Chapter 9 - The Price of a Lie
Dominic stopped the moment he saw the gun.
“Michael.”
The attorney’s hand trembled.
“Don’t move.”
Penelope glanced at him.
“For someone committing treason, you look very anxious.”
“Quiet.”
“See? Even your threats lack confidence.”
“Penelope,” Dominic said.
She looked at him.
His expression remained controlled.
But his eyes moved once toward her wrist.
The broken watch.
He knew Gabriel was listening.
Good.
Samuel rose.
“Dominic. I’m pleased you ignored instructions.”
“I’ve never been good with them.”
“Nor was your father.”
Samuel gestured toward the photographs.
“Penelope has questions.”
Dominic looked at them.
His face changed.
Not guilt exactly.
Recognition.
Penelope asked, “Did you pay the doctor who signed my mother’s death certificate?”
“Yes.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Penelope felt as if the floor disappeared.
“Why?”
Dominic looked at Samuel.
“Because Eleanor asked me to.”
Samuel laughed.
“Convenient.”
Penelope looked at her mother.
Vincent’s hand still covered her mouth.
“Let her speak.”
Samuel nodded.
Vincent removed his hand.
Eleanor took a breath.
“I asked Dominic to fake my death.”
Penelope stared.
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
Penelope laughed bitterly.
“There it is.”
“Penny—”
“No. Every lie in this family apparently comes gift-wrapped with those words.”
Eleanor’s eyes filled.
“I know.”
“You let me bury you.”
“I know.”
“I spent nine months thinking you were dead.”
“I know.”
“You watched me?”
Silence.
Penelope stepped closer.
“You watched me grieve?”
“Yes.”
The answer nearly destroyed her.
“Why?”
Eleanor began crying.
“Because Samuel found me.”
Penelope looked at her grandfather.
“He contacted me ten months ago. He knew Gabriel was alive. He knew about the trust. He knew the dead-man switch was failing.”
Gabriel’s voice suddenly came through the broken watch.
Faint.
“He knew because Arden disabled it.”
Everyone froze.
Michael looked at Penelope’s wrist.
“Take that off.”
She smiled.
“Too late.”
The conference room doors exploded inward.
Gunfire.
Dominic pulled Penelope behind the table.
Vincent dragged Eleanor aside.
Samuel shouted.
Michael fired toward the doorway.
Gabriel entered.
Two of Dominic’s men behind him.
Chaos swallowed the room.
Glass shattered.
Bullets tore into walls.
Penelope stayed low.
Dominic covered her with his body.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
“Stay down.”
She looked toward her mother.
Vincent had released her and was firing at Gabriel’s men.
Then something unexpected happened.
Vincent cut Eleanor’s restraints.
“Move!”
Penelope stared.
Vincent shoved Eleanor behind a pillar.
Samuel shouted, “Vincent!”
Vincent turned.
His face was furious.
“You told me she was bait.”
“She is.”
“You said nobody gets hurt.”
Samuel laughed.
“Your father was always sentimental too.”
Vincent went pale.
“My father?”
Samuel smiled.
“He begged the same way before I killed him.”
Everything stopped inside Vincent.
Penelope saw it.
A son hearing the truth.
Vincent lowered his gun.
“You said Gabriel killed him.”
Samuel’s smile disappeared.
“I said what you needed to believe.”
Vincent turned his weapon toward Samuel.
Michael immediately aimed at Vincent.
Dominic shot Michael in the shoulder.
The attorney screamed and fell.
Gabriel rushed toward Eleanor.
They saw each other.
Twenty years disappeared.
Neither spoke.
Then Eleanor slapped him.
Hard.
Penelope blinked.
Gabriel touched his cheek.
“I deserved that.”
“You disappeared for twenty years!”
“You told me to!”
“That was before I knew you’d take instructions literally!”
Despite everything, Penelope laughed.
It burst out of her uncontrollably.
Eleanor stared.
