Chapter 6 - The Weakest Man Broke First
By the time Vincent got back to the house, police still had not been called.
That didn’t surprise him.
Marcus had never wanted outsiders around until he had all his lies lined up. And Vincent, now that he knew how deep the scheme ran, wasn’t ready to hand the whole mess over half-proved. Not yet.
Cole and Dean were still there, though their swagger had drained away. Marcus had moved inside and was icing his chest with a bag of frozen peas, trying to look less shaken than he was. The moment Vincent stepped into the courtyard holding the envelope from the storage unit, Marcus stood.
“You had no right—” he started.
Vincent didn’t even glance at him.
He walked straight to Dean.
It was the small details that told him where to press: Dean’s restless hands, the way he kept licking his lips, the way his eyes cut toward Marcus every time Vincent said Naomi’s name. Cole was mean. Marcus was greedy. But Dean was scared—and scared men were often the first to choose survival over loyalty.
Vincent held the printed still image up in front of Dean’s face.
“You helped move my daughter,” he said quietly. “So I’m only asking this once. Is she alive?”
Dean tried to look away.
Vincent grabbed his collar and pulled him closer—not striking, not shouting, just forcing him to look directly into the face of the man whose granddaughter had been caged.
“Is she alive?”
Dean broke.
“Yes,” he blurted.
Marcus swore violently. Cole stepped toward them. Vincent didn’t move.
“Where?” Vincent demanded.
Dean’s voice shook. “She was at the tack house first. Marcus moved her yesterday. He said you were getting too suspicious.”
“Where now?”
Dean swallowed. “The lake property. The old foreclosure house off Briar Road.”
Marcus lunged forward then, but Cole caught his arm—not to stop him out of kindness, Vincent realized, but because even Cole knew everything had already changed.
“You idiot,” Marcus hissed at Dean.
Dean looked near tears. “He said he was gonna pin everything on all of us anyway!”
Vincent felt the room go still around him.
He looked from one man to the next, then asked the question that mattered most.
“Why is Lily part of this?”
Dean closed his eyes.
“Because Naomi wouldn’t sign,” he said. “So Marcus thought scaring the kid would make her tell him where the originals were.”
Vincent’s vision darkened for one terrible second.
May you like
Then he turned and walked away.
Because if he stayed any longer, he was not sure Dean would survive the next answer.
