SILENT ECHOES

By eleven o'clock that night, a torrential rainstorm had rolled in off Lake Michigan, pounding against the iron gates of Arthur Vale’s estate in Oak Brook.

Inside the sprawling Tudor-style mansion, Arthur sat in his mahogany-paneled study, pouring himself a snifter of twenty-year-old cognac. His wrist was bandaged where Noah had bitten him earlier, his mood dark and foul.

"Ungrateful little bastard," Arthur muttered to himself, taking a heavy gulp of his drink. "Dominic is soft. Letting a maid and a crazy kid run his house."

The front doors of the mansion didn't knock.

They shattered.

A heavy black armored SUV crashed straight through the grand wooden entryway, throwing splintered oak and iron across the marble foyer.

Before Arthur’s private security guards could draw their sidearms, eight men in dark tactical gear flooded into the house, their suppressed weapons snapping with terrifying, rhythmic efficiency. Within forty seconds, Arthur’s six guards were disarmed, pinned to the floor, or unconscious.

Arthur dropped his cognac glass. It shattered on the Persian rug.

He pulled a snub-nosed revolver from his desk drawer, his hands shaking, pointing it at the library door. "Who's there?! I have connections with the police commissioner! You won't leave this property alive!"

The heavy double doors of the library swung open.

Dominic Vale walked into the room. He wore no tactical gear, no mask. Just his tailored black charcoal coat, his hands resting casually in his pockets, his face illuminated by the flickering firelight.

Behind him walked Marcus, holding a heavy steel briefcase.

"Dominic?" Arthur gasped, lowering the gun an inch in sheer shock. "Have you gone insane?! You breached my home with armed men?!"

"Lower the gun, Arthur," Dominic said softly, stepping into the room. His voice carried no anger, no shouting. It was the tone of a judge reading a final sentence. "You're making a mess of your carpet."

"What is the meaning of this?!" Arthur roared, trying to maintain his authoritative posture. "I am your uncle! I helped your father build this empire!"

"You helped my father build it," Dominic agreed, taking a slow step forward. "And then you paid two drivers from the South yard eighty thousand dollars to ram my wife's sedan off the Skyway bridge because she discovered you were skimming three million a year from the freight contracts."

Arthur’s face went from red to an ash-grey pale. The revolver in his hand began to tremble violently. "That's... that's a lie! Who told you that ridiculous story?! Was it one of your rival shippers?!"

"It was Noah," Dominic said.

Arthur froze.

"He was four years old, Arthur," Dominic whispered, stopping three feet from the desk. "He sat in the backseat covered in his mother's blood while your driver stepped out of the truck, sparked his gold lighter to check if they were dead, and drove away."