Chapter 4 - The Name Dominic Never Expected to Hear
Roman Vale was Dominic’s father’s younger brother.
He was sixty-one years old.
He chaired the Vale Family Foundation.
He attended church twice a week.
He funded scholarships.
He shook hands with senators.
And according to Dr. Weber’s dying words, he was involved with the network using St. Jude’s to move vulnerable patients through Harland Patient Transport.
Weber survived.
Barely.
The bullet missed his spine and major blood vessels.
Clare found no satisfaction in helping save him.
But she did it anyway.
That was the difference between medicine and revenge.
By the time Dominic entered St. Jude’s, half the hospital was in lockdown.
He saw Clare standing outside surgery with Weber’s blood on her sleeves.
His face changed immediately.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
He reached for her.
Stopped before touching.
That small hesitation mattered.
“Whose blood?”
“Weber’s.”
“What happened?”
“He was shot.”
“By who?”
“We don’t know.”
Clare looked directly at him.
“But before he lost consciousness, he gave me a name.”
Dominic went still.
“Whose?”
“Roman Vale.”
For several seconds, nothing moved in his face.
Then:
“No.”
“He said Roman.”
“No.”
“Dominic.”
“My uncle has nothing to do with Sloane.”
“Apparently Dr. Weber disagrees.”
“Weber is a coward and a liar.”
“He had just been shot.”
“That doesn’t make him honest.”
Detective Reyes joined them.
“It makes the statement admissible depending on circumstances.”
Dominic looked at her.
“You’re enjoying this?”
“Not even slightly.”
Roman Vale arrived twenty minutes later.
Clare knew him immediately.
Silver hair.
Perfect navy suit.
A face that belonged on the cover of a charity brochure.
He walked toward Dominic with open concern.
“I heard there was a shooting.”
Then he saw Clare.
Recognition flashed.
Too quickly.
But it happened.
“You know me,” Clare said.
Roman smiled.
“Everyone knows you now.”
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“You recognized me before anyone said my name.”
Dominic looked between them.
Roman’s smile faded slightly.
“The nurse who saved Tommy.”
“How did you know that?”
“Dominic told me.”
Dominic’s voice went cold.
“No, I didn’t.”
Silence.
Roman adjusted his cuff.
“Someone must have.”
Reyes approached.
“Mr. Vale, I need to ask you some questions.”
“Of course.”
His composure was remarkable.
Clare had seen dying patients with less control.
They moved Roman to a private interview room.
Dominic remained in the hall.
He looked at the floor.
“My father trusted him.”
“That doesn’t mean you had to.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“He raised me after my father died.”
Clare’s anger softened.
“How old were you?”
“Twenty.”
“Tommy?”
“Four.”
That explained more than Dominic wanted it to.
Roman had been father, uncle, adviser.
Family.
“Your father died how?”
Dominic looked at her.
“Heart attack.”
“Sudden?”
“Yes.”
“How old?”
“Forty-eight.”
Clare did not say anything.
Dominic heard the question anyway.
“No.”
“What?”
“You’re wondering if Roman had something to do with that.”
“I didn’t say it.”
“You thought it.”
“Yes.”
Dominic walked toward the window.
“I’m starting to hate the way you think.”
“Because it’s useful?”
“Because lately you’re right.”
Roman denied everything.
Of course he did.
He claimed Weber had treated him socially years earlier and might be confused.
He claimed he knew Sloane only through business.
He claimed Harland Patient Transport had once bid for a Vale Maritime contract.
All plausible.
Nothing enough to arrest him.
Then Jasmine resurfaced.
She walked into a suburban police station thirty miles west of Chicago carrying a flash drive inside her shoe.
Reyes brought her to a secure location.
Clare hugged her so hard Jasmine complained she could not breathe.
“You disappeared.”
“I was trying not to be murdered.”
“Acceptable.”
Jasmine looked past Clare at Dominic.
“Is that Dominic Vale?”
“Yes.”
“Why is a mafia boss at our secret police meeting?”
Dominic sighed.
Clare said, “Long story.”
Jasmine lowered her voice.
“He’s taller than the news makes him look.”
“I can hear you,” Dominic said.
“That’s worse.”
Even Reyes laughed.
Then Jasmine handed over the flash drive.
“I copied this from Davis’s restricted folder.”
“What is it?” Clare asked.
“Patient routing.”
Names.
Destinations.
Payment numbers.
Thirty-seven individuals over three years.
Some were criminals.
Some witnesses.
Some undocumented workers.
Some abused spouses.
Some homeless.
Some simply people nobody powerful expected anyone to look for.
Harland Patient Transport moved them from St. Jude’s to three unregistered medical sites.
One was linked to Sloane.
Another to a shell corporation.
The third belonged to the Vale Family Foundation.
Dominic stared at the screen.
“No.”
Jasmine clicked.
The property was an old rehabilitation center outside Joliet.
Purchased by Roman’s foundation two years earlier.
Clare looked at Dominic.
He had gone pale.
“What happened to the patients?”
