Chapter 13 - The Third Player
Everything happened at once.
Police lights flooded the pier. Officers returned fire toward the warehouse. Marco dragged Dominic behind a concrete barrier. Cassandra crawled toward Dr. Levin’s van.
Victor disappeared.
I did not see him leave.
One second he was beside me. The next he was gone into the smoke and flashing lights.
Dominic grabbed my face with his good hand. “Are you hit?”
“No. Are you?”
“Shoulder.”
“That is still hit.”
He almost smiled.
Ortiz shouted for everyone to get down.
The shooters escaped by boat.
By 2:00 a.m., Dr. Levin was safe, Dominic was stitched up, and Victor was missing.
But the worst news came from Cassandra.
“That wasn’t Victor’s team,” she said.
Ortiz folded her arms. “You sound sure.”
“I know his people.”
Dominic looked at her. “Then whose?”
Cassandra hesitated.
“Silas Kane.”
The name meant nothing to me.
It meant something to everyone else.
Marco swore.
Dominic leaned back in the hospital chair. “Kane is dead.”
“No,” Cassandra said. “He disappeared.”
Rebecca looked at me. “Who is he?”
Dominic answered.
“A former Moretti partner. My father cut him out twenty years ago.”
“Why?”
“He was laundering money through nursing homes and charities. My father turned evidence over to federal prosecutors.”
“And Kane blamed your family?”
“He blamed my father. Then me.”
Cassandra looked at me. “Victor thought he was using me to take the company. Kane was using Victor to get the babies.”
I stared at her. “Why my children?”
No one answered.
Dr. Levin did.
From the bed across the room, she whispered, “Because one of them may not be Dominic’s legal heir.”
The room went silent.
I felt Dominic’s eyes on me.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Dr. Levin swallowed.
“The trust documents were changed after your father-in-law died.”
She looked at Dominic.
“And the change says the first biological grandchild controls the final block of shares.”
May you like
Then she looked at me.
“Someone ordered prenatal genetic testing without your consent.”
