Chapter 10
At first, Dominic believed he understood.
Lucian wanted a promotion.
Everything else was simply an extreme way to get it.
Rebecca disagreed.
“If he wanted a title, he could have asked.”
“He wanted control.”
“He already had enormous control.”
That was true.
Then Anthony found the missing file.
It was not stored under Dominic.
It was stored under Valeria.
A recorded conversation between Lucian and a business consultant named Gregory Shaw.
The date was four months earlier.
Gregory asked:
“What happens after the wedding?”
Lucian answered:
“Valeria gets comfortable.”
“And Dominic?”
“More isolated.”
“Then you become indispensable.”
Lucian laughed.
“No.”
Dominic looked at Rebecca.
She raised a hand.
Keep listening.
Gregory:
“Then what’s the point?”
Lucian:
“Indispensable men still work for somebody.”
A chair scraped.
Then Lucian continued.
“I don’t want Dominic dependent on me forever.”
“What do you want?”
“I want him to believe he has nobody.”
A pause.
“Then?”
“Then I give him everyone back.”
Gregory laughed.
Dominic frowned.
Lucian explained.
Margaret would be exposed as supposedly unreliable.
Valeria would be exposed for her old financial misconduct.
Anthony could be blamed for surveillance failures.
Rebecca could be connected to accounting irregularities Lucian had been manufacturing through duplicate invoices.
One by one, Dominic would lose faith in every person around him.
Then Lucian would “discover” the truth.
He would reveal that Margaret had been manipulated.
Prove Valeria was being blackmailed by unnamed outsiders.
Clear Anthony.
Identify the fake accounting trail affecting Rebecca.
Lucian would solve every crisis he had created.
Gregory finally understood.
“You’re not removing them.”
“No.”
“You’re rescuing them.”
“Exactly.”
Dominic stopped the recording.
The room remained silent.
The entire story changed.
Lucian had never intended Margaret to disappear permanently.
He needed Dominic to lose her first.
Then Lucian would be the man who restored the relationship.
He did not want Valeria destroyed.
He needed her compromised enough that he could later “save” her.
He did not want Dominic alone forever.
He wanted Dominic to experience isolation—and then associate relief with one person.
Lucian.
Rebecca whispered:
“He was manufacturing loyalty.”
Margaret stared at the screen.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
“He was manufacturing gratitude.”
That was worse.
Dominic remembered twelve years of Lucian solving impossible problems.
A vendor crisis six years earlier.
A security leak four years earlier.
A manager accused of taking kickbacks.
A threatening letter against Dominic’s family.
Each time Lucian arrived with answers.
Dominic felt cold.
“Go back.”
Anthony looked at him.
“To what?”
“All of it.”
Rebecca understood.
“You think some older crises were his too.”
“I don’t know.”
That mattered.
Dominic did not say yes.
He said:
“I want to know.”
The forensic review widened.
By midnight, they found two older incidents with suspicious similarities.
Nothing conclusive yet.
But enough to establish the possibility that Lucian’s pattern predated Valeria.
Margaret looked at Dominic.
“You thought this started because he wanted your job.”
Dominic nodded.
“It started because I taught him what I rewarded.”
“What?”
“People who made my problems disappear.”
Margaret was quiet.
Dominic looked toward the dozens of archived files.
May you like
Lucian had learned the lesson perfectly.
If Dominic valued solutions more than truth, then the smartest way to become valuable was to create problems only you could solve.
