Chapter 7 - Whispers in the Dark
Inside the blacked-out SUV, the air was cold and still.
Evelyn slowly removed the heavy leather headphones, setting them neatly on the console beside a high-end audio recording unit.
Sitting in the driver's seat beside her was Dominic. His hands rested on the leather steering wheel, his knuckles white, his eyes fixed on the entrance of the Hart Corporation building across the street.
"Did you get it?" Dominic asked softly.
"Every word," Evelyn replied, her voice steady, though her dark eyes burned with an icy, dangerous light. "Julian confirmed the alliance with Falcone. He confirmed the hit at the Drake Hotel. And he told my father that you were holding me hostage in a warehouse."
Dominic turned his head to look at her. "He handed his own brother a death sentence."
"My uncle has never cared about blood, Dominic," Evelyn said, leaning her head back against the leather headrest, staring up at the dark roof of the vehicle. "To men like Julian, people are not human beings. They are resources to be used, spent, or discarded."
"Sound like any doctors you know?" Dominic teased faintly, a rare, subtle flick of humor cutting through the tension.
Evelyn shot him a sideways glance—a quick, sharp look that ended with the faintest softening of her lips.
"I cut people open to fix them, Mr. Vale," she replied coolly. "My uncle cuts people open to see how much money bleeds out."
Dominic let out a low rumble of a laugh in his chest. It was the first time in six months—since the explosion that killed his brother—that he had felt a genuine moment of lightness.
He reached across the center console. His broad, calloused hand rested over hers.
Evelyn looked down at their joined hands. His skin was warm, scarred across the knuckles from years of violence, yet his touch was unexpectedly careful, almost reverent. She didn't pull her hand away.
"Your father," Dominic said gently. "How bad is his condition?"
"He’s dying," Evelyn said quietly, her clinical tone wavering for a fraction of a second. "Severe congestive heart failure. Julian has been slowly poisoning his mind—and likely his medication—for months to keep him weak and dependent."
Dominic’s jaw set into iron. "We can save him, Evelyn."
"My father forced me into this engagement, Dominic," she reminded him, looking into his eyes. "He treated me like a pawn on a chessboard to secure his northern borders. Why do you care about saving him?"
Dominic held her gaze, his thumb gently brushing across the back of her fingers.
"Because he’s your father," Dominic said, his voice deep and sincere. "And because I know what it feels like to stand over a casket wishing you had ten more minutes to tell someone the truth."
Evelyn stared at him. The wall of cold, unapproachable isolation she had built around herself for two years—since her medical career was destroyed and her family turned their backs on her—crumbled just a little more.
"He won't believe us without absolute proof," she whispered.
"We bring the proof to the Drake Hotel on Friday," Dominic said. "We let Julian walk onto that stage, lay out his trap, and then we show every boss in Chicago who the real snake is."
"And Falcone’s hitmen on the third floor?" she asked.
Dominic’s expression darkened into the terrifying mask of the Vale monarch.
"Mateo and twenty of my best men will be waiting for them on the third floor," Dominic said coldly. "By the time Julian gives the signal for the hit, there won't be a single Falcone soldier left standing in that hotel."
He squeezed her hand gently.
"You saved my nephew’s life with a pen and a craft blade, Evelyn," Dominic said. "On Friday night, we take back our families."
May you like
Evelyn looked at him, feeling a sudden, intense warmth bloom in her chest—a feeling she hadn't experienced in years. She turned her hand over, intertwining her fingers with his.
"On Friday night," Evelyn corrected softly, "we take back everything."
