Chapter 6 - The Night Richard Lancaster Chose His Family
Her name was Camille Vega.
She had been Elena's closest friend in college.
Richard hadn't seen her in nearly nine years.
Camille refused to speak until she was brought inside.
Security searched her twice.
Richard ordered the boys moved downstairs under guard.
I stayed beside him.
He didn't ask me to leave.
That mattered.
Camille entered the library and looked at me first.
“So you're Sophie.”
“How do you know?”
“I've been trying to keep you alive.”
Richard stood.
“Start talking.”
Camille laughed bitterly.
“You haven't changed.”
“Where is Elena?”
The question stunned me.
Camille's face softened.
“Dead.”
Richard's jaw flexed.
“You said—”
“I said she didn't die in the crash.”
“Then explain.”
Camille opened a leather folder.
Inside were photographs.
Documents.
Bank records.
“Elena contacted me a week before she died. She'd discovered Dominic was moving weapons through Lancaster shipping routes without your authorization.”
Richard scanned the papers.
“Vincent?”
“Partner.”
“Why didn't she come to me?”
Camille's expression hardened.
“She tried.”
Richard looked up.
“You didn't listen.”
The words hit brutally.
Camille continued.
“Elena believed someone in your organization was feeding Vincent information. She planned to take the boys away until she could expose them.”
“The crash?”
“Staged.”
Richard went completely still.
“What?”
“Elena survived.”
My heart pounded.
Camille placed a hospital record on the table.
Unidentified female.
Admitted after a roadside rescue.
Severe injuries.
“She regained consciousness hours later,” Camille said. “She called me.”
Richard sat down.
“She was alive.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't she call me?”
“She was terrified your phones were compromised.”
His breathing changed.
“What happened?”
“Dominic found her first.”
Silence.
“How do you know?”
“I arrived twenty minutes too late.”
Camille's voice broke for the first time.
“The room was empty. A nurse had seen a man escort Elena out. She thought he was family.”
Richard's knuckles whitened.
“Dominic.”
“Yes.”
“And Elena?”
Camille shook her head.
“Her body was found three weeks later under another name.”
Richard looked like someone had struck him.
All these years, he'd buried a woman he thought had died in the crash.
Instead, Elena had survived long enough to know she was hunted.
Camille pushed another document forward.
“I spent three years gathering proof.”
“Why send threats?” I asked.
She looked at me.
“I didn't.”
My stomach tightened.
“The video?”
“Yes.”
“The photograph at the house?”
“No.”
“The warehouse message?”
“No.”
Richard stood.
“Then there are two people communicating with us.”
Camille nodded.
“I sent the footage because I saw your wedding announcement. I realized Dominic might view Sophie as another threat.”
“Why?”
“Because Elena hid evidence.”
“Where?”
Camille looked toward the west hall.
“The nursery.”
Everything clicked.
The hidden passage.
The transmitter.
Someone searching.
We ran upstairs.
The nursery had already been searched by security after the breach.
Nothing obvious.
Camille walked directly toward a built-in bookcase.
“Elena told me she hid something behind the stars.”
The nursery ceiling had painted constellations.
So did the shelving.
Alex pointed.
“There.”
One wooden star on the bookcase was slightly crooked.
Richard pressed it.
A panel opened.
Inside sat a small metal box.
A memory card.
A handwritten letter.
Richard unfolded it.
His hands began shaking.
I looked away.
Some words belong to the dead and the people who loved them.
But Richard handed me the letter.
“Read it.”
I hesitated.
“Please.”
Elena had written it two days before the crash.
Richard,
If you're reading this, I failed to tell you myself.
Dominic and Vincent are stealing from the company and using our shipping network for things you explicitly forbade. Dominic believes your refusal to expand is weakness. He intends to remove you.
I know we've hurt each other. I know I said I was leaving.
I am leaving the house temporarily.
Not you.
Not forever.
I need you to understand something before anger convinces you otherwise.
