Chapter 2
We stayed.
Not because I wanted to.
Because three cars followed us when Rocco attempted to send us home.
He spotted them before I did.
We turned around.
After that, the argument was over.
Lucia slept in a guest bedroom larger than our apartment.
I sat beside her until midnight, listening to rain scratch against the windows.
At one fifteen, I stepped into the hallway.
Dominic stood at the far end.
Alone.
He wore dark trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
Without the jacket, without the men, without a room bending around his presence, he looked almost ordinary.
Almost.
“You should be resting,” I said.
“So should you.”
“I’m not the one who was drugged.”
“Fair point.”
He approached.
His eyes moved toward Lucia’s door.
“She sleeps heavily.”
“She always has.”
He went still.
Again, that strange flicker.
Pain.
Recognition.
Something.
“Mr.
Ferrero.”
“Yes?”
“How did you know Lucia’s name?”
Silence.
“You said ‘I know’ before I introduced her properly.”
He looked toward the rain streaked window.
“Mrs.
Bianchi keeps employee files.”
“She keeps my daughter’s name in your bedroom?”
“No.”
“Then how?”
His face closed.
“Not tonight.”
My anger arrived fast.
“You don’t get to say that.”
He looked at me.
“Excuse me?”
“My daughter is trapped inside your house because somebody tried to poison you.
A man she identified may be responsible.
People followed us when we attempted to leave.
So no, Mr.
Ferrero.
You don’t get to look mysterious and tell me ‘not tonight.’”
Somewhere downstairs, a clock chimed.
Dominic watched me.
Most people probably stopped speaking when he looked at them that way.
I had spent four years arguing with insurance companies.
He did not frighten me enough.
Finally he said, “Victor has known me thirty one years.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
“Did he poison you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you trust him?”
A long pause.
“I did.”
Past tense.
That frightened me more than a yes.
The next morning, Victor was gone.
His phone had been found abandoned near Logan Airport.
His car was discovered inside a downtown parking structure.
Rocco told me none of this directly.
I heard enough through walls.
Dominic’s people searched.
Police were not called.
At breakfast, Lucia ate pancakes at a table designed for twenty four people.
Dominic entered halfway through.
She pointed at his mug.
“Is that coffee?”
“Tea.”
“Good.”
“I’m glad I have your approval.”
“You shouldn’t drink anything Mr.
Victor gives you.”
Dominic sat across from her.
“I will remember that.”
Lucia poured too much syrup onto her pancake.
Dominic watched her.
Again, that expression.
I could not ignore it anymore.
He looked at her the way people look at photographs of houses that burned down.
After breakfast, Lucia asked to see the library.
Rocco took her.
The moment the doors closed, I faced Dominic.
“Tell me.”
He remained quiet.
“Why do you keep looking at her like that?”
His fingers tightened around the teacup.
“Because she resembles someone.”
My heart stumbled.
“Who?”
He stood.
“Walk with me.”
He led me through a corridor I had cleaned a hundred times, then into a private office behind the main study.
I had never entered it.
There were no business ledgers inside.
No guns.
No safes.
Only books.
Photographs.
Old ones.
Dominic crossed to a cabinet.
He opened the bottom drawer.
Removed a photograph.
Placed it on the desk.
I stopped breathing.
Paulo.
My husband was twenty something in the picture.
Younger than when I met him.
He stood on a dock beside Dominic Ferrero.
Dominic looked perhaps forty.
Paulo was laughing.
Dominic was not.
But his hand rested on Paulo’s shoulder.
Not like a boss.
Not like a stranger.
Like family.
“What is this?”
Dominic said nothing.
I picked up the photograph.
My hands shook.
“When was this taken?”
“Fourteen years ago.”
“How did you know Paulo?”
Still silence.
“Answer me.”
Dominic sat.
Then he said the words that divided my life into before and after.
“Paulo was my son.”
The photograph slipped from my fingers.
I laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because sometimes the mind rejects pain by making the body do something ridiculous.
“No.”
“Alina.”
“No.”
“His mother’s name was Sofia Marino.”
“I know his mother’s name.”
“She left Boston when Paulo was three.”
“I know that.”
“She married Stefan Reva two years later.”
My mouth went dry.
Paulo had rarely spoken about his father.
He had told me only that the man was not part of his life.
I had assumed deadbeat.
Alcoholic.
Gone.
Anything but this.
Dominic’s voice was quiet.
“Stefan gave Paulo his surname.
He also gave him something I couldn’t at the time.”
“What?”
“A normal childhood.”
I stared at him.
“You expect me to believe you let your son disappear?”
“No.”
His face hardened with old shame.
“I watched from a distance.”
“That is worse.”
“I know.”
“He married me.”
“I know.”
“We had a child.”
“I know.”
“Paulo died.”
Dominic looked away.
“I know.”
My anger exploded.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“You knew who I was when I came here?”
“Yes.”
“You hired me because of him?”
“I arranged for Mrs.
Bianchi to interview you.”
The room tilted.
Every strange kindness.
Every moment Dominic had looked at me too long.
Every time my hours somehow increased when bills were worst.
The Christmas bonus I had assumed everyone received.
The time a repair company mysteriously waived the cost of replacing our apartment heater.
“You’ve been watching us.”
“Protecting you.”
“Don’t use that word.”
