Chapter 6 - WHAT DOMINIC CHOSE
Dominic did not react the way Cecilia wanted.
That seemed to disappoint her.
No rage.
No denial.
No threat.
He looked at Lena.
Only Lena.
“What do you need from me?”
The question surprised everyone.
Lena most of all.
Cecilia laughed softly.
“How noble.”
Dominic ignored her.
Lena stared at him.
“What?”
“If there is a recording, you deserve to hear it.”
His voice was steady.
“If it proves my mother ordered the attack, I will not stop you from releasing it.”
Cecilia’s expression changed.
Just slightly.
The script had gone wrong.
She had expected Dominic Rossi to protect Rossi.
Lena had expected some part of him to hesitate.
He did not.
That mattered more than every speech he could have made.
Cecilia stepped closer.
“You say that because you think I don’t have it.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Then this conversation is becoming repetitive.”
Marcus almost smiled.
Cecilia looked at him.
“You find this amusing?”
“No.”
“Your mother is with Adrian.”
“So?”
“He could kill her.”
Marcus’s expression turned cold.
“If he wanted her dead, she would not be on camera.”
Cecilia tilted her head.
“Finally learned something.”
Lena watched the men near the door.
Not professional security.
Their attention was wrong.
Two watched Dominic.
One watched Marcus.
Only one watched exits.
Cecilia had hired intimidation, not discipline.
Lena noticed most things.
She looked at Cara.
Cara understood her face instantly.
They had been friends since college.
Long before Rossi Group.
Long before borrowed dresses and billionaires and inherited crime.
Lena looked down.
Then toward the emergency pull station beside the loading door.
Cara’s eyes flicked there.
Good.
Dominic noticed Lena noticing Cara.
Of course he did.
His posture shifted a fraction.
Ready.
Lena turned to Cecilia.
“How did you get my father’s watch?”
Cecilia smiled.
“Adrian.”
Adrian’s voice cut through the warehouse speaker.
“Lie.”
Cecilia’s face tightened.
Lena continued.
“Who had it?”
“Daniel.”
Dominic looked at her.
“My father kept Samuel’s watch?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Guilt.”
“Or evidence,” Lena said.
Cecilia looked at her.
Lena continued.
“The microSD card was modern. Someone added it recently.”
“Adrian.”
“Lie,” he said again through speaker.
Lena almost smiled.
Their enemy was fact-checking another enemy.
Useful.
“Then you added it.”
Cecilia said nothing.
Lena understood.
“You wanted me to find Samuel’s recordings.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To turn you against Dominic.”
There it was.
Plain.
Cecilia looked at him.
“You were supposed to choose the company.”
Dominic’s expression barely moved.
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“You always do.”
The sentence carried history.
Lena heard it.
So did Cara.
Marcus looked between them with open interest.
Dominic’s patience thinned.
“Were you and Cecilia together?”
Cecilia answered.
“We were supposed to be.”
Dominic said, “No.”
“At least have the courtesy to lie politely.”
“We were never together.”
“Your father arranged it.”
“My father arranged many things I declined.”
Cecilia’s eyes flashed.
Lena understood the wound.
Cecilia had built part of her identity around a future Dominic never agreed to.
That did not excuse anything.
But it explained the personal heat inside the scheme.
“You took over the foundation after Daniel died,” Lena said.
Cecilia looked at her.
“Yes.”
“And kept paying Aster.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“Research.”
“Surveillance?”
“When necessary.”
“Threats?”
Cecilia shrugged.
“People respond to incentives.”
“Did you order anyone hurt?”
“No.”
Adrian’s voice came over the speaker.
“Lie.”
Cecilia looked up.
“Shut it off.”
One of her men moved toward the AV panel.
Cara pulled the fire alarm.
The warehouse exploded with sound.
A horn blared.
Red lights flashed.
Sprinklers activated half a second later.
Water poured from the ceiling.
Everyone flinched.
Lena grabbed Cara.
Marcus tackled the nearest man.
Nico moved fast.
Dominic reached Lena in two steps.
“Go.”
They ran toward the side exit.
Cecilia shouted.
One man grabbed Lena’s arm.
Dominic hit him once.
Efficient.
No spectacle.
The man released her.
Dominic pulled Lena behind him.
She hated being pulled.
This time she allowed it.
They reached the loading dock.
Nico’s team had regained radio communication.
Vehicles converged.
Cecilia and two men escaped through another door.
Marcus emerged soaking wet and furious.
“Where is my mother?”
Adrian’s voice came through Lena’s clean phone.
“Safe.”
She looked down.
Incoming call.
He had somehow found the number.
She answered.
“Adrian.”
“Cecilia tracked me to the first location. I moved Evelyn ten minutes ago.”
Marcus grabbed the phone.
“Where?”
“Stop shouting.”
“Where is she?”
“I’ll bring her to you when the ledger is secure.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
“Why are you doing this?”
A pause.
Adrian’s voice softened.
“Because my father spent his life serving Vittorio and died thinking loyalty would make him family.”
Marcus said nothing.
Adrian continued.
“I spent years thinking destroying Rossi would fix that. It won’t.”
Dominic looked toward the phone.
“Then stop.”
“Not yet.”
“What do you want?”
“The final recording.”
Dominic frowned.
“You said Cecilia has it.”
“She doesn’t.”
“Then who does?”
“Samuel hid it separately.”
Lena looked at the watch.
“The watch?”
“No. Daniel found the watch after the crash.”
“Where is the recording?”
Adrian gave an address.
Lena knew it.
“My childhood house?”
