Chapter 6 - DOMINIC OPENS THE BOOKS
Chicago expected Nicholas Rossi to disappear.
He did not.
There was no body found in an alley.
No burned vehicle.
No whispered warning about disappointing Dominic Vance.
Dominic did something more dangerous.
He opened the books.
Clara gave his attorneys the structure of the frozen accounts.
The missing federal investigator had prepared for exactly this possibility.
His authentication key had been placed in legal escrow with instructions:
Release only if Clarissa Shaw resurfaced with independent corroborating evidence.
She had plenty.
Nicholas had spent five years believing terror had buried every witness.
That confidence made him careless.
He reused shell companies.
Recycled intermediaries.
Spoke openly around employees who had learned to keep their heads down.
Dominic’s legitimate shipping businesses were tangled with criminal accounts.
Pension money.
Relief funds.
Fake vendors.
Clara spent twelve hours at a conference table mapping the contamination.
At the end, Dominic asked:
“How much can be separated?”
“Legitimately?”
“Yes.”
“Most of the employees.”
He frowned.
“I asked about businesses.”
“I’m telling you what matters first.”
Dominic stared.
Then almost smiled.
“Continue.”
Some companies could survive.
Others existed only to hide money.
Several advisers demanded Dominic bury the evidence.
One said:
“You’re dismantling your own power.”
Dominic looked toward Clara.
She sat at the far end of the table with ledgers spread around her.
“No.”
He closed the report.
“I’m learning how much of it was never mine.”
That decision cost him.
Contracts disappeared.
Men who had been loyal to his influence suddenly became loyal to distance.
Old allies called him weak.
Dominic did not ask Clara whether he was doing the right thing.
She appreciated that.
She did not want responsibility for making him decent.
Nicholas was charged in connection with Daniel’s death, money laundering, fraud, conspiracy and the hospital intrusion.
In court, he looked smaller.
The newspapers called him a fallen underboss.
Clara hated the phrase.
He had not fallen.
He had been exposed.
Then federal accountants reached the forty-two million dollars.
Reporters expected Clara to become rich.
She didn’t.
Because the money had never been hers.
And when Dominic asked what she wanted done with the portion ultimately left under settlement control—
Clara gave him an answer he did not expect.
“Toby almost missed surgery because I couldn’t produce a deposit.”
May you like
She looked at him.
“No parent should ever have to sell their future while their child is fighting for one.”