His eyes met mine.
“Then I won’t.”
I picked up the photograph again.
“Did Paulo know?”
“Yes.”
A new wound opened.
“What?”
“He found me when he was twenty two.”
I sank into a chair.
“He never told me.”
“He hated what I was.”
“What are you?”
Dominic almost smiled.
It was a sad expression.
“Not a question you really want answered.”
“He hated you?”
“He hated what he believed my name did to people.”
My eyes burned.
“He was right.”
“Yes.”
That answer stole some of my anger because I wanted him to fight me.
Instead he accepted every blow.
“Why did he keep meeting you?”
Dominic looked at the photograph.
“Because sons can be angry with fathers and still want fathers.”
My throat tightened.
“He wanted me out of certain businesses.
Completely out.”
“Did you listen?”
“Eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“Too late.”
The way he said it changed the room.
I looked at him.
“What happened to Paulo?”
Dominic did not answer.
“His death was an accident.”
Silence.
I stood.
“Tell me his death was an accident.”
Dominic’s eyes closed.
That was the answer.
My knees nearly gave way.
“What happened?”
He rose.
“Alina.”
“WHAT HAPPENED TO MY HUSBAND?”
Footsteps sounded outside.
Nobody entered.
Dominic spoke carefully.
“Paulo discovered someone inside my organization was stealing from me.”
I stared at him.
“He found financial records.
Shipments routed through shell companies.
Money disappearing.
But stealing was not the real problem.”
“What was?”
“The shipments contained things I had forbidden my businesses from touching.”
I did not ask what.
I did not want to know.
“Paulo said he would go to federal investigators.”
“Did you stop him?”
“No.”
“He died two days later.”
My chest tightened until breathing hurt.
“The truck that hit his car…”
“Had stolen plates.”
“No.”
“The driver vanished.”
“No.”
“The police investigation was redirected.”
“By you?”
His silence lasted one second too long.
I crossed the room and slapped him.
The sound cracked like a gunshot.
Dominic did not move.
“By you?”
“I made them call it an accident.”
I hit him again.
This time tears came.
“You let me bury him believing it was random.”
“Yes.”
“You let Lucia grow up believing her father died because of rain and bad luck.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the person who killed Paulo was still inside my house.”
The anger drained from my body.
Cold replaced it.
Dominic continued.
“I believed if whoever did it knew Paulo had told you anything, you and Lucia would die too.”
“So you lied.”
“Yes.”
“You hid us.”
“Yes.”
“You brought me here.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His voice finally broke.
Not much.
Just enough.
“Because I had already failed my son.
I was not going to lose his wife and daughter where I could not see them.”
I cried then.
Not beautifully.
Not quietly.
I cried with both hands covering my face while the father of my dead husband stood three feet away and did not try to touch me.
Eventually I asked, “Who killed him?”
Dominic looked toward the door.
“We never proved it.”
“Victor?”
“We suspected Victor.”
“Why keep him beside you for four more years?”
Dominic’s face became stone.
“Because a guilty man who believes he is trusted eventually makes mistakes.”
“And yesterday?”
“Yesterday he made one.”
A voice came from the doorway.
“No.”
Rocco stood there.
His face was pale.
“Yesterday,” he said, “he made two.”
Dominic turned.
Rocco held a phone.
“We found Victor.”
“Where?”
“Dead.”
My stomach twisted.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“Where?”
“Inside his brother’s boat.”
“Cause?”
Rocco hesitated.
“He didn’t run.”
Dominic understood before I did.
“Someone silenced him.”
“Yes.”
The room went silent.
If Victor had been killed after the poisoning, then either an accomplice was still free…
Or Victor had never been the poisoner.
Lucia appeared behind Rocco.
I stood abruptly.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for you.”
She glanced at Dominic.
Then at the photograph in my hand.
Her face changed.
“That’s Daddy.”
Nobody spoke.
She walked closer.
Looked at Dominic.
Then back at Paulo.
“Why do they have the same eyes?”
I closed mine.
There are truths adults spend years avoiding that children can cross in three seconds.
Lucia looked at Dominic.
“Were you my dad’s dad?”
Dominic could command rooms full of dangerous men without blinking.
He could not answer a seven year old girl.
Finally:
“Yes.”
Lucia absorbed this.
Then asked the only question that mattered to her.
“Did he love you?”
Dominic’s lips parted.
Nothing came out.
I answered.
“I think he did.”
Lucia nodded.
Then she looked at Dominic.
“You look sad.”
He swallowed.
“I am.”
She reached for his hand.
And he let her.
For exactly ten seconds, the most feared man in Boston stood motionless while the granddaughter he had watched from a distance held one of his fingers like she had known him forever.
Then the window exploded.
Rocco threw Lucia to the floor.
I screamed.
Dominic dragged me behind the desk.
A second shot punched into the wall.
Security alarms erupted.
Men shouted downstairs.
Rocco drew his weapon and moved toward the corridor.
Dominic covered Lucia with his own body.
That is the image I remember.
Not the gunfire.
Not the shattered glass.
Dominic Ferrero curled over my daughter on the floor.
Protecting Paulo’s child.
Protecting his granddaughter.
Protecting the last thing his son had left him.
May you like
And suddenly one thing became terribly clear.
Whoever had killed Paulo had not finished with our family.
