CHAPTER 95

CHAPTER 95
POV: Dominic
It was almost midnight when Claire showed up at his door. Dominic hadn’t planned to answer. He’d been halfway through a bottle of whiskey and staring blankly at his laptop, at the empty inbox, the quiet house, the reminder that Ethan still hadn’t come home. 
The sound of knocking startled him enough to look up. It was three knocks, they were hesitant and uncertain. 
He opened the door expecting maybe a delivery mistake or a neighbor complaint. Instead, Claire stood there soaked from the rain, eyes wide, shaking.
“Dominic,” she said, breathless. “I need to talk to you. Now.”
He blinked, the edge of his exhaustion sharpening into something else. “Claire? It’s late.”
“I know,” she said quickly. “I wouldn’t come if it wasn’t important.”
Her voice cracked on the last word. Something about her tone, it frightened but determined and it pulled him back to himself. He stepped aside.
“Come in.”
She hesitated for half a second, then crossed the threshold. Water dripped from her coat onto the floor, her hair plastered to her cheeks. She didn’t seem to notice.
He closed the door quietly. “What’s going on?”
Claire took a deep breath, gripping her bag strap like it was the only thing holding her together. “It’s Tyler,” she said. “I heard him tonight.”
Dominic froze. “What about him?”
“He was on the phone,” she said, words tumbling out too fast. “He didn’t know I was there. He was laughing, saying everything that’s been happening between you and Ethan… that it was all part of his plan. That he was manipulating both of you.”
Dominic stared at her, silent. The words hit like glass, it was sharp and cutting.
“That doesn’t make sense,” he said flatly. “Tyler’s…” He stopped, because what exactly was Tyler? A friend? An enemy? 
Claire shook her head. “He’s been playing everyone, Dominic. He said it himself. He’s been feeding Ethan doubts about you, twisting your arguments, making sure you’d turn on each other.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened. “You must’ve misunderstood.”
“I didn’t,” she said, her voice rising. “He talked about you like you were some… experiment. Like he was proud of what he’d done.”
The room felt smaller suddenly, the air heavier. Dominic ran a hand through his hair, pacing. “You realize how this sounds, right? Tyler’s smart. He knows how to bait people. Maybe this is just another trick, maybe he wanted you to overhear.”
Claire shook her head. “No. He didn’t see me. I shouldn’t have even been there, I came to drop off the files you left at the office. The door was open. I thought Ethan was with him.”
Dominic turned sharply. “Ethan was there?”
She nodded. “Sleeping. On the couch. Tyler said…” She stopped herself, eyes darting away. “He said something like, ‘He’s right where I need him.’”
The words hit harder than they should have. Dominic’s stomach turned, a slow, twisting burn of disbelief and nausea.
He forced his voice steady. “You’re sure you heard that?”
Claire’s eyes glistened. “I wish I hadn’t.”
For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the ticking of the wall clock and the faint hum of rain outside. Dominic leaned back against the table, exhaling slowly.
He didn’t know what to believe. Tyler had always been impossible to read, his words layered with charm and half-truths but Claire… she had no reason to lie. 
Still, trust was something Dominic had learned to ration carefully. He studied her face. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because,” she said quietly, “I think he’s dangerous. Not in the obvious way but in the way he gets inside people’s heads. He makes them doubt everything. I’ve seen what that’s done to Ethan.”
Dominic’s throat tightened. “You think I haven’t noticed?”
“I think you’re too close to see the whole picture,” she said gently. “And if we don’t do something, he’ll destroy both of you.”
He looked at her for a long time. The sincerity in her eyes was disarming. There was no agenda, no manipulation — just fear and truth.
Finally, he said, “You’re not wrong.”
Her shoulders slumped with relief. “So you believe me?”
“I believe that Tyler’s capable of almost anything,” Dominic said quietly. “And I believe I should’ve trusted my gut a long time ago.”
He pushed away from the table, pacing again. “If what you heard is true, I can’t confront him directly. Not yet. He’ll twist it, he always does.”
Claire frowned. “Then what do we do?”
Dominic looked out the window. The rain had stopped, leaving the street slick and gleaming under the streetlights. “We wait. We watch. We catch him saying it again, something I can’t deny or explain away.”
“You want me to spy on him?”
“I want you to stay close,” he said. “Keep doing what you’ve been doing and act normal. If he thinks you know, he’ll shut down. But if he thinks he’s still in control, he’ll get careless.”
Claire hesitated, then nodded. “And you?”
Dominic’s mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I’ll handle Ethan.”
He didn’t say how. He didn’t know, not really. The part of him that loved Ethan still ached, still wanted to believe this wasn’t real, that Tyler hadn’t gotten that deep but another part, the one that had survived betrayals before, was already calculating.
If Tyler thought he could manipulate him again, he was wrong.
“Dominic,” Claire said softly, breaking his thoughts. “Be careful.”
He looked at her, the faintest flicker of warmth breaking through his hardened calm. “You too.”
She left a few minutes later, her expression unreadable. When the door closed behind her, Dominic stood still, listening to the echo of her footsteps fading down the hallway.
He felt everything at once, anger, disbelief, guilt. It was almost too much.
He poured the last of the whiskey into his glass and downed it in one swallow. Then he looked out the window.
Across the street, Tyler and Ethan they were laughing. Ethan’s head was tilted back, eyes closed, the sound light, unguarded the kind of laugh Dominic hadn’t heard in weeks. 
Tyler’s face was turned toward him, relaxed, easy, a hand brushing his shoulder like they were old friends sharing a secret. Dominic’s pulse roared in his ears.
He didn’t move, didn’t blink, and didn’t breathe. He just stood there and watched, the glass still in his hand, his reflection in the window faint and fractured.
The storm wasn’t over. It was only just beginning.