Part 7
Years later, while reviewing older records, she had also discovered that Marcus had been hiding millions through shell contractors and fake repair invoices.
She planned to tell Dominic.
Marcus learned that she knew.
Claire died from illness before she could.
But she left copies of documents in a safe Dominic did not open until much later.
Marcus spent years believing the danger was gone.
Then Anna returned.
Under Claire’s estate structure, Anna’s legal restoration as Dominic’s daughter would trigger an independent review of several family trusts.
That review would expose everything.
Marcus had already arranged Dominic’s warehouse kidnapping hoping to force him to sign away control of crucial waterfront contracts and leave the city.
Lily ruined that plan by cutting Dominic free.
When Marcus later saw the crescent scar beneath her eye, he understood who she was.
The child had become more dangerous than the father.
Two days after the DNA result, Eleanor took Anna to Prospect Park.
Dominic’s security car followed.
They were beside the pond when a dark SUV entered a path closed to traffic.
Four masked men emerged.
Eleanor saw them before Anna did.
“Run.”
She pushed the child behind her.
A man struck Eleanor across the head.
She fell.
Anna screamed.
The men dragged both of them into the vehicle.
By the time Dominic received the call, eleven minutes had passed.
Victor entered the office looking as if he would rather face a firing squad than deliver the message.
“Boss.”
Dominic looked up.
“Say it.”
“They took Anna.”
Everything inside him stopped.
“And Eleanor?”
“Her too.”
Dominic stood.
“Who?”
“We’re working—”
“Who?”
Victor put a phone on the desk.
A message had arrived from an unknown number.
Twelve hours.
Sign over the waterfront holdings and leave New York permanently.
No police.
No delay.
Dominic read it once.
Then again.
“Marcus.”
Victor frowned.
“Boss?”
“Only four people knew the exact structure of those holdings.”
“Marcus is one.”
“He also knew where Anna was staying.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“There’s more.”
He opened a folder.
“We pulled older records after Claire’s documents surfaced. Three days before your bridge accident, Marcus paid a mechanic in Bensonhurst through a contractor account.”
Dominic went perfectly still.
“What mechanic?”
“The one who serviced your car.”
Dominic looked at him.
Victor said nothing else.
He did not need to.
Marcus arrived at Dominic’s townhouse forty minutes later, summoned under the pretense of a strategy meeting.
He entered wearing concern.
“Tell me you found her.”
Dominic stood beside the window.
“Sit down.”
Marcus stopped smiling.
Victor closed the door.
For the first time in twenty years, Marcus understood that Dominic Moretti was looking at him not as a brother but as a stranger.
“Where are they?”
Marcus exhaled.
“So you finally got there.”
Dominic’s voice remained quiet.
“Where are my daughter and Eleanor?”
“You built your whole life on loyalty, Dom. That was always your flaw. You believed history made men honest.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Did you sabotage my car?”
Marcus smiled faintly.
“Claire was going to expose me.”
“You tried to kill me.”
“I tried to stop a problem.”
“My daughter was four.”
Something flickered in Marcus’s expression.
Regret would have been easier to forgive.
It was annoyance.
“She wasn’t supposed to be with you.”
Dominic struck him.
Marcus crashed against the chair.
Victor caught Dominic before the second blow.
“We need him talking.”
Dominic’s chest heaved.
Marcus wiped blood from his lip.
“You want them alive? Then you give me what I asked for.”
“Where?”
“Sign first.”
Dominic looked at Victor.
Victor understood.
They spent the next hour doing something Marcus had not expected.
They stopped treating him like the only source of information.
Victor traced the SUV through private traffic cameras.
A parking ticket reader caught a partial plate.
One of Dominic’s legitimate trucking managers recognized the vehicle as belonging to a storage company leasing space near Red Hook.
By nightfall, Victor had an address.
An abandoned refrigeration warehouse less than three miles from where Lily had first found Dominic.
Dominic almost laughed when he saw the map.
The story had circled back to another empty warehouse.
Except this time, he was not the man waiting to be rescued.
Upstairs in that building, Eleanor sat against a wall with Anna pressed against her chest.
Blood had dried in Eleanor’s hair.
Her vision blurred whenever she moved too quickly.
Anna had stopped crying.
“Grandma?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Is Daddy coming?”
Eleanor kissed her forehead.
“That man searched three years for you.”
“But they have guns.”
“People with guns still have doors.”
Anna looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
“It means doors open.”
Eleanor forced a smile.
“And your father is very good at opening doors.”
Anna laid her head against Eleanor.
After a moment, Eleanor began humming the little piano melody Dominic had played.
Anna joined her softly.
Outside, tires rolled to a stop.
Dominic entered the warehouse with Victor and several trusted men.
No speeches.
No dramatic threats.
Only one purpose.
Find the child.
The first floor was empty.
On the second, Victor found a locked steel door.
From behind it came the faintest sound.
A melody.
Dominic froze.
Anna’s lullaby.
He crossed the hallway.
“Anna!”
The humming stopped.
Then a child screamed.
“Daddy!”
Dominic hit the door with his shoulder.
Once.
Twice.
Victor forced the damaged lock.
Dominic entered.
Anna ran.
May you like
He barely had time to kneel before she hit him with enough force to nearly knock him backward.
Her arms locked around his neck.
