Chapter 6 - What My Mother Was Protecting
Thomas Bell refused to come to the Romano estate.
He refused Dominic's office.
He refused every location Matteo suggested.
Finally, he named a church in Cambridge that had been closed for renovation.
"No phones inside," he said. "No large security detail. If Victor's man sees Dominic moving with an army, I'm dead before I reach the door."
Dominic did not like it.
Neither did I.
But by noon, we were sitting in a dusty parish hall that smelled like old wood and plaster.
Matteo remained outside with two men he trusted personally.
Thomas Bell came through a side entrance wearing a baseball cap and a raincoat.
He looked nothing like the polished executive from his photograph.
He looked exhausted.
Dominic stood.
Bell stopped six feet away.
For a long moment, they simply stared at each other.
Then Dominic said, "Richard says you authorized the dinner arrangement."
"I did."
"He says you met Victor in his office."
"I did."
"My staff found North Atlantic payments under your authorization."
"Yes."
Dominic's voice dropped.
"You are not helping yourself."
Bell looked at me.
"You have Eleanor's files?"
"Some of them," I said.
"Then you know enough to understand why I couldn't move openly."
"I understand my mother was threatened when I was nine. I understand she lost her career. I understand she died with a secret your friends helped bury. What I don't understand is why your signature is on the money."
Bell looked down.
"Because Victor needed someone legitimate to move it. And because I let him believe I was still afraid of him."
Dominic laughed once without humor.
"Still afraid?"
Bell looked at him.
"Luca found out Victor was using Romano shipping routes for operations your father had forbidden. Extortion. Smuggling. People disappearing. Luca threatened to expose him. Two weeks later, he collapsed."
My skin chilled.
Dominic's face did not move.
"And my father?"
Bell's eyes filled with something like regret.
"Vincent suspected Victor almost immediately."
"Then why wasn't Victor destroyed?"
Bell looked away.
"Because your father was afraid of what an internal war would do to Sofia. To you. To every business and family tied to the Romanos. He chose containment."
"Containment?"
"He buried Luca's real toxicology. He forced Victor out of several operations quietly. He moved assets. He told himself he was preventing more bloodshed."
Dominic's expression changed.
"He protected Luca's killer."
"Yes."
The word landed hard.
Bell did not soften it.
"Your father made the worst decision of his life after losing his first son. He spent the rest of his life trying to limit the consequences without admitting what he had done."
Dominic turned away.
I saw his hands close into fists.
Bell looked at me.
"Eleanor refused to let Vincent destroy everything. She made copies. She told Victor that if anything happened to her or Chloe, the evidence would reach people he couldn't control."
"Was that true?"
"Partly. She had me."
I stared at him.
"You?"
"She didn't trust me at first. She shouldn't have. I was Vincent's man. But I told her I'd make sure you were protected if Victor moved against her."
Anger flared in me.
"Protected? My mother died buried in medical debt. I was working double shifts while she rationed medication. Where exactly was your protection?"
Bell flinched.
"I didn't know the foundation payments had stopped."
Dominic turned.
"What payments?"
Bell looked at him.
"Marianne Romano Foundation quietly covered a portion of Eleanor's medical care for years. Vincent arranged it before he died. After his death, Victor took over the committee that approved confidential grants."
I felt sick.
"The credit was reversed six months before my mother died."
Bell closed his eyes.
"Then Victor found her."
The room went silent.
I remembered my mother crying at the kitchen table over bills she would not let me see.
I remembered her apologizing when I picked up extra shifts.
I remembered telling her none of it mattered as long as she got better.
Victor had not only threatened her seventeen years ago.
He had reached into the final months of her life and squeezed.
"He cut off her treatment money because he wanted the evidence," I said.
"Most likely."
I wanted to scream.
Instead, my voice came out flat.
"Keep talking."
Bell pulled a small encrypted drive from his pocket and placed it on a table.
"For eight years, I tracked Victor's hidden accounts. Payments to Ronald Bellamy. Payments to Richard. Payments to retired hospital staff. Payments to private contractors connected to at least four deaths that were never properly investigated."
Dominic looked at the drive.
"Why didn't you give this to me?"
"Because until two nights ago, I didn't know if you knew."
Dominic stared at him.
"You thought I murdered my own brother?"
"No. I thought your father might have told you and made you part of the silence."
Dominic looked as though Bell had struck him.
"You should have known me better."
Bell's face crumpled slightly.
"I thought I did. Then I watched what grief did to your father. I stopped assuming I knew what men would do for family."
I looked at the drive.
"What about the restaurant?"
Bell nodded.
"Victor ordered me to authorize a private hospitality arrangement through North Atlantic. I did it so he wouldn't know I was watching him. I did not know he planned to poison Dominic that night. By the time I realized, the reservation had already happened."
Dominic's voice sharpened.
"And after?"