Jasmine swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
Reyes began mobilizing a search warrant.
Dominic took out his phone.
Clare grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t.”
His eyes flashed.
“He’s my family.”
“Exactly.”
“I need to hear him deny it.”
“No. You need to stop warning people before police reach them.”
“I am not warning him.”
“You call him, he knows we know.”
Dominic pulled free.
“You don’t understand.”
“No, I do.”
Her voice sharpened.
“You want one more version where the person you trusted has an explanation that makes everything okay.”
That stopped him.
Clare continued.
“I did the same thing with St. Jude’s for nine years.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Every bad shift. Every unsafe decision. Every administrator who cared more about liability than patients. I kept telling myself the hospital was still fundamentally good.”
She looked at the records.
“Maybe sometimes institutions are exactly what their worst people make them.”
Dominic slowly lowered the phone.
Reyes nodded once.
“Thank you.”
The raid began after midnight.
The rehabilitation center appeared abandoned from outside.
Inside, officers found twelve beds.
Medical equipment.
Locked rooms.
Sedatives.
Patient files.
Three people alive.
Four deceased bodies in a refrigerated storage area.
The site was not just a place where unwanted patients were hidden.
It was where people were kept until somebody decided what happened to them.
Among the files was Rebecca Miller.
The domestic-violence victim Clare remembered.
Alive.
Weak.
Terrified.
But alive.
Clare cried when Reyes told her.
That should have been the worst discovery.
It wasn’t.
The financial records showed Vale Foundation money paying Harland Transport.
Roman and Sloane had been partners for years.
They stole medical equipment through Vale freight routes.
They used hospital access to identify useful or dangerous patients.
They moved them through private facilities.
Sometimes for extortion.
Sometimes to silence witnesses.
Sometimes to sell information.
Dominic read the summary in silence.
Tommy watched him from the safe-house couch.
“Uncle Roman?”
Dominic nodded.
Tommy looked eighteen instead of twenty-two.
“He taught me to drive.”
“I know.”
“He came to every birthday.”
“I know.”
“He shot me?”
“We don’t know.”
Tommy’s eyes filled.
“Stop saying that.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Tommy.”
“He knew.”
Tommy pointed at his bandaged leg.
“He knew somebody was trying to kill me.”
Dominic had no answer.
Clare left the brothers alone.
Later, she found Dominic on the roof.
Chicago glowed in the distance.
“You shouldn’t be up here alone,” she said.
He laughed without humor.
“Who’s going to protect me?”
“Apparently not your family.”
He looked at her.
“That was cruel.”
“Yes.”
“But fair.”
She stood beside him.
For several minutes neither spoke.
Then Dominic said, “My father built the violent part of the business.”
Clare waited.
“He also tried to shut it down before he died.”
“You know that?”
“I found papers after.”
“Did Roman know?”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe that’s why Roman partnered with Sloane.”
Dominic nodded.
“My father wanted Vale Maritime legitimate. Roman thought he was destroying the family.”
“And you?”
“I continued some things I shouldn’t have.”
Clare looked at him.
“What things?”
“Illegal gambling. Protection payments. Smuggling cigarettes years ago.”
“People?”
“No.”
“Drugs?”
“No.”
“Weapons?”
“No.”
“Murder?”
Dominic looked at her.
“No.”
She believed him.
That worried her.
“Why continue any of it?”
“Because when my father died, half the organization would have gone to Sloane if I looked weak.”
“So you became what they expected.”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
Dominic looked toward the skyline.
“Now I’m wondering how much of my life I built around men who were already betraying me.”
Clare understood that more than she wanted.
Her entire career had been built around a hospital that fired her before she knew what crime she was supposed to witness.
“You can change it.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Do you actually believe that?”
“I believe people can change what they do.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
She folded her arms.
“But it’s the only version that matters.”
His phone vibrated.
A video message.
Unknown sender.
Dominic opened it.
Roman appeared on-screen.
He sat somewhere dark.
Behind him was Adrian Ross.
Tied to a chair.
Blood on his face.
Roman spoke calmly.
“Dominic, you were always too sentimental.”
Tommy’s name appeared in the message caption.
COME ALONE OR ADRIAN DIES.
Dominic’s face transformed.
The vulnerable brother vanished.
The crime boss returned.
He started for the stairs.
Clare blocked him.
“No.”
“Move.”
“You go alone, Roman controls the situation.”
“He has Adrian.”
“And wants you.”
Dominic’s voice dropped.
“Clare.”
“No.”
“You cannot stop me.”
“Probably not.”
She met his eyes.
“But if you walk into another trap because a man who raised you knows exactly which emotion to trigger, then everything you learned tonight was useless.”
He stared at her.
Then the rooftop door opened.
Detective Reyes stepped out.
“I agree with the nurse.”
Dominic looked between them.
“I’m surrounded by unbearable women.”
Reyes smiled.
“Good. It may keep you alive.”
May you like
They planned instead.
And for Dominic Vale, planning with police instead of solving a family betrayal with guns may have been the most difficult thing he had ever done.
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