Chapter 3 - A FAMILY BUILT ON BLOODDominic did not immediately respond.
That frightened Marcus more than rage would have.
Over twelve years working beside Dominic Moretti, Marcus had learned one important rule: Dominic shouted only when some part of him was still deciding what to do.
When his voice disappeared entirely, the decision had already been made.
On the monitor, Adrian waited.
"Sunrise," he repeated.
The feed ended.
Marcus exhaled.
"We can't go in blind."
Dominic picked up his jacket.
"We're not."
"Dominic."
"Get blueprints of the estate."
"You grew up there."
"And Adrian apparently knows things about my family home that I don't."
Mia struggled to stand.
"I'm coming."
Dominic turned.
"No."
"He wants me."
"Exactly."
"Which means I can help."
"Which means you're bait."
Her green eyes hardened.
"Your family has been using mine as bait for twenty-eight years. I'm not hiding anymore."
Dominic crossed the room until they stood only a few feet apart.
"You almost bled to death."
"And Leo almost disappeared forever."
"He's safe now."
"Is he?"
The question stopped him.
Mia glanced toward Marcus.
"Adrian knew you had Leo less than three hours after we escaped. Someone gave him that information."
Marcus stiffened.
"You're accusing my team?"
"I'm saying you have a leak."
Dominic looked around.
She was right.
He hated that she was right.
"Marcus, lock down this floor. Nobody leaves."
Marcus nodded.
"And Leo?"
Dominic's thoughts immediately returned to the infant sleeping in the next room.
No place felt safe anymore.
"I know somewhere."
An hour later, Dominic drove alone through the silent streets.
Mia sat in the passenger seat.
Leo slept in a carrier behind them.
She had argued against bringing him.
Dominic had argued against bringing her.
Neither had won.
Their destination was a modest brick house thirty miles northwest of downtown.
Not a Moretti property.
Not recorded under any business Dominic controlled.
A porch light came on before they reached the door.
An elderly Black woman opened it wearing a robe over pajamas.
She looked at Dominic.
Then at the baby.
Then at Mia's bandages.
"Oh, Lord."
"Good morning, Ruth."
"Don't 'good morning' me when you show up at five looking like the apocalypse."
Despite everything, Mia almost smiled.
Dominic introduced them.
"Ruth Ellis was my nanny."
Ruth scoffed.
"I raised him. His mother attended charity lunches."
Dominic ignored the insult.
Ruth had worked in the Moretti household from the time he was three until he entered college. When her husband developed cancer, Dominic secretly paid the medical bills after his father refused.
She was one of perhaps three people on earth Dominic trusted completely.
When Ruth saw Leo, her entire expression softened.
"Anthony's boy?"
Dominic nodded.
She accepted the baby carefully.
"He'll be safe here."
"No phones. No visitors."
"Dominic Moretti, I survived twenty-two years working for your father. I know how to close a curtain."
Mia studied Ruth.
Something in the older woman's face made her pause.
"Did you know Jonathan Calder?"
Ruth froze.
Dominic noticed.
"Ruth?"
She looked at Mia for a long moment.
"You have Rebecca's eyes."
Mia went pale.
"You knew my mother?"
Ruth stepped backward.
"Oh, child."
The words were filled with grief.
Dominic closed the door.
"Tell us."
Ruth carried Leo into the living room and sat.
"I wondered when that name would come back."
"What happened?" Mia whispered.
Ruth's fingers tightened around the baby's blanket.
"Your mother worked for Vittorio."
Dominic stared.
"What?"
"Before she married Jonathan. Rebecca was an accountant for one of Vittorio's early companies."
Mia sat across from her.
"Nobody told me that."
"Probably trying to protect you."
"From what?"
Ruth looked at Dominic.
"From the truth."
She explained that in the late 1980s, Vittorio Moretti had been a struggling freight broker with debts and political connections but little actual infrastructure.
Jonathan Calder, meanwhile, had built one of the fastest-growing independent shipping operations in Illinois.
Rebecca Moretti—before she became Rebecca Calder—had been part of Vittorio's accounting department.
"Moretti?" Mia asked.
Ruth nodded.
"Your mother's maiden name wasn't listed in the newspaper stories after she died because she'd changed it years earlier."
Dominic felt unease creeping over him.
"What was her full name?"
"Rebecca Anne Moretti."
Mia stared.
Dominic spoke slowly.
"She was family?"
"Your father's cousin."
Silence.
The revelation changed everything.
Mia's parents weren't strangers his father had murdered for business.
Rebecca was blood.
Vittorio had killed his own cousin.
"Why?" Mia whispered.
"Because Rebecca discovered what he was doing."
Ruth's eyes filled.
"Vittorio was laundering money through freight contracts. Jonathan found out after they married. He wanted nothing to do with it. Rebecca helped Jonathan collect evidence."
Dominic's jaw tightened.
"How do you know this?"
"Because she came to the house."
"When?"
"Two days before she died."
Ruth looked down.
"She asked your mother for help."
Dominic felt ice in his veins.
"Elena knew?"
"Yes."
Mia stood abruptly, immediately grimacing from pain.
"My mother asked Elena for help, and two days later she was dead?"
Ruth lifted both palms.
"You don't understand."
"Then make me understand."
"Elena tried to save them."
Ruth explained.
Elena gave Rebecca cash and arranged a car. Rebecca and Jonathan planned to leave Chicago with Mia.
But Vittorio discovered them.
The boating accident was staged before they could escape.
"And my mother?" Dominic asked.
"Your father threatened her."
"With what?"
"You."
That answer silenced the room.
