Chapter 152 Chapter 152
Dominic’s POV
The footage loads slowly, the way old ghosts do. Pixel by pixel, frame by frame, as if the machine itself hesitates to show me what’s coming.
I shouldn’t have this copy. Liana was the one who found it buried in her father’s study like a secret mausoleum. She sent it to me through an encrypted relay before she disappeared again. No message. Just a file labeled “DockFootage_Mirror.”
Something her father must have made or someone else did, without permission. Either way, I need to see it.
The footage begins, Date stamp: June 12. 23:14. Location: Private dock.
Elia appears first pale, frantic, glancing over her shoulder as if expecting to be followed. I feel my pulse stutter, I haven’t seen her move in years, not since the night I lost everything.
Then Stanley enters. Calm, deliberate, the predator stepping into frame. I brace myself through what I already know the confrontation, the struggle, the injection, the way he carries her away.
My jaw clenches as it happens again, even in this duplicate version but then the screen flickers. A few seconds of static and the timestamp jumps.
23:46. The same camera but Stanley is gone. Elia lies motionless on the floor of that warehouse, the same cot, the same dim light swinging overhead and for a moment, I think the footage will cut to black again but it doesn’t.
Footsteps echo, someone new enters the frame. My breath catches when I see him.
Older than I remember, though the years are stripped away by the cold clarity of the lens. His face is sharper, worn by power and secrets.
The man I once shook hands with at our engagement party. The man who smiled when he gave her away, all polished charm and paternal authority.
Now, here he is stepping over Elia’s unconscious body, glancing once toward the direction Stanley went, then crouching beside her.
He doesn’t look shocked, he looks resigned. He checks her pulse, just as Stanley did. Then he sighs a long, heavy, like someone confirming what they already knew and then he speaks. The audio is faint, but I manage to catch fragments.
“You weren’t supposed to come here, Elia.”
“You should’ve stayed quiet.”
My stomach knots. He reaches into his coat, pulls out a phone, and makes a call. His voice lowers.
“It’s done. Smith has her.”
(Pause.)
“No, she’ll survive. That’s the point.”
I lean forward, every muscle rigid.
“The girl?” he asks after a moment.
“Safe. For now but tell Smith I want her kept off the books. He doesn’t get to raise her. He gets the mother, that was the deal.”
The girl. The baby. The one in the photograph, the one who wasn’t Camilla. He knew, he was part of it.
The screen flickers again as he ends the call. He looks down at Elia one last time and for the briefest moment, something like regret crosses his face.
Then he pulls a syringe from his pocket, it was smaller than the one Stanley used and injects her again. Seconds later, her breathing evens out. Sedated. Alive.
He stands, straightens his coat, and turns directly toward the camera. For one heartbeat, his eyes meet the lens as if he knows someone will watch this one day and then, quietly, he says: “Forgive me, Liana.”
The screen goes black. I sit there in the dim light of my office, staring at the reflection of my own face in the dark monitor. My pulse is pounding in my throat, my hands locked around the edge of the desk.
All threads of the same web, one I was tangled in from the beginning, too blind to see the pattern. It wasn’t just a crime of passion or power. It was a negotiation. A trade.
Stanley got Elia. Liana’s father got protection or leverage and I got the blame. I push back from the desk and pace the room. The city outside hums with its indifferent rhythm, a thousand lives moving forward while mine keeps circling the same night.
If Liana’s father was there, then everything changes. It means her family wasn’t a bystander. It means she’s been walking through a minefield built by her own blood.
Stanley has been feeding her half-truths, positioning himself as savior while burying the evidence that could destroy them both.
I think of Liana now, alone, somewhere between fear and fury, piecing together the same puzzle from the other side. She sent me this file for a reason. She wants me to see.
I rewind the footage, watching her father’s expression again that last look toward the camera. “Forgive me, Liana.” It’s not a confession. It’s a preemptive plea.
He knew she’d find out one day and he recorded this mirror copy not to expose Stanley, but to leave her a choice between truth and ruin because if this ever comes out, it doesn’t just destroy Stanley. It destroys her name, her legacy.
I pull up the metadata, tracing the origin of the file. It isn’t tied to her father’s main estate network. It came from a private cloud repository, flagged under an alias: “Northbridge_Archive.”
I cross-reference the routing logs, and my stomach twists. The last upload was three weeks ago. After her father’s death. Someone else had access, someone live.
My phone buzzes. A new message. No ID, just a single sentence.
You shouldn’t have watched that, Dominic.
No signature, but I don’t need one. Stanley. I feel the air tighten around me like he’s in the room, like he’s always one step ahead. He knows I’ve seen the footage.
He knows Liana has too, Which means we’ve crossed the point of no return. I open my encrypted channel and type one message to Liana.
You were right. It wasn’t me. It was him and your father.
We need to meet. Tonight. The pier. Bring the drives.
I hesitate before sending it. The pier — the same place it all began. Maybe that’s fitting. Maybe the truth has to end where the lies were born.
I hit Send, the cursor blinks. The file window closes, The screen goes dark. Outside, the wind shifts that same electric silence that comes before a storm.
I reach into my drawer, pull out my gun, and check the chamber. Not because I plan to use it recklessly, but because I know Stanley doesn’t play fair and if her father’s ghost is still haunting this, Stanley’s the one who built the altar.
As I step out into the night, I can still see the image burned behind my eyes Elia on the floor, Liana’s father whispering her name, the faint glint of guilt that doesn’t absolve anything.
The past is no longer buried. It’s resurfacing, dragging us all with it and for the first time in years, I feel something close to purpose. This isn’t about redemption anymore, It’s about reckoning.