
Elena paused.
"Your father, Dominic, loved you more than I have ever seen one human being love another."
Ava closed her eyes.
Then Elena delivered the sentence that made her open them again.
"That does not mean he always did the right thing."
Adrian looked at Ava.
She stared at the screen.
"Dominic believed Richard could only be defeated by becoming harder than Richard."
"He built secret accounts."
"He moved money without board approval."
"He paid investigators and intermediaries whose names never appeared on company records."
Ava felt the floor drop away beneath her.
Richard's accusation in the ballroom had not been entirely false.
The secret reserve account existed.
Elena continued.
"Some of that money was used to protect employees who were being threatened."
"Some of it was used to gather evidence."
"And some of it was used for things Dominic refused to explain even to me."
Ava whispered her father's name.
The video could not answer.
"I loved him, but I stopped trusting his methods."
"The night Julian died, Dominic and Richard were already at war."
Adrian leaned closer.
Ava heard his breathing change.
"Julian had decided to expose both of them."
The sentence stunned them.
Elena looked directly into the camera.
"He believed Richard was stealing contracts and that Dominic was illegally moving company funds to fight him."
"Julian planned to take the records to federal investigators."
"He never arrived."
Adrian's fingers curled against his knee.
"What happened?"
Elena continued as if she heard him.
"The police called his death an accident."
"I never believed that."
"Leah never believed it either."
Ava felt Adrian flinch beside her.
"Leah Carter was carrying Julian's child when he died."
"She was terrified."
"She asked me to help her disappear before Richard or Dominic learned about the pregnancy."
Adrian stood abruptly.
The chair scraped across the floor.
Ava stared at the screen.
"She wanted to disappear?"
Adrian's voice cracked.
The recording continued.
"I helped her hide for several months."
"But childbirth changed everything."
"Leah became ill after delivering the baby, and while she was recovering, someone told child services she was unstable and dangerous."
Ava's skin went cold.
"Temporary guardianship was granted to Victoria Halston."
"I did not know until it was done."
"By the time Leah recovered enough to fight, the records had begun changing."
"The child's name disappeared from one file and appeared under another."
"Then Leah disappeared too."
Adrian pressed both hands against the desk.
"Did Richard kill her?"
The video paused for a moment as Elena coughed.
"I do not know what happened to Leah."
"But I know Miles never stopped looking for her."
Ava turned toward Adrian.
He was crying silently now.
She reached for his hand.
This time, he took hers.
Elena's voice softened.
"If the child survived and if that child is ever found, he deserves the truth more than any company deserves protection."
Adrian bowed his head.
Ava squeezed his hand.
Then Elena said something that froze Ava's blood.
"Dominic knew more about the child than he admitted."
Ava looked toward the closed door.
"When I confronted him, he told me that returning the boy too soon would expose all of us."
"He said Richard would use the child as bait."
"He said we needed time."
"I told him a child's life was not a chessboard."
Ava's heart broke quietly.
She remembered her father teaching her chess at seven years old.
She remembered him telling her that patience was the difference between survival and impulse.
She suddenly hated the lesson.
"Dominic promised he would fix it."
"Then the warehouse burned."
"After that, he vanished from our lives because we believed Richard would kill him if he surfaced."
Ava frowned.
That part she knew.
Dominic had lived under another identity for years while Ava was raised by Elena and the man Ava had always called Dad, Thomas Sinclair.
Elena looked tired now.
"If Dominic ever returns, love him if you can."
Ava began crying harder.
"But make him prove every truth he asks you to believe."
The video ended.
The room remained silent.
Adrian let go of Ava's hand and walked to the window.
Ava sat motionless.
Detective Ruiz spoke gently.
"Do you want a few minutes?"
Ava shook her head.
"No."
She wiped her face.
"Bring him in."
Dominic entered thirty seconds later.
He looked at Ava and knew immediately what she had watched.
"Your mother recorded a message."
"I know."
"You knew about it?"
"I knew she recorded something."
Ava stood.
"Did you know Adrian was alive?"
Dominic's expression changed.
"Not then."
"When did you know?"
He did not answer.
Ava stepped closer.
"When did you know?"
Dominic looked at Adrian.
"In 2012."
Adrian turned around slowly.
"I was twelve."
"Yes."
"You knew who I was when I was twelve years old."
"I suspected."
"You just said you knew."
Dominic closed his eyes briefly.
"I confirmed it when you were thirteen."
Ava felt sick.
"And you did nothing."
Dominic looked at her.
"I kept him alive."
Adrian laughed bitterly.
"I didn't know I needed you to keep me alive."
"Richard did."
"What does that mean?"
Dominic's voice dropped.
"The year you turned thirteen, Richard ordered a private investigation into whether anyone had accessed the Cross founder trust records."
"I had."
"If I challenged your identity then, he would have known someone was coming."
Adrian stared at him.
"So you left me with the people who stole me because it was strategically useful."
Dominic flinched.
"I left you where I could watch you."
"Without telling me my mother wasn't my mother."
"I was trying to build a case strong enough to survive Richard's retaliation."
Adrian's anger exploded.
"I was a child."
The words echoed through the glass room.
Dominic went silent.
Adrian stepped closer.
"I was not a case."
"I know that now."
"You knew it then."
Dominic had no answer.
Ava looked at the man she had spent years wanting to understand.
For the first time, she saw what her mother had feared.
Dominic did love deeply.
He also believed love gave him permission to decide what everyone else could survive.
A knock hit the glass door.
One of Ruiz's officers entered.
"Detective, we traced the number that called Mr. Halston."
Ruiz turned.
"Where?"
"A prepaid phone pinged near Saint Mark's Church thirty minutes ago."
Adrian's eyes sharpened.
"Miles?"
The officer nodded.
"Maybe."
He looked at Ruiz.
"But there is something else."
"What?"
"A second phone associated with that location is registered to a Sarah Cole."
Dominic went perfectly still.
Ruiz noticed.
"You know the name?"
Dominic whispered the answer.
May you like
"That was the alias Elena created for Leah Carter."
