Chapter 150 Chapter 150

Chapter 150 Chapter 150
Dominic’s POV

Snow falls in thin, slow flakes over Zurich’s industrial quarter  a quiet that feels unnatural, like the city’s holding its breath. Inside the warehouse, it’s colder. The kind of cold that seeps into your bones until you stop noticing.
Julian Hart is tied to a chair in front of me. His head hangs forward, breath fogging in uneven bursts. The suit he’s wearing isn’t the sharp, tailored armor he used to hide behind in court; it’s wrinkled, stained, wrong for him now. 
His hair sticks to his forehead, sweat cutting through grime. I told myself I’d never cross this line again. But some truths don’t come free.
“Dominic,” he rasps. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I tried the other way.” My voice sounds foreign in my own ears, low, flat, almost calm. “You lied to me for fourteen years. You took his money. You buried her. Now you’re going to tell me who else was involved.”
His gaze flicks up, glassy with panic. “You don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“I understand exactly. Names, Julian. Who paid you, who drafted the plea, who kept the file sealed.”
He shakes his head. “If I talk, I’m dead.”
“You already are,” I say softly. “You just haven’t accepted it yet.”
I pace in front of him, the sound of my boots echoing against concrete. There’s no one else here,  just the hum of a space heater in the corner and the low groan of pipes settling in the walls.
I’m not proud of this. But I’ve spent too long living under other people’s silence.
“Stanley isn’t untouchable anymore,” I say. “He’s running out of places to hide. You think he’ll protect you once you’re a liability?”
Julian’s jaw clenches. “He’s not the one you should fear.”
“Then who?”
He doesn’t answer.
I grab the edge of the chair and tilt it forward, forcing him to meet my eyes. “Julian.”
His breath catches. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I know you’ve been paid to lie since the day I met you. I know you told me pleading guilty would ‘save’ me, when all it did was bury the truth. And I know you’re going to start talking before I run out of patience.”
He spits blood onto the floor, then looks up with a ghost of his old arrogance. “You always had a temper, Dominic. That’s what made you easy to control.”
I slap him hard enough to break the momentary smugness. The sound echoes. My hand stings, but I don’t care.
“Control this,” I say coldly. “Tell me who else Stanley paid.”
The heater clicks off. The silence afterward feels too heavy.
Finally, Julian exhales a long, shuddering breath. “There were others,” he whispers. “People in the court system. Clerks, archivists. I didn’t know all their names. Stanley did. He had a list — he always had lists.”
“Where?”
“In a vault. At the Zurich branch of Carden & Vale Holdings.”
“His shell company.”
He nods weakly. “He uses it to move money, bribes, blackmail payments, anything that keeps the system on his side.”
“Who’s running it now?”
Julian hesitates. “His wife.”
I freeze. “Liana?”
“No,” he says quickly, shaking his head. “Not her. The other one. The woman who came after Elia disappeared.”
My stomach twists. “You’re lying.”
“I wish I was.”
The wind howls outside the metal walls. I can feel something shifting in the room and the balance tipping, the fragile line between vengeance and truth blurring fast.
I take a slow breath. “What happened to Elia, Julian?”
His eyes flick to me, then away.
“I told you…”
“Don’t.” I cut him off. “Don’t feed me the same rehearsed line about her drowning, or the empty file labeled missing presumed dead. You know what happened. You were there when Stanley sealed it.”
He swallows hard, throat working.
“I was told she was dead,” he whispers. “That’s what he made everyone believe.”
“But you didn’t believe it.”
He shakes his head. “Not after what I saw.”
“What did you see?”
Julian’s breath quickens. “A file crossed my desk months after your plea. It had her name, but the photo didn’t match the autopsy record. It was her, Dominic. Alive.”
The words hit harder than I expect. For a second, I can’t speak.
“Alive?” I repeat, the word strange in my mouth.
He nods, trembling. “But not as Elia.”
The air goes out of the room.
“What does that mean?”
“She’d been given a new identity. New passport, new country. Stanley arranged it through the same network he used to hide the money.”
My pulse roars in my ears. “Where?”
“I don’t know,” he stammers. “The document was partial  half-redacted. But there was a seal. It wasn’t Swiss. It looked… Caribbean. Maybe the same bank Liana traced the trust to.”
“Elia Trust,” I murmur.
He nods weakly. “It wasn’t a trust fund. It was a cover. Money funneled to maintain her new life.”
I take a step back, staring at him, my mind spinning. The room feels smaller, the air thicker.
“She’s alive,” I whisper. “All this time…”
“I don’t know if she still is,” Julian says quickly, desperate now. “You have to understand that he keeps people alive only as long as they’re useful. After that…”
“After that what?”
He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to.
I drag a hand through my hair, pacing again. The world tilts beneath me not in grief this time, but in fury. Every lie, every sealed record, every whispered deal. All of it built to protect the man who destroyed everything.
Julian watches me, breathing ragged. “You’re in over your head, Dominic. Stanley’s reach isn’t just financial. He owns people. Judges. Investigators. Even….”
He stops abruptly.
“Even what?” I demand.
He shakes his head. “No. I can’t.”
“Even who, Julian?”
His voice drops to a whisper. “Liana.”
The name hits like a bullet.
“You’re saying she’s involved?”
“I’m saying she’s not innocent. She thinks she’s uncovering the truth, but she’s been walking his path since the day she signed his name. Everything she finds he wants her to find it.”
I stare at him, heart pounding. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” His laugh is hoarse. “Why do you think he married her, Dominic? To love her? He needed someone smart enough to rebuild what Elia ruined and connected enough to clean his history through legitimate business. She’s his alibi in plain sight.”
I step forward fast enough to make the chair creak under his weight. “You shut your mouth.”
He doesn’t. “And she doesn’t even know it. That’s the best part. She thinks she’s saving herself.”
Something inside me snaps. My hand closes around his collar and I yank him forward, our faces inches apart.
“You talk about her again,” I growl, “and I’ll make sure you never talk again.”
He nods frantically. “I’m sorry. I just I thought you should know what you’re walking into.”
I let him go. He slumps back, coughing, voice barely a whisper now.
“You have to end this,” he says. “Before he finds you. Before he finds her.”
“Where is she?”