Chapter 19 - THE LAST ROMANO SECRET|
Dominic could not move.
The woman in the doorway was older, thinner, and dressed in a plain gray coat. Her hair had turned almost completely white, but her eyes were unmistakable.
“Hello, Dominic.”
He stared at her.
“You're dead.”
“I had to disappear.”
“You let me bury you.”
“I thought it was safer.”
“For whom?”
She looked at the recording device on the table.
“You found it.”
“You planned the attack.”
“I planned to remove Laura from the family.”
“You planned to kill her.”
His mother flinched.
“I never wanted her dead.”
“You ordered her to be kept in a tunnel. You let her give birth without her husband. You let me believe my daughter was dead.”
“I believed I was saving you.”
Dominic laughed, a sound so empty it frightened even him.
“From my wife?”
“From losing everything.”
“You lost everything when you decided my life belonged to you.”
She stepped closer.
“Your father built an empire. I watched him destroy people for it. I watched Adrian disappear. I watched you become exactly like him. Laura was making you soft.”
Dominic's eyes hardened.
“She was making me human.”
“She would have taken you away from everything.”
“Good.”
His mother shook her head.
“You don't understand what happens when a man like you walks away. There are enemies everywhere. The Salazars would have taken the ports. The judges would have turned. Your people would have been killed.”
“Then I should have chosen a different life.”
“It's too late.”
“No. It was too late when you decided to take my child.”
His mother reached into her coat.
Dominic raised his weapon.
“Don't.”
She stopped.
“I have the original trust documents.”
“Give them to me.”
“They belong to the family.”
“They belong to Grace.”
“She is too young to understand what she owns.”
“Then she will grow up without men like us telling her what she must become.”
His mother looked at him with something close to sorrow.
“You think Laura will forgive you?”
Dominic's expression shifted.
“No.”
“Then what do you have left?”
“The chance to stop making the same mistakes.”
He called the agents.
His mother did not resist when they entered. She handed over the documents and the key to a storage facility where she had kept the original financial records.
As they led her away, she turned back.
“Dominic, I loved you.”
He looked at her.
“You loved the son you wanted. You never asked whether he wanted to be you.”
The door closed behind her.
By sunrise, the agents had secured the documents, and the investigation had expanded to include the old family trust, the false birth records, and the network of payments that had financed the kidnappings.
Adrian agreed to cooperate after learning his mother's records proved he had been used as a figurehead. Marco faced multiple charges. Dr. Bell and Catherine were in custody. Elena's cooperation helped expose the remaining accounts, though she would still face legal consequences for her role.
Dominic returned to the hospital.
Laura was sitting beside Grace, helping her color a picture of a house. The little girl had drawn three figures in front of it.
“That's Mommy,” Grace explained. “That's me. And that's Daddy.”
Dominic stood at the door.
“Can I come in?”
Laura looked at him.
“Grace, would you like Daddy to join us?”
The child nodded enthusiastically.
Dominic sat on the floor beside them.
Grace handed him a green crayon.
“You can color the tree.”
He did.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
Then Laura placed a folded document on the table.
“It's the original trust.”
Dominic glanced at it.
“You should keep it.”
“I don't want the money.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then what happens?”
“I'll transfer everything into a protected fund for Grace. No one in the family will control it. The records will be public. The legitimate businesses will be separated from the criminal operations.”
Laura studied him.
“And what will you do?”
“Face what I've done.”
She nodded slowly.
“That's a beginning.”
He looked at her.
“I don't expect you to come home.”
“I don't know where home is anymore.”
“I understand.”
She closed the coloring book.
“But I want Grace to have both her parents. We can start with that.”
Dominic felt hope rise, but he did not reach for it too quickly.
Then Grace looked up.
“Can we all have breakfast together tomorrow?”
Laura glanced at Dominic.
He waited.
Finally, she said, “Yes. We can try.”
For the first time in three years, Dominic left the hospital without a security convoy following his every move.
He believed the worst was over.
But that evening, a federal agent called.
They had found a final document in the storage facility.
It was a signed instruction from Dominic's father, dated months before the attack.
And it named the person who had originally ordered Laura's abduction.
Not Marco.
Not Elena.
May you like
Not his mother.
The name at the bottom belonged to Dominic himself.
