because adults needed information from her.

Now there was nothing left to do.

Her shoulders began trembling.

“What if he lied?”

Dominic pulled out the chair across from her.

“Then the police keep looking.”

“What if they don’t find her?”

Dominic had spent his life around men who pretended certainty could protect them from pain.

He refused to lie to a child.

“I don’t know what happens next,” he said.

“But I know your mother raised someone who saw something frightening and still chose to help another person.

People like that don’t disappear easily.”

Ivy stared at him.

“Are you really a bad man?”

Luca nearly choked on his coffee across the room.

Dominic leaned back.

It was perhaps the first honest question anyone had asked him in years.

“I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”

“Did you hurt Mr.

Mora?”

“No.”

“Would you hurt Mr.

Rourke?”

Dominic looked toward the rain-streaked window.

A younger version of himself would not have needed time to answer.

“No,” he said finally.

“Not if the truth can hurt him more.”

At 4:17 in the morning, Elena’s phone rang.

She answered, listened, and closed her eyes.

Then she smiled.

“They found Mei.”

Ivy knocked over her chair getting up.

Her mother was dehydrated, exhausted, furious, and otherwise unharmed.

When Mei entered the hospital waiting room forty minutes later, Ivy hit her at a run.

Mei dropped to her knees and wrapped both arms around her daughter.

Neither spoke for nearly a minute.

Dominic remained near the doorway.

He had never liked hospitals.

Too many machines.

Too many memories.

Too many rooms where influence meant nothing.

Mei eventually looked over Ivy’s shoulder and saw him.

Her expression became guarded.

Dominic understood.

He was still Dominic Vale.

One strange night did not erase a reputation built over decades.

“Your daughter saved me from getting into that vehicle,” he said.

“She also helped expose what happened to several other people.”

Mei pulled Ivy closer.

“She shouldn’t have had to.”

“No,” Dominic said.

“She shouldn’t.”

The investigation expanded quickly.

Forensic testing linked the pistol from Dominic’s SUV to evidence from Gabriel Mora’s disappearance.

Records showed it had been checked into a restricted police locker and later removed using credentials assigned to Aaron Rourke.

Rourke claimed his login had been compromised.

Investigators then recovered deleted messages from Nolan Price’s phone arranging the placement of the magnetic case beneath Dominic’s SUV.

The anonymous tip used to obtain the search warrant had originated from a prepaid phone purchased by Nolan.

Dunn surrendered documents showing that Rourke had ordered illegal tracking on several targets, then planted contraband when surveillance failed to produce useful evidence.

Some of those targets were criminals.

Others were simply people who had crossed him.

That distinction mattered.

Because corruption did not become justice merely because some victims had dirty hands.

Three weeks later, search teams returned to a wooded property outside Cranston after Dunn provided a location.

They recovered Gabriel Mora’s remains.

His family finally learned what had happened to him.

Rourke was indicted on charges related to evidence tampering, obstruction, conspiracy, unlawful detention, and Gabriel’s death.

Nolan cooperated.

Dunn pleaded guilty to multiple offenses and became a central witness.

Several earlier convictions connected to Rourke’s task force were reopened.

Dominic’s name disappeared from the Mora investigation.

But