Chapter 5 - The Father I Buried Twice
Elena escaped through a second tunnel behind the hidden room.
The passage led beneath the mansion to an abandoned carriage house.
Her shoe lay near the exit.
Small amount of blood.
Tire tracks.
I called Luca.
He told me the night Lucia died, my father had found him outside her room with blood on his shirt.
Then came another detail.
My father had ordered him to destroy a digitalis compound.
Poison.
I wanted to believe the worst.
It would have been easier.
We found Elena twelve hours later at Saint Catherine’s Cemetery.
She was sitting beside my father’s grave.
Alive.
Alone.
“Did he kill her?” I asked.
“No.”
“But he covered it up.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
I laughed bitterly.
Protection.
The family religion.
Elena told me the poison had been ordered by my grandfather, Antonio Duca.
Lucia was cooperating with investigators.
Antonio decided she had to die.
My father discovered the plan too late.
Antonio threatened to kill me too if my father exposed the truth.
So my father buried it.
Then spent years quietly dismantling Antonio’s network.
Salvatore helped Antonio.
Michael helped Lucia.
Luca was a young frightened surveillance runner.
Grace’s father was Lucia’s police contact.
The pieces finally fit.
Except one.
Someone was still running Antonio’s system.
Michael knew who.
A note brought us to the Old Customs House at midnight.
Michael waited there, wounded but alive.
He told me the person above Salvatore was my cousin Dominic.
Polished.
Educated.
Legitimate.
Always pretending he wanted nothing from the family.
In truth, Dominic had inherited the corruption under it.
He did not want me dead.
He wanted me publicly destroyed so he could take the legitimate companies.
Then glass shattered.
Michael was shot.
Federal agents stormed the building.
Dominic’s men fled.
Michael survived.
By morning, leaked documents had exploded across every Boston news outlet.
Old extortion cases.
Construction fraud.
Illegal betting.
Some true.
Some manipulated.
My board froze.
Banks panicked.
Federal investigators moved faster.
Dominic had declared war.
Grace found me alone in the study.
“You can send us away.”
“No.”
“We make you vulnerable.”
“No.”
“Mia and Sophie are targets.”
“Yes.”
She stared.
“That is not reassuring.”
“Then I remove the reason.”
“How?”
“I end the organization.”
Grace looked at me as though I had announced I planned to move the ocean.
“Can you?”
“I built half of it.”
“And the other half?”
“I turn it over.”
“To who?”
“Federal prosecutors.”
Grace’s expression changed.
For the first time, I understood my mother.
Secrets did not protect children.
They taught the next generation to hide better.
I called Agent Lane.
“All records,” I said. “All names. Full cooperation.”
“And what do you want?”
“Protection for Grace and the girls.”
Grace immediately said, “No.”
I looked at her.
“This isn’t your decision.”
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“You hate when people decide what risks you’re allowed to take.”
That silenced me.
Grace crossed her arms.
“My daughters are not being shipped somewhere because your family is dangerous. We stay together. We decide together.”
I nodded.
“Fine.”
Then Grace said, “Mia saw Dominic the night I vanished.”
Before we could act, the phone rang.
A school administrator claimed they had Grace’s daughter.
But Mia was standing beside us.
Then the caller said:
“If you want the real child returned, bring Roman alone.”
May you like
Grace turned toward Sophie’s nursery.
The crib was empty.
