Chapter 4 - The Price of Loyalty
Dominic moved to the secondary server room hidden behind the wall of his office. The air smelled of ozone and heated plastic. He pulled a drive from his pocket, inserting it into the console to bypass the local firewall. He needed to download the entire communication log between Nathan and the outside world.
Accessing… 45%... 70%...
His screen blinked. A warning appeared: Security Breach Detected. Lockdown Initiated.
The office lights turned red. The heavy steel shutters over the windows slammed down with a deafening boom. He was trapped, but he was exactly where he wanted to be. He watched the screen as the files transferred. The correspondence was staggering. Nathan had been selling bits and pieces of the Vale territory to the Russian syndicates and the West Coast cartels for years. He wasn't just stealing money; he was dissolving the organization so that when Dominic finally "retired," there would be nothing left for anyone to inherit.
Suddenly, a voice came over the intercom. It was Nathan.
"I see you, Dom. I see you in the office. You’re looking at the ledger, aren't you? It’s a beautiful history, isn't it? Seventeen years of me holding your hand, keeping you clean while you played the benevolent king."
Dominic didn't look at the cameras. He kept his focus on the monitor. "Why, Nathan? You had everything. You were the second most powerful man in the state."
"I was the second man," Nathan hissed through the speakers, his voice stripped of all warmth. "I was always the one who did the work, the one who took the risks, the one who cleaned the blood off your hands. But you were the face. You were the legend. I grew tired of living in the shadow of a man who didn't even have the spine to be truly ruthless."
"And Claire?" Dominic asked, his fingers dancing across the keyboard, mapping the location of every guard on the estate.
"Claire is the future," Nathan laughed. "She’s the one who ensured your 'accidents' didn't actually kill you—until tonight. We needed your biometric keys, Dom. We needed you to authorize the final transfer of the offshore assets. Once we have that, you’re just a ghost in a tomb."
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Dominic saw the file transfer hit 100%. He pulled the drive. He had everything he needed to destroy them both—legal, financial, and moral leverage.
He didn't need to exit through the door. He moved to the floorboards near the desk and pried them up, revealing the entrance to the old servant’s dumbwaiter, which led straight to the basement archives. He slipped inside just as the office door was blown off its hinges.