“Yes.”
Her chest tightened.
“My mother sold that house fifteen years ago.”
“Daniel bought it through a shell company.”
Dominic stared.
“My father owned Lena’s house?”
“For years.”
“Why?”
“Maybe guilt.”
Lena looked at Dominic.
“Or evidence.”
Adrian agreed.
“Exactly.”
The house still existed.
A family lived there now.
Dominic wanted to involve law enforcement.
Lena insisted.
Correctly.
They could not simply invade someone’s home because dead men had hidden secrets in it.
By noon, Dominic’s attorneys had identified the shell company.
It still owned the property.
The current family rented.
Lena stared at the ownership record.
“Your company has owned my childhood home this entire time.”
“Not my operating company. An old trust.”
“That does not help.”
“I know.”
They contacted the tenants and offered a paid hotel stay while maintenance inspected a supposed structural issue.
Lena hated the deception.
Dominic did too.
“We tell them after,” he said.
“Everything?”
“Everything relevant to their property.”
She nodded.
The house looked smaller than memory.
Two-story siding.
Blue shutters now instead of green.
A different mailbox.
Lena stood on the sidewalk.
“My father painted that porch.”
Dominic remained beside her.
“He was bad at it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you can see three layers of uneven work under the current paint.”
She looked at him.
“You really do notice things.”
“Some.”
They entered.
Lena moved through rooms full of another family’s life.
A child’s drawings on the refrigerator.
Shoes by the door.
A dog bed near the couch.
Her old bedroom had become an office.
The wallpaper was gone.
Everything changed.
Except the basement.
Concrete floor.
Old furnace.
Wood shelves her father built.
Lena walked toward the wall.
“He hid Christmas presents behind this.”
Dominic looked at the shelving.
“Removable?”
“Yes.”
They pulled it away.
Behind it, one concrete block looked newer.
Nico removed it carefully.
Inside the cavity sat a metal tape recorder wrapped in plastic.
Lena’s hands shook.
“Eighteen years.”
Dominic nodded.
They took it upstairs.
The cassette inside had one label.
NIGHT OF CRASH.
Lena sat at the kitchen table.
Dominic across from her.
Nico near the door.
Cara beside Lena.
Marcus by the window.
She pressed play.
Static.
Car noise.
Samuel’s breathing.
Then Daniel’s voice.
“You can’t go home.”
“My wife and daughter are there.”
“That’s why.”
“You told me you had this handled.”
“I thought I did.”
“Your brother sent men after me.”
“He did not order this.”
“Then who did?”
Silence.
Daniel said:
“Isabella.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
His dead mother.
Samuel laughed in disbelief.
“Your wife?”
“Ex-wife.”
“She’s dead.”
“No.”
Lena stopped the tape.
Everyone stared.
Dominic whispered:
“My mother died when I was thirteen.”
Samuel’s recording continued.
Daniel said Isabella’s death had been staged after a federal tax investigation.
She moved overseas.
Kept control of foundation accounts.
Paid Aster through intermediaries.
She believed Samuel’s investigation threatened Dominic’s inheritance.
Samuel shouted:
“So she tried to kill me to protect a child?”
Daniel replied:
“She ordered them to scare you.”
“People keep saying that like roads know the difference.”
Then tires screeched on tape.
Samuel shouted.
Metal crashed.
Static.
For twenty seconds there was nothing.
Then Daniel’s voice.
“Samuel!”
Footsteps.
Breathing.
Samuel, weak:
“Call them.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
“I need to make one call.”
“No.”
“Vittorio can stop them from going to your house.”
Lena covered her mouth.
Daniel called.
The conversation was recorded faintly.
Vittorio laughed.
Daniel threatened him.
Vittorio said something inaudible.
Then Daniel said:
“If anyone touches Dominic, I burn everything.”
Lena looked at him.
Dominic’s eyes were closed.
Daniel chose his son.
Again.
But then Samuel spoke.
“Your boy.”
Daniel came back.
“What?”
“Get him out.”
“What?”
“If she’s doing this for him, get him away from her.”
Daniel’s voice broke.
“I can’t leave you.”
“Call the ambulance.”
Daniel did.
Immediately.
Not nine minutes.
Four minutes and thirty-one seconds after the crash.
Still too long.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Sirens appeared faintly.
Samuel whispered:
“Tell Lena I was brave at the end.”
Lena started crying.
Cara took her hand.
Samuel’s last audible words:
“No. Tell her the truth.”
Then silence.
Daniel remained until sirens approached.
Before leaving, he said:
“I’m sorry.”
Tape ended.
No one spoke.
Dominic looked destroyed.
Lena looked at him.
“Your mother was alive.”
He nodded slowly.
“My father knew.”
“Yes.”
“He lied to me my entire life.”
“Yes.”
Lena wiped her face.
“Do you know where Isabella is?”
Dominic stared at the table.
“No.”
Marcus’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
“My mother.”
He put it on speaker.
Evelyn’s voice.
“Marcus.”
“Where are you?”
“With Adrian.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
Then Evelyn said:
“We found Isabella.”
Dominic stood.
Lena stopped breathing.
“Where?” he asked.
Evelyn’s voice shook.
“Manhattan.”
Dominic’s face became stone.
“How long has she been here?”
“Years.”
“Address.”
Evelyn gave it.
Dominic knew the building.
Everyone saw it.
Lena looked at him.
“What is it?”
His voice was barely audible.
“The Rossi Foundation headquarters.”
Lena stared.
May you like
Dominic looked up.
“My mother has been inside my company the entire time.”
