Chapter 7 - What Goliath Was Trained to Find
Silas ordered his men forward.
That was enough.
Marco's team moved.
No gunfire.
Not yet.
Too many people.
Too much uncertainty.
Silas pulled Hannah back toward the SUV.
Eli screamed:
“Mom!”
Goliath lunged.
Silas's men hesitated just long enough.
Hannah tore free and ran.
Marco dragged her behind our line.
Silas retreated into his SUV.
The vehicles disappeared through the storm.
We didn't chase.
Eli had his mother.
For the moment, that mattered more.
He crashed into Hannah's arms.
She dropped into the snow and held him.
Seven years disappeared into one embrace.
Frank stood several feet away crying silently.
Then Hannah looked at Goliath.
“He remembered.”
“What?”
She hugged the dog.
“I trained him.”
Before disappearing, Hannah had raised Goliath as a puppy.
Frank didn't know.
She had secretly trained him to recognize specific scents.
People.
Objects.
Including Moretti family cedar oil.
My father used it.
Dominic used it.
So did I.
That was why Goliath dug through the snow.
He recognized the scent.
But why was the dog near that exact place?
Hannah looked at Eli.
“Did he take you to the old logging trail?”
Eli nodded.
“He kept pulling me.”
Goliath had been trained years earlier to follow that route.
Because something was hidden there.
The ledger?
“No.”
Hannah shook her head.
“Something better.”
Before Silas captured her, she hid evidence inside an abandoned mine.
She trained Goliath to find the entrance.
But after she disappeared, the dog remained with Frank.
He was young.
Eventually the training became instinct.
Silas somehow discovered the location.
That's why I had been buried nearby.
Not merely to kill me.
To lure Goliath.
Silas knew Frank still had him.
He needed the dog to reveal the mine.
I wasn't the target.
I was bait.
That realization hurt more than the betrayal.
Silas had calculated that if I disappeared near Hollow Falls, search activity would eventually disturb the area.
But he didn't expect Eli to reach me first.
“What's inside the mine?”
Hannah answered:
“Names.”
Thousands.
Judges.
Executives.
Police officers.
Criminal families.
Children used as leverage.
Adoptions manipulated.
Estates stolen.
Silas didn't build power by controlling drugs or guns.
He controlled identities.
Families.
Inheritance.
The mine contained records capable of destroying people across the East Coast.
“And the ledger?”
“Inside.”
We had to reach it first.
Hannah refused to bring Eli.
So Frank stayed with him at the lodge under guard.
I went with Marco, Hannah, and Goliath.
The storm eased near dawn.
Goliath led us deep into the forest.
Past the place where I had been buried.
I stopped there.
My body remembered.
Hannah noticed.
“You okay?”
“No.”
She almost smiled.
“Good answer.”
We continued.
Goliath found the mine.
The entrance was hidden behind fallen timber.
Inside, Hannah located a rusted equipment cabinet.
Empty.
Her face changed.
“No.”
Silas had beaten us.
Then Goliath scratched at the floor.
Again.
Again.
We removed loose stones.
Underneath was a waterproof case.
Hannah exhaled.
“He found the decoy.”
Silas had stolen fake records.
The real archive remained.
Inside were drives.
Photographs.
Ledgers.
Then Marco found a folder labeled:
DANTE MORETTI — SUCCESSION.
My name.
I opened it.
There were photographs of me dating back twenty years.
Medical records.
Relationships.
Financial documents.
And a sealed DNA report.
“What is this?”
Hannah looked over my shoulder.
Her expression changed.
The report compared my DNA to someone designated SUBJECT E.C.
Elijah Carter.
Eli.
Probability of biological relationship:
99.98%.
Not distant.
The relationship classification was much closer.
PARENT/CHILD CONSISTENCY POSSIBLE.
I stared.
Impossible.
I had never met Hannah before.
Eli wasn't Hannah's biological son.
She had been protecting him.
Frank had lied.
Hannah had lied.
Everyone had lied.
I turned toward her.
“Whose child is Eli?”
She began crying.
Then said:
“Dante… that's why Silas buried you near him.”
My hands started shaking.
“Whose child?”
May you like
Hannah whispered:
“Yours.”