"You were ten years old, Dominic. Anthony was six. Vittorio told Elena if she ever spoke about the Calders, her boys would suffer accidents too."
Dominic stared toward the dark window.
For years, he'd imagined his mother as elegant but distant.
A woman who never challenged Vittorio publicly.
He had judged her for it.
Now he wondered how many dinners she had eaten beside a murderer while trying to keep two children alive.
Mia's voice was quiet.
"Why didn't she tell me after Vittorio died?"
Ruth shook her head.
"I don't know."
Dominic did.
"Because Salvatore was alive."
Everyone looked at him.
Vittorio hadn't acted alone.
The recording proved it.
Even after Vittorio's death, his brother controlled pieces of the organization.
Mia pressed fingers to her forehead.
"Then why is Adrian doing this?"
"Money," Dominic said.
"Too simple."
Ruth agreed.
"That boy always wanted something his father had."
Dominic turned.
"You know Adrian?"
"I watched him grow up too."
"What did he want?"
Ruth's face darkened.
"Your father's approval."
"But Vittorio is dead."
"Approval doesn't always die with the person."
Dominic's phone buzzed.
Marcus.
"We found something."
"What?"
"Come back."
Thirty minutes later, Dominic and Mia returned to the private suite.
Leo remained with Ruth under protection from two retired police officers whom Ruth knew personally—not men from Dominic's organization.
Marcus displayed a corporate diagram.
"Adrian diverted $48 million over six years into dormant accounts."
"Where did it go?"
"Mercury Strategic Holdings."
Dominic frowned.
"Never heard of it."
"You shouldn't have."
Marcus changed the screen.
"It's owned by Salvatore."
Mia crossed her arms.
"So father and son are stealing from the Morettis."
Marcus shook his head.
"Worse."
The accounts were funding private security companies, political donations, surveillance equipment, and real estate purchases—including the building with the hidden safe room.
Dominic stared.
"Salvatore knew about the room."
"Looks like it."
"Then why would my mother send Mia there?"
Mia answered.
"Because Elena thought only Vittorio knew."
Dominic nodded.
That meant the safe room hadn't protected them.
It had delivered them directly into Salvatore's network.
Marcus opened another document.
"Anthony found all of this."
An email draft appeared.
Written by Anthony one day before his crash.
Dominic, if anything happens to me, don't trust Adrian. Don't trust Uncle Sal. And don't trust the police until you know who is being paid.
Dominic's throat tightened.
"Why didn't he send it?"
"Maybe he didn't get the chance."
Mia stared at the message.
"There's something else."
She walked to the desk.
"When Anthony gave me the flash drive, he said he divided the information."
"Divided?"
"He said one part would expose the past. The other would expose what's happening now."
Dominic lifted the silver drive.
"This is the past."
"Yes."
"Where's the other?"
Mia looked at him.
"Helena has it."
Dominic swore.
His missing sister-in-law was carrying the evidence Adrian needed most.
Marcus checked his watch.
"Sunrise in thirty-five minutes."
Dominic made his decision.
"We go to the estate."
Mia's eyes widened.
"You'll give Adrian what he wants?"
"No."
"Then he'll kill Elena."
Dominic looked at the floor plan.
"Not if she isn't where he says she is."
Marcus understood.
"The video background."
Dominic nodded.
The Moretti estate's great hall contained a seventeenth-century painting above the fireplace.
But in Adrian's video, the painting had been on the opposite wall.
Dominic had noticed it subconsciously.
He enlarged the image.
"It's reversed."
Marcus frowned.
"Mirrored video?"
"No."
Dominic pointed toward a wooden support beam visible in the background.
"The old guesthouse."
It had been renovated twenty years earlier to resemble parts of the main residence.
Adrian wasn't inside the estate.
He was in a detached building several hundred yards away.
Which meant he expected Dominic to storm the wrong location.
Dominic smiled without humor.
"Adrian thinks I solve every problem with force."
Mia looked at him.
"Don't you?"
"Usually."
He took a handgun from the table.
"Tonight I'm going to disappoint him."
At 5:49 a.m., Dominic entered the Moretti estate through an underground wine cellar his father had once used during Prohibition-themed parties.
Marcus's team surrounded the guesthouse.
No police.
No sirens.
Mia remained in the command vehicle, furious about it.
Dominic climbed the back staircase alone.
He found Elena tied to a chair exactly as the video showed.
But Adrian was gone.
"Mom."
Elena lifted her head.
"Dominic?"
He cut her restraints.
"Are you hurt?"
"He left ten minutes ago."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Then Elena grabbed his arm.
"He knows."
"Knows what?"
"About Helena."
Dominic's blood ran cold.
"Where is she?"
Elena looked terrified.
"St. Agnes."
The name meant nothing to Dominic.
"What is St. Agnes?"
"An abandoned convent west of the city."
"Why would Helena be there?"
"Because Anthony arranged it."
Dominic immediately called Marcus.
"Get coordinates."
But Elena wasn't finished.
"Dominic."
He turned.
His mother's eyes filled with tears.
"There is something you need to know before you find her."
"Later."
"No."
Her grip tightened.
"Now."
He saw shame on her face.
Ancient shame.
The kind people carried for decades.
"What?"
Elena swallowed.
"Leo isn't Anthony's biological son."
Dominic stopped breathing.
"What did you say?"
"Anthony knew."
"Whose child is he?"
Elena closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she looked more frightened of her own son than of Adrian.
"That's why this is happening."
"Whose son is Leo?"
May you like
Her answer changed the entire war.
"Adrian's."
Related Stories