I still love you.
But I will not let our sons grow up believing fear is power.
Choose them.
Even if someday that means choosing them over the empire your father left you.
Elena.
Richard turned away.
Nobody spoke.
The memory card contained everything.
Financial records.
Recorded conversations.
Shipment logs.
Dominic planning with Vincent.
And one recording made the night before Elena's crash.
Dominic's voice:
“If she goes to Richard, we're finished.”
Vincent:
“Then make sure she doesn't.”
There was enough evidence to destroy both men.
But before Richard could contact federal authorities, a security alarm appeared.
One gate had opened.
Authorized access.
“Who?” Richard demanded.
The guard checked.
His face changed.
“Dominic.”
Richard's eyes went cold.
Then the power failed again.
This time Dominic wasn't sneaking inside.
He came with armed men.
Gunfire erupted near the front gate.
Security rushed the boys toward the underground shelter.
Richard grabbed my arm.
“Go with them.”
“No.”
“Sophie.”
“Richard—”
“My children need you.”
That stopped me.
Not because he was ordering me.
Because of the way he said it.
My children need you.
I looked at him.
“And they need you.”
“I'll come.”
“You promise?”
His expression softened.
“Yes.”
I believed him.
I took Alex and Max downstairs.
Twenty minutes felt like twenty years.
Max buried his face against me.
Alex tried not to cry.
“Dad always comes back,” he whispered.
It sounded like something he needed me to confirm.
“Yes.”
Gunshots stopped.
Silence.
Then footsteps approached the shelter.
Security code entered.
The door opened.
Richard walked in.
Blood stained his shirt.
I jumped up.
“Are you hurt?”
“Not mine.”
Max ran to him.
Alex followed.
Richard collapsed to his knees and hugged them.
Then looked at me.
“Dominic?”
I asked.
“Gone.”
“Escaped?”
“For now.”
Federal agents arrived before dawn.
Richard gave them everything.
Everything.
Not only evidence against Dominic and Vincent.
His own files too.
Years of illegal operations.
I stared at him.
“You'll implicate yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Richard.”
“Elena was right.”
His eyes moved toward the boys sleeping nearby.
“I have spent years saying everything I did was for them.”
He looked back at me.
“But if I protect the organization instead of them, I'm lying.”
“What happens to you?”
“I don't know.”
That terrified me more than I expected.
“You could go to prison.”
“Yes.”
I looked away.
He touched my hand.
The first deliberate touch between us that wasn't for appearances or protection.
“Sophie.”
I looked back.
“If this ends badly, Evelyn will make sure you and the boys are protected.”
“The boys are yours.”
“Yes.”
“So don't speak like you're disappearing.”
“I need to prepare you.”
“No.”
His thumb moved slightly against my hand.
“You once told me I decide everything alone.”
“You do.”
“I'm trying not to.”
“Then hear me.”
I tightened my fingers around his.
“You're coming back to us.”
Us.
The word hung between us.
Richard heard it.
So did I.
Before either of us could respond, an agent entered.
“Mr. Lancaster.”
Richard stood.
“We found Dominic's vehicle.”
“Where?”
“Abandoned near the river.”
“And Dominic?”
“No sign.”
The agent hesitated.
“But we found a phone inside.”
Richard's expression hardened.
“What was on it?”
“One outgoing message sent thirty minutes ago.”
“To whom?”
The agent looked directly at me.
“To someone saved under the name E.”
My stomach dropped.
Richard went still.
“Elena?”
“No,” Camille said from behind us.
Everyone turned.
Her face had gone pale.
“Elena had a sister.”
Richard stared at her.
“What sister?”
Camille swallowed.
“A half-sister Elena never told you about.”
And suddenly we understood Dominic wasn't running alone.
Someone else had been part of this from the beginning.
Someone connected to Elena.
May you like
Someone who might believe Richard Lancaster had destroyed her family.
And that person had just learned exactly where his new wife and children were hiding.
