Chapter 3 - THE HIDDEN FILE
By midnight, the storm over Lake Michigan had intensified into a full-driven November gale. Wet, heavy snow slathered the high glass panes of the mansion, and the wind howled through the iron battlements of the roof like a dying beast.
In his subterranean surveillance room, Dominic did not look at the screens displaying the perimeter gates or the armored vehicle garages.
He was looking at Grace Miller’s employment record.
A thick, manila dossier rested on the steel desk beside his console, brought to him an hour earlier by his chief of security, Marcus Vance. Marcus was a former military intelligence officer who had served the Vale family for fifteen years. He stood beside Dominic’s chair, his arms folded across his chest, his dark suit immaculate.
"She checks out on the surface, Boss," Marcus said, pointing a thick finger at the top document. "Grace Miller, born in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Parents deceased. Unmarried. No children. She’s worked in high-end residential domestic service for twelve years. Never stayed less than two years at a post. High marks from every family."
Dominic didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on page four of the file—a detailed background report covering her employment history between 2018 and 2020.
"Read page four again, Marcus," Dominic said quietly.
Marcus frowned, leaning closer to the light of the monitor. "Yeah. She worked through an agency called Apex Staffing. Placed as a night janitor at a commercial building on 47th Street on the South Side of Chicago."
"Who owns that building, Marcus?"
"It’s registered to a holding company out of Delaware—Midwest Commercial Assets LLC."
"And who controls Midwest Commercial Assets?" Dominic asked, his voice dropping into a dangerous, dark register.
Marcus paused. His eyes widened slightly as the connection formed in his mind. "Victor."
Victor Vale. Dominic and Julian’s uncle.
Victor was the last surviving member of the old guard—a ruthless, paranoid old man who had spent the last seven years nursing a bitter grudge from his estate in Oak Brook. Victor believed that Dominic was too soft, that Julian’s survival was an embarrassing liability, and that the Vale enterprise belonged in the hands of the older generation who weren't afraid to spill blood openly in the streets.
For seven years, Dominic had maintained a cold, fragile truce with his uncle. Victor received twelve percent of the syndicate's net revenues in exchange for remaining in Oak Brook and staying away from Lake Forest.
"She worked in Victor's building for eighteen months," Dominic murmured, staring at Grace’s photo attached to the file. "Six years ago. Right after the explosion in Miami."
"You think she’s a plant?" Marcus asked, his hand dropping instinctively toward the holster beneath his arm. "You think Victor placed her here to get close to Julian?"
Dominic didn't answer immediately. He leaned back in his chair, tapping a heavy silver signet ring against the steel desk. Tap. Tap. Tap.
He looked at Monitor 8.
The east wing was dark, except for the single desk lamp glowing in Julian’s study. Julian was sitting in his chair, his head bowed over a stack of yellow legal pads.
In the secondary kitchen, Grace was finishing her shift. She had wiped down the copper pans, swept the small tile floor, and was currently pouring a single cup of chamomile tea. She walked to the small table, placed the tea on the silver coaster, and set a small, folded piece of white cardstock beside it.
She wasn't sneaky. She didn't look for cameras. She moved with the transparent, calm efficiency of a woman doing her job.
"If she’s a plant, Marcus," Dominic said softly, "she’s playing a game I’ve never seen before. Victor doesn't send people who write notes about literature. Victor sends people with wiretaps, suppression gear, or poisons."
"Victor is patient, Boss," Marcus warned. "He knows you’d slaughter anyone who tried to hurt Julian directly. But if he can find out what Julian knows... if he thinks Julian is recovering his memory of how that boat went down in Miami..."
Dominic’s hand froze against the desk.
The boat explosion seven years ago had never been fully explained. The Coast Guard had ruled it a fuel-line leak aggravated by poor ventilation. Dominic had accepted that finding because the alternative—that someone inside the Vale inner circle had planted a radio-detonated limpet mine beneath the engine mount—would have triggered a war that would have torn Chicago apart.
If Julian was writing a novel... if the novel was not fiction, but a suppressed, traumatic memory returning piece by piece...
"Bring up the South Side employment records from 2019," Dominic ordered. "I want every shift Grace Miller worked at that building. I want to know who she talked to, who signed her paychecks, and why she left."
"It'll take a few hours to pull the archived logs from the agency database," Marcus said.
"You have two hours," Dominic said, his voice flat and absolute. "Until then, nobody touches her. Nobody speaks to her. I will watch her myself."
Marcus bowed his head and left the room, the heavy steel door sealing behind him with a hiss of compressed air.
Dominic turned back to the monitors.
On Monitor 8, Julian had wheeled himself out of his study. He approached the mahogany table. He picked up the cup of chamomile tea, took a sip, and picked up the white cardstock Grace had left behind.
Dominic leaned in close to the screen.
Julian read the cardstock. He held it in his hand for a long time. Then he turned his chair around, drove back to his desk, took out his brass Montblanc pen, and began to write furiously across a fresh yellow pad.
He wrote for forty-five minutes without stopping.
May you like
Dominic sat in the dark, watching his twin brother’s hands move across the paper—hands that had been still for seven long years. A single tear, hot and unbidden, slipped down Dominic’s cheek, but his face remained hard as granite.
"Who are you, Grace Miller?" Dominic whispered into the empty, hum of the server racks. "And what are you doing to my brother?"
