Chapter 6 - CALEB’S TEARSCaleb Whitmore lifted both hands slowly.
Snow fell between them, soft and silent, as if the world had no idea a dead woman was pointing a gun at the man who helped kill her life.
“Arabella,” Caleb said, voice breaking. “I thought he kept you comfortable.”
Dante’s expression changed.
Beside him, Nico whispered, “Wrong thing to say.”
Arabella’s hand shook, but the gun stayed aimed at Caleb’s chest.
“Comfortable?”
Caleb swallowed.
“I didn’t know about the streets.”
“The room without windows was better?”
His face flickered.
There it was.
Confirmation.
Dante stepped forward. “Who ordered the hit on my father?”
Caleb looked at him, surprised. “You think this is about you?”
“Everything becomes about me when people shoot at me.”
Caleb gave a nervous laugh, then looked back at Arabella.
“I loved you.”
Arabella’s mouth opened slightly.
The words struck harder than an insult.
“You drugged me.”
“I saved you.”
She stared at him.
Caleb took one step forward.
Dante’s gun rose.
Caleb stopped.
“Malcolm wanted you dead that night,” Caleb said quickly. “The plan was simple. You vanish with the yacht. No clinic. No hidden room. No chance. I begged him not to kill you.”
Arabella’s eyes filled with fury.
“You begged him to imprison me instead?”
“I thought after the trust transferred, he’d let you go somewhere. Europe. South America. A quiet life.”
“A quiet life?” Her laugh was broken. “I ate out of trash cans.”
Caleb looked genuinely horrified.
That made it worse.
He had betrayed her and still wanted credit for mercy.
“You signed the sedation order,” she said.
“I was scared.”
“So was I.”
He flinched.
Dante heard engines behind them.
“Nico.”
“On it.”
Nico fired into the trees. A man cried out and fell. Evelyn pulled the dog back as more headlights bounced down the road.
Caleb looked over his shoulder, panicked.
“Malcolm sent men behind me. I came alone first because I wanted to talk.”
“You mean negotiate,” Dante said.
Caleb ignored him.
“Arabella, listen to me. Your father changed the Vale inheritance before he died. If you reappear now, everything Malcolm controls freezes. The board, the foundation, the shipping contracts, the private accounts—everything. He won’t just kill you. He’ll burn half the city to erase you.”
“Good,” she said.
Caleb stared.
Arabella stepped closer, barefoot in the snow now because one borrowed shoe had been lost in the tunnel.
“Let it burn.”
For one wild second, Dante saw the heiress everyone had feared she might become. Not spoiled. Not weak. Not elegant.
Dangerous.
Caleb reached into his coat.
Dante fired at the ground near his feet.
“Slow.”
Caleb pulled out a flash drive and tossed it into the snow.
“What is that?” Arabella demanded.
“Insurance.”
Dante nodded to Nico, who picked it up.
Caleb said, “Files from Malcolm’s private server. Payments. Clinic records. Offshore transfers. Enough to hurt him.”
“Enough to bury him?” Dante asked.
Caleb hesitated.
Dante smiled.
“Then not enough.”
Caleb’s eyes sharpened. “I can get more.”
Arabella lowered the gun slightly.
“You expect me to trust you?”
“No,” Caleb said. “I expect you to hate me and use me anyway.”
Gunfire erupted from the road.
Dante grabbed Arabella and shoved her behind the creek wall. Caleb ducked as bullets shredded the tree beside him.
One of Malcolm’s SUVs swerved into view.
Dante’s men returned fire from the woods.
Caleb crawled toward them, slipping in the snow.
“I know how to enter Vale Manor,” he shouted. “I know where Malcolm keeps the originals.”
Dante glanced at Arabella.
Her face was pale, wet with snow and tears.
“He’s lying,” Nico said.
“Probably,” Dante answered.
Arabella looked at Caleb.
For twelve years, she had dreamed of someone coming back for her. Now the man who abandoned her was kneeling in the snow, offering a key to the cage he helped build.
“Bring him,” she said.
Dante studied her.
“You sure?”
“No.” Her voice hardened. “But I want him close enough to watch when I take everything back.”
Dante almost laughed.
May you like
The dead girl was gone.
Arabella Vale had returned.
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