## Chapter Twelve: The Second Call
Victor wanted Thomas.
Martha had surrendered herself to prevent him from entering the hospital.
Security footage showed her receiving a call outside the Hale tower. She listened for less than a minute, dismissed her driver, and entered a taxi alone.
The taxi dropped her two blocks from the mansion.
After that, cameras lost her.
Julian called the mansion’s security line.
Victor answered.
“Bring your father.”
“He can barely walk.”
“Then carry him.”
“You already destroyed his life.”
“Thomas destroyed mine first.”
“You killed Celeste.”
“She is alive.”
“Because Mercer kept her alive. Not you.”
Victor breathed slowly.
“You have one hour.”
“If you hurt my mother—”
“You will do what? Call the police already surrounding my enemies?”
Julian heard water in the background.
“Let me speak to her.”
A pause.
Then Martha’s voice came through.
“Julian, do not bring Thomas.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m all right.”
Victor struck her.
The sound was followed by Martha’s gasp.
Julian closed his eyes.
“Touch her again and I will make sure you leave that house in pieces.”
Victor laughed.
“There is Thomas Hale’s son.”
The call ended.
Detective Cruz refused to use Thomas as bait.
Martha would also refuse to allow it.
Thomas made the choice himself.
During a moment of clarity, Julian explained the situation.
Thomas listened without interruption.
“Victor has Martha?”
“Yes.”
“Pool?”
Julian stared at him.
“How did you know?”
Thomas looked toward the window.
“He likes circles.”
“What does that mean?”
“Celeste’s car went into water. My boat went into water. He believes repeating fear makes him powerful.”
Thomas attempted to stand.
His legs failed.
Julian caught him.
“You can’t go.”
“Your mother waited.”
“For twenty-two years.”
Thomas touched Julian’s face.
“Too long.”
The doctors objected, but federal agents arranged a medically equipped transport. Thomas wore a concealed protective vest. A physician accompanied him.
Celeste insisted on helping.
She remembered a service tunnel beneath the mansion grounds.
Thomas had built it during the early years of the estate as an emergency exit. The entrance began beneath the greenhouse and ended near the pool equipment room.
Victor might not know it existed.
Naomi divided the operation.
Julian and Thomas would approach through the front entrance.
Naomi and Cruz would use the tunnel.
Bianca, still recovering from the gunshot graze, gave them Victor’s likely behavior pattern.
“He will separate Julian from Thomas,” she said. “Then he will force Martha to confess while recording it.”
“Confess to what?” Cruz asked.
“To choosing Julian over my mother.”
“That is not a crime.”
“To Victor, it is.”
Bianca looked at Julian.
“He believes every act of protection is theft from him.”
The mansion was dark when they arrived.
Only the pool lights were on.
Victor stood beside the water.
Martha sat in a chair near the edge, her wrists bound.
Her purple nightgown had been replaced by hospital clothing and a coat, but the scene still mirrored the night Julian had entered with the roses.
Victor wanted them to remember.
Thomas sat in a wheelchair beside Julian.
When Victor saw him, his face changed.
For the first time, the confidence disappeared.
“Thomas.”
Thomas looked at him without recognition.
Victor stepped closer.
“You know me.”
Thomas frowned.
“Should I?”
The question wounded Victor more deeply than anger would have.
“I built Hale International with you.”
Thomas shook his head.
“You stole.”
Memory had returned for one clear instant.
Victor raised his gun.
Julian moved in front of Thomas.
“You need him alive.”
“I needed the trust authority. Bianca activated it without me.”
“So this is revenge.”
“This is correction.”
Victor pointed toward Martha.
“She will tell Thomas what she did.”
Martha looked at her husband.
“I’m sorry.”
Thomas reached toward her.
Victor shouted, “Not that.”
Martha did not look at him.
“Thomas, you called twice.”
Thomas’s expression changed.
“The door,” he murmured.
“I answered the first call,” Martha continued. “Raymond answered the second. I never knew.”
Victor laughed.
“She knew enough.”
Martha finally faced him.
“I knew you wanted me afraid.”
“You chose your son.”
“Yes.”
“Celeste begged you to protect Bianca.”
“I did.”
“You protected Julian first.”
“He was eleven years old.”
“So was Bianca in every way that mattered. She had no mother.”
“Because you took her mother.”
Victor’s gun shook.
Martha continued.
“You spent your life blaming other people for the moment they refused to belong to you.”
“Stop.”
“Celeste refused. Thomas refused. Bianca refused.”
“Stop.”
“Even Raymond betrayed you.”
Victor fired into the pool.
Martha flinched.
The sound covered Naomi’s movement through the equipment room.
Julian kept Victor’s attention.
“What do you want us to say?”
“The truth.”
“You wouldn’t recognize it.”
Victor aimed at him.
“Your father intercepted a shipment worth more than this company. He used Celeste to hide it.”
“Celeste exposed you.”
