Chapter 9 - The Last Name on the List
They stopped Sebastian forty-eight hours later.
Not in Geneva.
Not at a bank.
At a data center outside Chicago.
Helen Hayes had built the financial network with one final safeguard.
Opening the account created an automatic download of every beneficiary identity.
Sebastian wanted the names.
Roman wanted him before he received them.
Gabriel found the server location through old Bellamy corporate records.
Elias recognized the building.
Clara recognized the final code.
They entered shortly after midnight.
This time Clara stayed in the vehicle.
For exactly three minutes.
Then gunfire started.
She sighed.
“Of course.”
Eliza was safely hundreds of miles away with trusted guards.
Onyx had been moved to a secure veterinary facility.
Clara had promised Roman she would remain outside.
Then Gabriel’s voice screamed through the radio.
“ROMAN’S HIT!”
Clara was out of the car before anyone could stop her.
She ran inside.
Roman sat behind a concrete pillar.
Blood covered his side.
Clara dropped beside him.
“You’re shot.”
“I noticed.”
“Where?”
“Side.”
“Let me see.”
“I’m busy.”
“You can be difficult after I determine whether you're dying.”
He looked at her.
“Romantic.”
“Shut up.”
The bullet had grazed his ribs.
Painful.
Bloody.
Not fatal.
Clara pressed bandages against it.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“Can you stop behaving like you're bulletproof?”
“No.”
“Worth asking.”
Gabriel appeared.
“Server room is upstairs.”
“Sebastian?”
“Inside.”
They moved.
At the final door stood Elias.
Gun lowered.
He looked broken.
“What?”
Clara asked.
Elias pointed through the window.
Sebastian sat at a computer.
Beside him was Nathan.
Not tied.
Not afraid.
Helping.
Clara felt something inside her collapse.
Nathan had betrayed them again.
Roman whispered:
“Some people really commit to disappointing you.”
They entered.
Nathan spun.
“Clara—”
“Don't.”
Sebastian smiled.
“We’re almost done.”
Elias raised his weapon.
“Move away from the computer.”
Sebastian laughed.
“You never could shoot me.”
“You burned my family.”
“I told you. Daniel lit the match.”
“You gave the order.”
“Yes.”
Elias’s hand trembled.
Sebastian looked at Clara.
“Your father always needed someone else to make hard decisions.”
Clara stepped forward.
“My mother didn't.”
The smile vanished.
“No.”
“She beat you.”
“For fifteen years.”
“She still beat you.”
Sebastian looked at the download progress.
98%.
“Not anymore.”
Nathan suddenly grabbed the keyboard.
He entered a command.
Sebastian turned.
“What are you doing?”
Nathan hit ENTER.
The screen went black.
Sebastian’s face changed.
“You idiot.”
Nathan smiled weakly.
“Helen gave me one instruction seven years ago.”
Clara stared.
“What?”
“If Sebastian ever got this far, erase everything.”
Sebastian shot Nathan.
Clara screamed.
Nathan fell.
Roman fired.
Sebastian dropped behind the servers.
Gunfire erupted.
Elias dragged Nathan away.
Clara pressed her hands against his chest.
“Stay with me.”
Nathan coughed.
“I’m tired of failing you.”
“Then don't die.”
He smiled.
“Still bossy.”
“Please.”
“I did burn you.”
Clara frowned.
“What?”
“When we were kids.”
He looked toward the scar on her wrist.
“I found you in the tack room that night.”
Clara remembered a shadow pulling her toward the window before her mother arrived.
“That was you?”
“I went back.”
Tears filled his eyes.
“I couldn't save the horses.”
“But you saved me.”
“I tried.”
Clara squeezed his hand.
“You did.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
Elias shouted:
“He’s alive. Get medical!”
Across the room, Roman and Gabriel cornered Sebastian.
The old man ran toward the emergency stairs.
Clara stood.
She followed.
Roman saw her.
“Clara!”
Sebastian reached the roof.
Rain struck concrete.
He held the ledger.
