Chapter 126: The choice Eleanor Already made
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Six: The Choice Eleanor Already Made
Nobody spoke.
The study felt frozen in time.
Rain battered the windows.
Sirens echoed outside.
Military units were closing in.
Dominic’s contractors were losing ground.
And yet all attention remained fixed on one man.
Gabriel Moreau.
Trust Gabriel.
The words hung in the air like a challenge.
Like a final instruction from a woman who had spent her entire life forcing people to make impossible choices.
Gabriel stared at the letter.
His face had gone completely pale.
Not with fear.
With grief.
“No,” he whispered.
The denial sounded broken.
Human.
Clara lowered the page slowly.
“She trusted you.”
Gabriel laughed once.
A terrible sound.
“She shouldn’t have.”
His voice cracked.
“I gave Henry information.”
The room fell silent.
“I helped build the placement system.”
Another pause.
“I looked away when children disappeared.”
Every confession landed harder than the last.
“I don’t deserve her trust.”
“No,” Ruth said softly.
Everyone looked at her.
She wiped away tears.
“You don’t.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Accepting the blow.
Then Ruth continued.
“But Eleanor wasn’t asking whether you deserved it.”
Silence.
“She was telling us who she believed could still choose differently.”
Gabriel looked shattered.
Absolutely shattered.
For the first time, I realized something.
Gabriel had spent years carrying guilt.
Not pretending.
Not hiding.
Carrying it.
Every single day.
Dominic looked annoyed now.
Actually annoyed.
“Are we finished with the emotional revelations?”
The room’s hostility immediately shifted back toward him.
Good.
Clara folded Eleanor’s letter carefully.
“You lost.”
Dominic smiled.
“No.”
A contractor entered hurriedly from the hallway.
Blood on his sleeve.
Panic in his eyes.
“Sir, southern perimeter breached.”
Dominic nodded once.
Unbothered.
“Expected.”
The contractor looked confused.
Honestly, so was I.
Another explosion thundered outside.
Closer.
The entire estate trembled.
Dust drifted from the ceiling.
Nina frowned immediately.
“That’s not military.”
Gabriel’s expression darkened.
“No.”
He looked at Dominic.
“You planted secondary charges.”
Dominic didn’t answer.
Which was answer enough.
My stomach dropped.
“Where?” Jonathan demanded.
Dominic’s smile returned.
“Everywhere important.”
Great.
Fantastic.
Wonderful.
“You psychopath,” Natasha muttered.
Dominic looked genuinely amused.
“That’s become a very overused word.”
Liam stepped forward.
Immediately.
Before anyone could stop him.
“No.”
My hand shot out toward him instinctively.
“Liam”
“I’m okay.”
He wasn’t.
But there were bigger problems now.
He stopped directly across from Dominic.
Not intimidated.
Not angry.
Just focused.
“What do you actually want?”
The room quieted.
Even Dominic seemed interested in the question.
Finally he answered.
“Proof.”
Liam frowned.
“Proof of what?”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
“That Eleanor was wrong.”
Silence.
“About me.”
The words hit harder than expected.
“She believed power could serve people.”
A bitter smile touched his face.
“She spent her entire life trying to prove it.”
His gaze shifted briefly toward Eleanor’s journal.
“She failed.”
“No,” Clara said immediately.
Dominic ignored her.
“People don’t want freedom.”
The certainty in his voice was terrifying.
“They want safety.”
“Control.”
“Direction.”
His eyes returned to Liam.
“Henry understood that.”
Liam folded his arms.
“And that’s why he treated children like property?”
For the first time all night, Dominic looked irritated.
“Henry was inefficient.”
Interesting answer.
Very interesting answer.
“He believed bloodlines created leadership.”
Dominic shook his head.
“I believe results create leadership.”
That somehow sounded worse.
Because Henry’s cruelty came from ideology.
Dominic’s came from mathematics.
People weren’t people to him.
They were outcomes.
“You’re still trafficking children,” Maya said coldly.
Dominic met my gaze.
“To prevent larger instability.”
The room erupted.
“Prevent”
Elias stopped himself before finishing.
Probably because there weren’t words strong enough.
Dominic remained calm.
“The world already sells children.”
His voice hardened.
“Governments do it.”
“Corporations do it.”
“Families do it.”
He gestured vaguely.
“I simply removed hypocrisy from the equation.”
Disgust rolled through the room.
Then Gabriel spoke.
Quietly.
“That’s exactly what Henry used to say.”
Dominic froze.
Just for a second.
The resemblance struck everyone at once.
All his talk about being different.
All his criticism of Henry.
And yet he had become him.
Maybe worse.
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“I am nothing like Henry.”
Gabriel looked almost sad.
“That’s what he used to say about his father.”
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Because suddenly Dominic looked younger.
Not weaker.
Just trapped.
A man who inherited a system and convinced himself he had improved it.
Another radio crackled nearby.
This time it belonged to one of Dominic’s contractors.
“Sir!”
The man’s face had gone pale.
“What?”
The contractor swallowed.
“We received confirmation from Lisbon.”
Dominic’s expression sharpened.
“What confirmation?”
The man hesitated.
Then:
“Adrian Blackwell released the full client registry.”
The room stopped.
Completely.
“What?” Nina whispered.
The contractor looked stunned himself.
“It went public fifteen minutes ago.”
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
“The entire archive?”
Gabriel asked quietly.
“Everything.”
The contractor nodded.
“Names.”
“Financial records.”
“Placements.”
“Government contacts.”
All of it.
All.
Of.
It.
Dominic’s composure finally broke.
Not dramatically.
Not loudly.
But it broke.
Because Adrian had done the one thing nobody expected.
The one thing Dominic couldn’t control.
He had burned the entire network to the ground.
Outside, sirens multiplied.
Phones throughout the room began vibrating almost simultaneously.
Federal alerts.
International alerts.
Breaking news notifications.
The world was finding out.
And for the first time since entering the estate Dominic Vale looked afraid.