Chapter 8 - The Last Man From Dominic’s Father’s World
The abandoned film studio looked like a graveyard for beautiful lies.
Fake apartment walls.
Painted skylines.
Broken chandeliers.
Old ballroom sets.
Rooms built to fool cameras.
Lily’s photograph had been taken inside one of them.
Dominic called the police.
Then federal investigators.
For once, he did not try to handle everything himself.
“That feels unnatural,” Daniel said.
Dominic stared at him.
“Say another word and I’ll reconsider.”
We approached through the back entrance.
I should not have been there.
Everyone said so.
Dominic.
Daniel.
The police.
Even Dr. Harris.
But my daughter was inside.
Nobody was keeping me away.
Officers surrounded the building quietly.
Dominic wore a concealed microphone.
He carried a copy of Isabella’s files.
The originals were already with federal investigators.
At 11:43, we entered.
A spotlight clicked on.
Thomas Bellini stood on an old stage.
Seventy years old.
Silver hair.
Dark overcoat.
He looked less frightening than Victor.
That somehow made him worse.
Beside him sat Lily.
Her hands were not tied.
She was eating crackers.
“Mommy!”
My knees nearly gave out.
“Lily!”
Bellini rested one hand on her chair.
“Stay where you are.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“You wanted me.”
“I wanted your father’s legacy.”
“My father is dead.”
“His blood isn't.”
Bellini looked at Ethan’s father as if disappointed.
“Alessandro built something men respected.”
“Feared.”
“Same difference.”
“No.”
Dominic looked toward Lily.
“Not anymore.”
Bellini smiled.
“You sound like Isabella.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“You ordered her death.”
“I ordered Victor to frighten her.”
“Her brakes failed.”
“Victor exceeded instructions.”
A confession.
The microphone captured it.
Bellini continued, arrogant enough to believe Dominic had truly come alone.
“Isabella never understood families like ours.”
“She understood better than all of us.”
“She weakened you.”
“She saved me.”
Bellini’s smile disappeared.
“Give me the drive.”
Dominic held it up.
“Release Lily.”
“First the drive.”
“No.”
Bellini pulled Lily closer.
She looked frightened now.
I stepped forward.
“Take me instead.”
Dominic turned sharply.
“Claire.”
Bellini looked amused.
“The housekeeper.”
“Yes.”
“The woman Dominic suddenly cannot stop protecting.”
I ignored that.
“Lily has nothing you need.”
“She saw Victor.”
“Victor is already arrested.”
“She identifies people.”
“She is three years old.”
“Exactly. Children talk.”
Lily looked at him.
“You're mean.”
Bellini stared.
She pointed toward Dominic.
“And Mr. Dominic is mad.”
Despite everything, Daniel made a strange choking sound behind us.
Bellini gripped Lily’s shoulder.
She winced.
Something inside me broke.
“Don't touch her!”
I moved.
Bellini reached inside his coat.
Dominic lunged.
Everything happened at once.
Police entered from the side.
Daniel pulled me down behind a set wall.
Bellini tried to drag Lily backward.
She bit his hand.
He shouted.
Dominic reached her.
He pulled Lily behind him as officers tackled Bellini.
A gun slid across the floor.
No shots were fired.
Nobody died.
It ended almost quietly.
Bellini on the ground.
Handcuffs clicking.
Lily crying against Dominic’s chest.
I ran.
He handed her to me.
I held my daughter until I could feel her breathing.
“Mommy.”
“I’m here.”
“I bit him.”
“I know.”
“Was that bad?”
I laughed and cried at the same time.
“We'll discuss biting later.”
Dominic crouched beside us.
Lily reached for him.
He hesitated.
Then she wrapped an arm around his neck.
“Mr. Dominic?”
“Yes?”
“You came.”
His eyes closed.
“Always.”
That one word changed something.
In him.
In me.
Maybe in all of us.
Bellini was taken into custody.
Victor agreed to cooperate after learning Bellini intended to blame everything on him.
Paolo testified.
Daniel testified.
Isabella’s evidence filled gaps investigators had pursued for years.
Within three months, the old criminal structure surrounding the Moretti family collapsed.
Some men went to prison.
Others disappeared from New York.
Several legitimate Moretti businesses survived.
Dominic sold others.
He shut down everything connected to his father’s organization.
It cost him millions.
Possibly hundreds of millions.
He never complained.
One afternoon, I found him sitting with Ethan and Lily in the garden.
They were building something out of sticks.
“What is that?” he asked.
“A castle,” Ethan said.
Dominic frowned.
“It looks structurally unsound.”
Lily handed him a stick.
“Fix it.”
I laughed.
He looked up.
His expression changed when he saw me.
Not dramatically.
But enough.
There had been something between us since the ballroom.
Fear.
Trust.
Shared desperation.
Now it was becoming something else.
That frightened me differently.
After the children ran inside, Dominic approached.
“Claire.”
“Dominic.”
“I need to ask you something.”
“If you're firing me, your timing is terrible.”
“I’m not firing you.”
“Then what?”
“I think you should stop working here.”
I stared at him.
“That sounds exactly like firing.”
“No.”
He exhaled.
“You have spent six years taking care of this house. I want you to have something that belongs to you.”
“I have Lily.”
“I know.”
“I don't need charity.”
“I didn't say charity.”
He handed me a folder.
Inside was a proposal.
Funding for a professional estate-management company.
Mine.
My name.
My ownership.
Dominic would be the first client, not my employer.
I looked up.
“You did this?”
“You did.”
“What?”
“You built the system this house has run on for six years.”
“I cleaned rooms.”
“You managed thirty-two employees, multiple properties, contractors, inventories, events, schedules, and people with unreasonable expectations.”
“That last part means you.”
“Mostly.”
I laughed.
Then I cried.
Because nobody had ever looked at the work I did and called it valuable.
Not like this.
“This isn't because Lily saved Ethan?”
“No.”
“Because of us?”
His gaze held mine.
“There is an us?”
My heartbeat stumbled.
I closed the folder.
“Maybe.”
He stepped closer.
“Is that dangerous?”
“Extremely.”
He smiled.
Then he kissed me.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Like a man asking rather than taking.
When we separated, a small voice came from the terrace.
“EWW!”
We looked up.
Ethan and Lily were watching.
Ethan whispered, “I knew it.”
Lily shouted, “Mr. Dominic kissed Mommy!”
Dominic covered his eyes.
I laughed harder than I had in years.
For the first time since the birthday cake shattered, the sound filling the Moretti house was not screaming.
May you like
It was laughter.
And maybe that meant we were finally learning how to live.