"I traced Richard's blacklist payment. That's when I found Chloe's name. Henderson. I knew exactly who she was."
"So you wrote the note. Daughter may know."
"Yes. That note was for me, not Victor. My office wasn't as secure as I thought."
"Who is the man inside my security team?" Dominic asked.
Bell hesitated.
"Evan Cole."
Matteo's deputy.
I had seen him twice.
Tall. Quiet. Gray coat.
A Romano security pin.
The man Richard described.
Dominic's face changed.
"You're certain?"
"I have payments. He has been receiving money from a Victor-controlled shell for eleven months."
Dominic immediately moved toward the door.
Bell caught his arm.
"Wait."
Dominic looked down at the hand until Bell released him.
"If you confront Cole openly, Victor will run. Use him."
Dominic said nothing.
Bell continued.
"There's more on the drive. Your father's final trust amendments."
"What about them?"
"Vincent changed the succession clause before he died. Victor becomes temporary managing trustee only if your death appears natural or accidental. If there is credible evidence of foul play involving a Romano family member, control passes directly to Sofia pending independent review."
I stared at him.
"So Victor thought killing Dominic would give him the empire, but if the murder was exposed, he gets nothing."
"Exactly."
"Then my mother's evidence doesn't just prove the past. It destroys his future."
Bell nodded.
"That's why she became dangerous again."
Dominic picked up the drive.
"And why Chloe became a target the moment she saved me."
Bell's eyes moved to me.
"Eleanor always said you were brave."
My throat tightened.
"You knew her well?"
"Not well enough. But enough to know she loved you more than she feared Victor."
I looked away before he could see my eyes fill.
A loud crack came from outside.
Matteo shouted.
Dominic moved instantly.
He pulled me behind a stone column as another sound echoed from the street.
Bell staggered.
For a terrible second, I did not understand what had happened.
Then I saw blood spreading across the side of his raincoat.
"Thomas!"
Dominic caught him before he hit the floor.
Matteo burst through the door.
"Shooter's gone. Cole is missing."
Bell was conscious, barely.
He grabbed Dominic's sleeve.
"The drive," he whispered.
"I have it."
"Don't become your father."
Dominic's face tightened.
Bell struggled for breath.
"Don't hide it to keep the peace. Truth first. Even if it ruins the name."
An ambulance was called.
Bell survived the attack, though barely. The bullet missed his heart but caused enough damage to keep him in surgery for hours.
Evan Cole vanished.
Victor stopped answering calls.
By midnight, the Romano family had officially become a battlefield.
Dominic stood alone in the estate library with Bell's drive open on a secure laptop.
I found him there.
Hundreds of files filled the screen.
Financial records.
Scanned contracts.
Photographs.
Recorded phone calls.
One folder was labeled VINCENT.
Dominic had not opened it.
"You're afraid," I said.
He looked at me.
"Of a folder?"
"Of what your father did."
For once, he did not deny it.
"Luca was my hero. My father was my enemy until he died, and then I turned him into something simpler because dead people are easier to forgive when they can't disappoint you again."
I sat across from him.
"My mother kept a secret from me for seventeen years. I am furious with her. I also understand why she did it. Both can be true."
Dominic looked down at the laptop.
"If my father protected Victor, every decision I made based on his version of our family was built on a lie."
"Then build something else."
His gaze lifted.
"You make that sound easy."
"It isn't."
I reached across the desk and placed my hand over his.
He looked at it.
Then at me.
"But you're alive," I said. "Sofia is alive. I'm alive. My mother made sure some truth survived her. That's enough to start."
Dominic's fingers turned under mine and closed around my hand.
Neither of us moved.
The moment felt too quiet for everything happening around us.
Too personal.
I should have pulled away.
I didn't.
"Chloe," he said.
My name sounded different in his voice then.
Not like a warning.
Not like an order.
Like a question.
I leaned forward before I could talk myself out of it.
He met me halfway.
The kiss was brief.
Careful.
Almost disbelieving.
When we separated, I stared at him.
"That was probably a terrible idea."
"Almost certainly."
"Good."
"Good?"
"I'd be concerned if you suddenly started making normal decisions."
He smiled.
A real smile.
It changed his entire face.
Then Sofia screamed from the hallway.
Dominic was on his feet before the second scream.
We ran.
Her phone lay on the floor near the front entrance.
One of the guards was unconscious outside.
The front gate stood open.
Sofia was gone.
Dominic picked up the phone.
A new message filled the screen.
BRING ELEANOR'S ORIGINAL FILES TO PIER 12 AT MIDNIGHT.
COME ALONE.
OR YOUR SISTER DIES KNOWING YOU CHOSE A DEAD NURSE'S SECRET OVER HER.
Dominic read the message once.
Then he looked at me.
May you like
Every trace of softness vanished.
"Victor has Sofia."
