Chapter 6 – The Faded Coat
My mind violently rejected what I was seeing. My father had been paralyzed on his left side for eight months. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t walk without assistance.
Yet here he stood, his hand perfectly steady as he aimed the revolver at Thomas Arden. He wore his old brown trench coat, the one he used to wear when he worked late nights at the docks.
“Dad?” I whispered, my voice breaking.
Dominic stepped out of the study, his security men flooding the hallway from the opposite side, trapping Thomas. Dominic looked at my father, and a silent nod passed between them.
“You…” Thomas stammered, blood dripping from his nose where I had elbowed him. “You had a stroke. I saw the medical reports.”
“You saw the reports your crooked doctors filed,” my father said, his voice strong and clear. “The stroke was real. The paralysis was temporary. I’ve been faking my condition for six months. Ever since I realized you had found us.”
Reversal. My father hadn’t been a helpless victim. He had been playing a long game of survival.
“You knew?” I asked, tears spilling down my cheeks. “You let me bathe you, feed you, cry over you…”
My father’s eyes softened as he looked at me. “I had to, Anna. The moment they thought I was capable of defending myself, they would have killed both of us to get the rosary. I had to make them believe we were no threat until Dominic was ready to learn the truth.”
“This is insane,” Celeste shrieked, running out of the study and grabbing her father’s arm. “Dad, do something! Call our men from outside!”
“He can’t,” Dominic said smoothly. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket—a vintage ferry ticket. “Because while you were busy trying to drug me and steal my empire, I was doing a little digging into the past. Do you recognize this ticket, Thomas?”
Thomas’s eyes widened in sheer terror.
“It’s the ferry ticket my mother bought the night she supposedly died,” Dominic continued, walking slowly toward them. “But she didn’t use it. You did, Thomas. You used it to flee the scene after you ran her car off the cliff. And my men just found the original car in a scrapyard owned by Arden & Associates.”
The music in the dining room abruptly stopped. The heavy mahogany doors swung open, and the twenty-six elite guests spilled into the hallway, murmuring in confusion.
Dominic didn’t lower his voice. He wanted an audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Dominic announced, his voice echoing off the marble walls. “The engagement is off.”
Celeste let out a sound like a dying animal. She grabbed the silver rosary from her father’s hand, holding it up like a shield.
“If we go down, we’re taking you with us!” she screamed. She pressed her thumb against the crucifix, trying to snap the microfilm out. “I’ll leak this ledger to every rival family in the city! The Falcone name will be erased!”
She yanked the cross open.
But the hidden compartment was completely empty.
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