Then laughed too.
A broken, tearful sound.
Samuel slammed his hand on the table.
“This is not a reunion.”
Dominic raised his weapon.
“No.”
He aimed at Samuel.
“It’s an ending.”
Samuel did not look afraid.
Instead he pressed a button beneath the table.
Metal shutters slammed over the windows.
Doors locked.
Red lights flashed.
A mechanical voice announced:
SECURITY CONTAINMENT ACTIVE.
Penelope looked at Dominic.
“What did he do?”
Samuel smiled.
“Vale Tower was designed during less trusting years.”
Gabriel swore.
“Gas system.”
Eleanor went pale.
“What?”
Samuel stepped toward a private side door.
“Halothane mixture. Enough to put everyone down.”
Dominic fired at the control panel.
Sparks erupted.
Nothing happened.
Samuel disappeared through the side door.
Vincent ran after him.
Locked.
Air hissed through ceiling vents.
Penelope covered her mouth.
Gabriel grabbed a chair and smashed at the glass partition.
Reinforced.
Dominic shouted to his men.
“Maintenance override!”
One ran toward the panel.
Eleanor coughed.
Penelope’s head began swimming.
Dominic ripped off his tie and pressed it over her mouth.
“Breathe slowly.”
“What about you?”
“I’m older. I’ve already lived longer than expected.”
“Not funny.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
Vincent pounded on the side door.
“My father.”
Penelope grabbed his sleeve.
“Later.”
He looked at her.
For the first time, Vincent Costa looked lost.
Human.
Then Gabriel shouted.
“There!”
A ceiling hatch.
Dominic lifted a chair.
They smashed the vent cover.
Gabriel boosted Penelope upward.
“Go!”
She climbed into the duct.
Eleanor followed.
Catherine’s voice crackled over Penelope’s watch.
“East maintenance shaft. Twenty feet.”
Penelope crawled.
Behind her, coughing.
Metal groaned.
She reached a junction.
Left.
Right.
“Which way?”
Catherine answered.
“Right.”
They crawled.
The gas made Penelope dizzy.
Then the shaft ended at another grate.
She kicked.
Once.
Twice.
It broke open.
Penelope fell into a utility room.
Eleanor landed beside her.
Gabriel followed.
Dominic.
Vincent.
Two guards.
Everyone breathing hard.
Penelope immediately hugged her mother.
This time nobody stopped them.
Eleanor held her like she had when Penelope was a child.
“I’m sorry.”
Penelope cried against her shoulder.
“We’re going to discuss that for several years.”
“I deserve that.”
Gabriel touched Eleanor’s arm.
She looked at him.
Then at his cheek.
“You still bruise easily.”
“You still hit hard.”
She almost smiled.
Dominic checked his phone.
“Samuel’s gone.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“So is Michael.”
“What?”
Dominic’s men had lost him during the gas release.
Vincent looked toward the door.
“I know where Samuel will go.”
Gabriel stared.
“Where?”
“My father’s old house in Staten Island.”
“No,” Eleanor whispered.
Everyone turned.
“He won’t.”
Gabriel’s expression changed.
“Then where?”
Eleanor looked at Penelope.
“The place where all of this started.”
Penelope knew before she said it.
“Room 317.”
Eleanor nodded.
Penelope’s broken watch vibrated.
An incoming transmission.
A video file.
She opened it.
Samuel sat in Room 317.
Behind him stood Michael Arden.
Bleeding but alive.
Samuel leaned toward the camera.
“You want the ledger?”
He held up a black drive.
“Come finish what your parents started.”
Then Michael stepped closer and whispered something into Samuel’s ear.
Samuel smiled.
“And Penelope?”
He raised a second object.
A birth certificate.
“Ask Dominic why his name appears on the original certificate filed the day you were born.”
The video ended.
May you like
Penelope slowly turned toward Dominic.
He looked like a man who had just seen the past return with a knife.
