Chapter 3 - THE BRIDE WHO NEEDED HARPER GONE
Claire Bennett was found at a private airfield outside White Plains.
She had chartered a jet to Montreal under another name.
Federal agents did not stop her.
Dominic did.
His vehicles surrounded the aircraft before the engines started.
Claire stepped onto the tarmac wearing sunglasses and a white traveling coat.
She looked irritated rather than frightened.
“Dominic, this is unnecessary.”
He remained several feet away.
“Where were you going?”
“My aunt is ill.”
“You do not have an aunt in Canada.”
Her smile thinned.
“Nathan warned me you might become irrational.”
“Nathan is locked beneath my house.”
For the first time, fear entered her face.
Dominic held up the flash drive.
“Isabella recorded everything.”
Claire looked toward the pilot.
Daniel moved into her path.
“Do not.”
Claire lowered her voice.
“You cannot trust Mia.”
“I found her tied inside my cellar.”
“She attacked me.”
“With her wrists?”
Claire’s composure slipped.
“She discovered documents she had no right to see.”
“And that justified three days without water?”
“I did not know Nathan would leave her there.”
“But you installed the lock.”
Silence.
Dominic stepped closer.
“You told Harper her mother went to Pennsylvania.”
“I was protecting the child.”
“No. You were measuring how long a four-year-old could be ignored.”
Claire’s eyes hardened.
“She is not your responsibility.”
The statement revealed more than Claire intended.
Mia and Harper were employees.
Disposable.
Invisible.
People who could disappear without affecting a wedding.
Dominic held out his hand.
“Your phone.”
“No.”
Daniel took it under the authority of the warrant Samuel had arranged through a federal contact.
Messages between Claire and Nathan filled the device.
They planned the wedding as a transfer point.
Dominic’s signature on a marital trust amendment would give Claire temporary voting authority during any medical incapacity.
Nathan intended to stage such an incapacity on the wedding night.
A sedative in Dominic’s champagne.
A manufactured medical emergency.
A private physician prepared to declare him unconscious and impaired.
Claire would assume emergency spousal control.
Nathan would move the Vale companies before Dominic awoke.
If Dominic did not awaken, even better.
The messages also mentioned Harper.
The child enters the western hall too often.
Move Mia after she signs the employment confession.
If the girl continues asking questions, Claire’s charity can arrange placement.
Claire chaired a children’s foundation.
She intended to use it to separate Harper from Mia through fabricated neglect allegations.
“What employment confession?” Dominic asked.
Claire said nothing.
Her phone contained the draft.
Mia would admit stealing jewelry and wine.
She would be arrested.
Harper would enter temporary care.
The ledger would disappear.
Claire looked at Dominic.
“You need me.”
“For what?”
“Your public future. Legitimacy. Political protection.”
“I had all of those before you.”
“No. You had fear.”
“And you thought marriage to a judge’s daughter would clean my name?”
“I thought I could make your empire survive.”
“You were selling it before the wedding.”
Claire’s voice became sharper.
“You cannot control everything forever.”
“No.”
Dominic looked at the agents approaching across the tarmac.
“That is one lesson I have finally learned.”
Claire was arrested for kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, conspiracy, fraud, and attempted financial takeover.
As officers placed her in the vehicle, she turned toward Dominic.
“You still think Mia is innocent?”
He stopped.
“What does that mean?”
Claire smiled.
“Ask who Harper’s father is.”
The car door closed.
For the first time since finding Mia, Dominic felt a different kind of fear.
Not that she had betrayed him.
That the truth beneath his house might be older than Nathan.
May you like
And more personal than Isabella’s death.
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