Chapter 8 - The Last Place Victor Would Go

Victor left his phone in Boston.

His car was found at Logan Airport.

His passport was unused.

Everyone assumed he had flown anyway.

Adrian did not.

“He hates flying.”

Dominic looked at him.

“How do you know?”

“He drove eight hours to my graduation because he refused a forty-minute flight.”

I remembered the Wisconsin trips Sal had once described.

Families kept strange habits.

Useful ones.

Adrian asked Dominic one question.

“If Victor thought he was losing everything, where would he go?”

Dominic answered immediately.

“The lake house.”

Northern Vermont.

Four hours away.

The Vale brothers had spent summers there as children.

Police were notified.

Adrian was told to wait.

He did not.

Dominic wanted to go too.

Henry refused.

For once, Adrian agreed with him.

“You just got your father back,” I told him in the garage. “Don’t make him watch you disappear too.”

He looked at me.

Then nodded.

I thought that meant he would stay.

It didn’t.

It meant Dominic would.

Adrian drove.

I went because I knew where the spare keys were.

That was my excuse.

The truth was simpler.

I was tired of watching powerful men walk into dangerous rooms alone.

The lake house was dark when we arrived.

Snow edged the porch.

One light glowed upstairs.

Police were twenty minutes behind us.

Adrian should have waited.

He didn’t.

Inside, the house smelled like dust and pine.

Victor sat in the living room.

No weapon.

No suitcase.

Just photographs.

Dozens of them.

Dominic and Victor as boys.

Their parents.

Adrian as a child.

Victor looked up.

“I knew you’d remember this place.”

Adrian stayed near the doorway.

“Police are coming.”

“I know.”

Victor held a photograph of Dominic at nineteen.

“We were close once.”

Adrian said nothing.

Victor laughed softly.

“You think I woke up evil one morning?”

“No.”

That surprised him.

Adrian stepped closer.

“I think you made one selfish choice.”

Victor stared.

“Then another.”

Another step.

“And another.”

Victor looked away.

“Your father always got everything.”

There it was.

Not money.

Not only money.

Resentment.

“He got the company. Your grandmother’s trust. Your mother.”

Adrian frowned.

“My mother?”

Victor’s eyes shifted.

A mistake.

Adrian saw it.

“You loved her.”

Victor looked at the photograph in his hand.

“For years.”

Adrian’s face changed.

Victor continued.

“She chose Dominic.”

“So you took his company?”

“I thought if he was gone, eventually—”

He stopped.

Adrian finished it.

“She would choose you.”

Victor looked ashamed.

“She never did.”

“No.”

“She spent years trying to find him.”

“Yes.”

“And when she did, you threatened me.”

Victor stood suddenly.

“I never would have hurt you.”

Adrian did not move.

“You used me.”

“To stop her.”

“You made my mother choose between my life and my father.”

Victor’s eyes filled.

“I panicked.”

“You keep calling choices panic.”

Silence.

Outside, distant engines approached.

Victor looked toward the window.

Then at Adrian.

“I can tell them Rafael planned everything.”

Adrian almost smiled.

“Did he?”

Victor looked away.

No.

Adrian nodded.

“That’s what I thought.”

Victor sat again.

Small.

Defeated.

Police lights washed across the walls.

Before officers entered, Victor said one last thing.

“Dominic will forgive you for anything. He always did.”

Adrian looked at him.

“I’m not asking him to forgive me.”

Then he opened the door.

“I’m asking him to live long enough for me to know him.”

Victor’s face broke.

Not because he was arrested.

Because he finally understood what he had stolen.

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Not a company.

Sixteen years.