Nathan’s shadow moved against the far wall.
“Why didn’t they kill you?” he asked.
Mia’s mouth trembled.
“Because Harper was upstairs.”
Dominic understood at once.
A missing maid could be explained.
A dead maid was inconvenient.
A dead child was noise no one could bury.
Mia’s eyes filled. “They told everyone I left. They said if I screamed, Harper would disappear too.”
Dominic walked past her without another word.
When he returned to the cellar, Nathan stood with Marcus’s gun on him, his wine-soaked shirt clinging to his chest. He looked at Dominic’s face and knew.
“You read enough?” Nathan asked.
Dominic hit him again.
This time Nathan went down.
Dominic knelt, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him upright.
“My son.”
Nathan’s eyes glistened, though whether from pain or guilt, Dominic could not tell.
“I saved him,” Nathan said.
Dominic went still.
Nathan’s voice lowered. “Elena begged me.”
“Don’t say her name.”
“She knew the bomb wasn’t meant for her. It was meant for you. She knew your enemies would hunt the child next. She was dying, Dom. She made me promise to get him away from this life.”
Dominic’s grip loosened for half a second.
Nathan seized it.
“I did what she asked. I hid him. I gave him a chance to grow up without blood on his shoes.”
Dominic looked at him as if he were a stranger wearing a familiar face.
“And then you lied to me for fifteen years.”
“Yes.”
“You let me bury an empty coffin.”
“Yes.”
“You stood beside me while I mourned my son.”
Nathan’s face twisted. “Because if you knew he lived, you would have dragged him back into this.”
Dominic’s voice became very soft.
“Where is he?”
Nathan closed his mouth.
Dominic pressed the gun beneath his chin.
“Where is my son?”
Nathan smiled again, but this one was broken. “Not yours anymore.”
Dominic’s finger tightened.
A gunshot cracked upstairs.