Chapter 8 - The Brother at Midnight.
At 11:59 p.m., Lucas sat alone in their father's study with a phone on the desk.
He was not truly alone.
Mara had hidden a transmitter beneath the blotter.
Victor waited behind the service wall with two guards.
Damian stood in the dark archive passage, close enough to hear Lucas breathe.
The clock changed.
Midnight.
The phone rang.
Lucas answered.
"Hello."
Their father's voice came through the speaker.
"You always were the easier son."
Lucas went rigid.
Damian felt his stomach twist even though Mara had warned them the voice could be synthetic.
The caller continued.
"Open the west drawer."
Lucas did.
Inside was an envelope none of them had placed there.
He removed a photograph of Damian's father beside Arthur Bell and Victor's father.
The unknown third man from Harper's memory stood at the edge.
On the back was a handwritten name.
MARTIN VALE.
Victor whispered through comms.
"I know that name."
Damian waited.
"He was your father's first security chief before my father."
The caller told Lucas to burn the photograph.
Lucas looked toward the hidden microphone.
"Why?"
"Because Damian will misunderstand it."
Lucas laughed.
"Damian misunderstands everything."
The insult sounded natural enough to sell the performance.
The caller gave the next instruction.
"Go to the ballroom alone."
Lucas stood.
Damian moved through the parallel passage.
The ballroom lights were off except for moonlight across the marble.
A single chair waited beneath the chandelier.
Harper was tied to it.
Her mouth was taped.
Lucas stopped ten feet away.
"I'm here."
A speaker crackled from somewhere above.
"Tell your brother you killed your father."
Lucas stared at Harper.
"No."
"Then she dies."
A red laser dot appeared over Harper's chest.
Damian searched the balcony for a shooter.
Victor found the likely angle and moved.
Lucas stepped in front of Harper.
"I didn't kill him."
The voice changed from their father's tone to something colder.
"But you helped."
Lucas flinched.
Damian heard it.
"Tell him about the brakes."
Lucas's face broke.
"I changed Dad's car reservation that night."
Damian nearly stepped from hiding.
Lucas continued.
"Someone called me and said Dad wanted the older sedan instead of the armored car."
"Who called?"
"I thought it was Arthur."
"You never checked."
Lucas's voice cracked.
"No."
Damian finally understood the guilt his brother had carried for nine years.
The caller had been grooming Lucas ever since.
Harper made a desperate sound behind the tape.
The laser dot shifted.
Victor's voice came through Damian's earpiece.
"No shooter on balcony."
Mara answered.
"The laser is projected from the chandelier."
A mechanical click sounded beneath Lucas.
Damian recognized it too late.
The marble floor opened.
Lucas and Harper dropped out of sight.
Damian lunged from the passage.
The hatch slammed closed before he reached them.
Across the ballroom, a man stepped from behind a curtain.
He wore no mask.
He was in his late sixties, thin, silver-haired, and smiling.
Victor came through the opposite door and stopped cold.
"Martin Vale."
May you like
The old man looked at Damian.
"Your father should have listened to me.
