“Why?” she whispered.
Her eyes darted to Aria’s tablet—GD Holdings’ financial secrets glowing on the screen.
“If this were about money, you could’ve quit years ago.
You had plenty.”
Erick didn’t answer.
He stepped inside, flashlight cutting through dust so thick it choked the air.
Remi followed, her voice bouncing off crates marked with GD’s logo.
“Was it Dominique?
Did she—”
“Ever seen a dog get kicked too much?” Erick’s tone was casual as he ripped open a maintenance panel.
Wires spilled out like intestines.
“At some point, it stops rolling over.
Starts biting back.” He spliced cables fast.
“Dominique was just the first to get too close.”
Aria crouched beside him, handing him a stripped wire.
“Thermal override’s set.
Cameras are looped for eight minutes.”
Erick nodded.
“Good.
Third floor.
Northeast corner.
Go.”
As Aria disappeared into the dark, Remi seized Erick’s wrist.
“That’s not an answer.”
The flashlight lit his face in sharp angles.
For a second, he looked less like a man and more like something carved from rock.
“You want reasons?” He bit a wire free and spat the insulation aside.
“Fine.
Your father killed mine.”
Remi looked at him like she recognized his true face for the first time.
“Five years ago… I didn’t marry Dominique to destroy the Laurents.
Not at first.”
Flashback Five Years Earlier
The rain fell in sheets over Manhattan the night Erick Gerard first met Dominique Laurent at a charity gala for urban infrastructure.
He was still Quade then—freshly underground after his father’s funeral, wearing a borrowed suit and the face of a grieving son who wanted nothing more than to honor Lawrence Gerard’s legacy.
She approached him near the silent auction table, champagne in hand, her golden hair catching the light like a halo.
Her voice was softer back then, less polished by cruelty.
“I’m sorry for what happened.
Your father was… brilliant.
My father respected him.”
Erick watched her carefully.
The glittering crowd had worn her out—maybe she even felt out of place in it.
That night, they talked for hours.
About how cities worked.
How power twisted even good intentions.
The burden of family legacies.
For the first time since the crash that took his father, Erick didn’t feel invisible.
Months passed.
Secret meetings turned into stolen weekends.
Dominique hated the cutthroat side of her family.
She spoke bitterly about Leroy’s deals, about how the Laurent empire ran on favors and buried bodies.
She wanted out.
Or so she said.
When Erick proposed marriage six months later, it was part of his plan.
Marrying Dominique would get him close to Leroy—close enough to access contracts, records, and private conversations.
It was his way in.
He knew he had to protect Dominique; she was innocent.
Dominique looked perfect in white.
During their first dance, she whispered against his neck, “I think I’m falling for you, Erick.
For real.” Her fingers traced his jawline like she couldn’t believe he was hers.
For once, Erick let himself believe it too.
The first year of marriage was almost happy.
Late nights in their small apartment, sneaking wine and laughing at his terrible cooking.
She defended him against Michel’s insults.
She touched him as he mattered.
Erick imagined a different future—one where he exposed Leroy quietly and built something real with the woman who made him feel human again.
Then came the truth buried in the Laurent servers.
Erick found the unredacted report.
Lawrence Gerard’s car crash wasn’t an accident.
A custom EMP device, planted and triggered remotely.
The digital signature led straight to Leroy’s private security firm.
Payment logs confirmed it: Leroy gave the order himself.
Leroy didn’t just know about the killer.
He knew he was the one who pulled the trigger.
When Dominique found him, she looked worried.
“Erick?
What’s wrong?”
He almost told her.
Almost.
Instead, she told him.
“I will work for my father.
I hope you understand.”
That same month, Erick overheard her phone call with Leroy.
“Yes, Father.
I’m doing what we agreed.
I can keep him in line.”
The woman who once defended him had chosen her father’s empire.
For what exactly?
He didn’t know his wife, and years have passed; he never found the answer to why she changed so much.
Erick buried the pain.
He played the broken husband perfectly, letting them believe they’d won.
And he planned.
Present Day
The memory slipped away like smoke.
Erick blinked, his vision clearing just enough to make out Remi’s silhouette in the dark hallway.
“Thought I could use the marriage like a weapon,” he said, voice hollow.
“Stupid.
Got in too deep.
Fell for the part of her that despised what her family turned into.
By the time I figured out she’d already sided with her old man—become one of them—she was gone.
Picked power over us.
Let them take our kid.
Watched my father die and didn’t even blink.”
Remi didn’t move.
The words pressed down on her, heavy as a coffin lid.
“Your dad fired the shot,” Erick said, quiet and sharp as broken glass.
“Dominique handed him the bullet.”
He glanced at his watch, jaw tight.
“Six minutes.
Move.”