“She humiliated me.”
“You humiliated yourself.”
Victor’s face twisted.
He moved behind Martha and cut the ropes from one wrist.
Then he dragged her toward the water.
Julian stepped forward.
Victor pressed the gun against her neck.
“Another step and she falls.”
Thomas tried to rise from the wheelchair.
“Leave her.”
Victor looked at him.
“You remember her now?”
Thomas’s eyes became clearer.
“I remember you running.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“From what?”
“Celeste’s car.”
The backyard went silent.
Martha stared at Thomas.
“You saw the crash?”
Thomas nodded.
Victor’s face turned pale.
“You weren’t there.”
“I followed.”
Thomas’s voice was weak but steady.
“You pulled her from the car.”
Julian understood.
Victor had not intended Celeste to die.
He had taken her.
“You staged her death,” Julian said.
Victor tightened his hold on Martha.
“I saved her.”
“You imprisoned her.”
“She would have destroyed everything.”
“She wanted to leave you.”
“She belonged with me.”
“No,” Thomas said. “She belonged to herself.”
Victor pointed the gun at Thomas.
Naomi emerged from the equipment room.
“Drop it.”
Victor spun.
Julian lunged.
The gun fired.
Thomas fell from the wheelchair.
Martha screamed.
Julian struck Victor and drove him into the pool barrier. The gun slid across the stone.
Victor grabbed Julian’s throat.
Despite his age and injured shoulder, desperation made him strong.
They crashed against the edge.
Martha crawled toward Thomas.
Blood spread across his vest, but the bullet had struck the protective plate.
He was alive.
Victor saw the gun near the water.
He pushed Julian away and reached for it.
Bianca stepped from the glass doors.
She had left the medical vehicle despite strict instructions.
She picked up the gun first.
Victor stared at her.
“Bianca.”
“Move away from Julian.”
“I am your father.”
“You are the man who stole both my parents.”
“Celeste filled your head with lies.”
“I heard your recordings.”
“I did everything for you.”
“You drugged me when I was a child.”
Victor stopped.
Bianca’s hand trembled.
Mercer’s files showed years of unexplained medical episodes during Bianca’s childhood. Victor had used sedatives whenever she asked too many questions about Celeste.
“You made me believe my mother was dead,” Bianca said.
“She abandoned you.”
“You took her.”
“She chose Thomas.”
“She chose freedom.”
Victor moved toward her.
Bianca raised the gun.
“Don’t.”
“You won’t shoot me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You are weak like Celeste.”
Bianca’s eyes filled with tears.
“No. I’m angry like you.”
Victor smiled.
“That is my girl.”
“But I won’t let anger choose for me again.”
She lowered the gun and stepped backward.
Victor lunged.
Naomi fired.
The bullet struck his leg.
Victor fell against the pool’s edge.
The weakened glass barrier cracked.
For a moment, he hung above the water.
Martha could have reached him.
Victor looked at her.
“Help me.”
The same words she had spoken to Bianca.
Martha crawled forward and extended her hand.
Victor stared at it.
Even after everything, she was trying to save him.
He reached toward her.
Then his other hand moved inside his coat.
Julian saw the detonator.
“Mom, no!”
Victor pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
Naomi had blocked the signal.
The cracked glass gave way.
Victor fell into the pool.
His injured leg prevented him from swimming.
He clawed at the edge.
“Help me!”
Julian moved forward.
Martha caught his wrist.
“He has another weapon.”
Victor reached beneath the water.
A small knife flashed in his hand.
Naomi ordered him to drop it.
He refused.
Water poured over the infinity edge, pulling him toward the drop beyond the pool.
Victor swung the knife toward Julian.
Bianca kicked it from his hand.
Victor lost his grip.
For one second, his eyes met Celeste’s daughter’s.
Then he disappeared over the edge.
The far side of the infinity pool dropped twenty feet onto a lower stone terrace.
Officers ran downstairs.
They found blood on the stone.
But Victor was gone.
A trail led toward the trees.
Cruz ordered every road closed.
Inside the mansion, Thomas was examined by the physician. The protective vest had stopped the bullet, but the impact left him unconscious.
Martha remained beside him.
Julian stood at the broken pool barrier while Bianca sat under police guard.
“You saved my mother,” he said.
“I almost killed her first.”
“Yes.”
Bianca looked at the roses still growing beside the patio.
“Nothing I do now erases that.”
“No.”
She accepted the answer.
Detective Cruz returned from the lower terrace.
“We found Victor’s blood.”
“Did he reach the forest?”
“Maybe.”
Naomi entered carrying the detonator Victor had used.
“There’s a digital timer on it.”
“For the tower bomb?” Julian asked.
“No.”
The display showed fifty-eight minutes.
A location code appeared beneath it.
Naomi recognized the address.
St. Catherine’s Hospital.
May you like
Celeste was still there.
And according to the hospital security system, someone had just disabled the cameras outside her room.
