Chapter 2 - The Safe House
Dominic caught his mother just as her knees gave out beneath her.
He gently lowered her onto the wet grass, his hands shaking as he examined the gunshot wound.
The bullet had grazed her side during their frantic escape through the library doors.
"I am fine, Dominic, just keep moving," Margaret whispered, wincing in absolute agony.
Dominic ripped a strip of fabric from his expensive shirt and tied it tightly around her waist.
He knew they could not go to a public hospital because Lucian owned half the police force in the city.
He lifted her into his arms and carried her through the freezing rain toward the main highway.
A rusty pickup truck was parked under a broken streetlamp, belonging to an old groundskeeper Dominic once knew.
Dominic smashed the driver’s side window with his elbow and reached in to unlock the door.
He carefully placed his mother in the passenger seat before hotwiring the ignition.
The engine roared to life, and he slammed his foot on the gas pedal.
They sped down the empty coastal highway, leaving the nightmare of the mansion far behind them.
Dominic drove them to an abandoned safe house his father had maintained in the industrial district.
The building looked like a condemned warehouse from the outside, but the inside was highly secure.
He carried Margaret onto a dusty cot in the back room and found an old medical kit in the bathroom.
He cleaned her wound and applied a thick bandage, silently praying no vital organs were damaged.
Once she finally drifted into a restless sleep, Dominic sat by the window and pulled out the black ledger.
He tried to open the biometric lock, but it required a specific thumbprint.
He remembered his mother whispering that the ledger could only be opened by the true heir.
Dominic pressed his right thumb against the glowing green scanner on the lock.
A loud mechanical click echoed through the quiet room as the heavy leather cover popped open.
He turned the pages, expecting to see bank account numbers and wire transfer logs.
Instead, the pages were filled with detailed architectural blueprints of maximum-security prisons.
Every single page contained floor plans, guard rotations, and structural weaknesses for a prison located on an isolated island.
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Before Dominic could process what this meant, a heavy metallic clank echoed from the front door of the warehouse.
Someone was sliding a steel barricade across the exterior frame, locking them inside.