Roman approached from one side.
Gabriel from the other.
Clara reached the doorway.
Sebastian laughed.
“All this over names and numbers.”
Clara looked at him.
“No.”
“What then?”
“My mother.”
His expression shifted.
“You want revenge?”
“No.”
“That disappoints me.”
“I want you alive.”
Roman glanced at her.
Sebastian frowned.
“Why?”
“So you can watch every secret you protected become public.”
The smile disappeared.
Clara continued.
“Every family you destroyed.”
She stepped closer.
“Every witness.”
Another step.
“Every account.”
Sebastian raised his gun.
Roman raised his.
Clara didn't stop.
“And every crime you thought fire erased.”
Sebastian pointed directly at her.
“You think Roman can protect you?”
Clara looked at Roman.
“No.”
Roman’s eyebrows rose.
“I can protect myself.”
Onyx suddenly screamed from the parking area below.
Sebastian glanced toward the sound.
One second.
That was enough.
Gabriel tackled him.
The weapon slid across the roof.
Roman pinned Sebastian against the concrete.
For a moment, Roman looked ready to kill him.
Sebastian smiled.
“Do it.”
Roman pressed the gun against his head.
“You killed Celeste.”
“Yes.”
Roman's finger tightened.
Clara approached.
“Roman.”
“He deserves it.”
“Yes.”
“Then move.”
“No.”
Roman looked at her.
Clara’s voice softened.
“Eliza already lost her mother because of him.”
Roman’s breathing changed.
“Don't let him take her father too.”
The rain continued.
Slowly, Roman lowered the weapon.
Sebastian laughed.
“You’ve become weak.”
Roman looked down at him.
“No.”
He handed the gun to Gabriel.
“I've become a father.”
Sebastian Rourke was taken alive.
The ledger was recovered.
Nathan survived surgery.
And three days later, authorities began receiving anonymous packages containing enough evidence to reopen investigations spanning three decades.
Roman never explained who sent them.
Clara never asked.
But one mystery remained.
Gabriel found Helen Hayes’s original list.
There were seventy-four beneficiaries.
Victims.
Informants.
Families.
One name was listed at the very end.
ELIZA BELLAMY.
Clara stared.
“Eliza wasn't born when my mother created this.”
Roman checked the date.
The entry had been added six months before Helen died.
Three years after Celeste’s bombing.
Clara whispered:
“My mother knew about Eliza.”
Roman’s face hardened.
“How?”
Elias looked at the name.
Then closed his eyes.
“What?”
Clara asked.
Her father looked at Roman.
“Helen knew Celeste.”
Roman stopped breathing.
“What?”
Elias continued.
“Your wife came to us before she died.”
Roman felt the world shift again.
“Why?”
“Because Celeste discovered Sebastian had infiltrated your family.”
Gabriel went pale.
Elias looked at him.
“She was trying to protect all of you.”
Roman whispered:
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“She planned to.”
“When?”
“The night she died.”
Silence.
Roman turned away.
Clara understood now.
Her family and Roman’s had never been separate stories.
The same fire had simply burned through two generations.
Then Elias handed Roman a sealed envelope.
“Helen told me to give this to Eliza if Sebastian was ever exposed.”
Roman looked at the handwriting.
“What's inside?”
“I never opened it.”
Roman carried it home.
That evening, he sat beside Eliza.
Clara sat on the other side.
Eliza opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Celeste Bellamy stood beside Helen Hayes.
Both women smiled.
Behind them stood a little black foal.
On the back Helen had written:
One day our daughters may finish what we could not.
Eliza looked at Clara.
“Are we the daughters?”
Clara smiled through tears.
“Yes.”
Eliza took her hand.
“Then we finished it.”
Roman looked at both of them.
For the first time in three years, the Bellamy mansion no longer felt like a mausoleum.
It felt like a home.
But Roman still had one thing left to do.
May you like
And the following morning, Clara woke to discover that every debt she owed had disappeared.
She stormed directly into Roman’s study.
