Chapter 5 - The Man Who Humiliated Me Begged Me to Listen
Dominic looked smaller in a hospital bed.
Maybe everyone did.
Without the tailored suit, the whiskey, the men laughing around him, and the arrogance he wore like armor, he looked thirty instead of invincible.
His right shoulder was wrapped in thick bandages. An IV ran into his left hand. His face was pale.
He looked at me when I entered.
Then he saw Cosimo behind me.
“I said I’d speak to Francesca.”
Cosimo closed the door.
“You are speaking to Francesca.”
“Alone.”
“No.”
Dominic looked at me.
I pulled a chair beside the bed.
“He stays.”
Something bitter crossed Dominic’s face.
“Of course he does.”
“Careful,” Cosimo said softly.
Dominic immediately looked away.
I almost smiled.
Then I remembered the ballroom.
I remembered him pointing at me while men laughed.
The smile vanished.
“You wanted to talk. Talk.”
Dominic swallowed.
“First, I’m sorry.”
I said nothing.
“I know that doesn’t fix it.”
“No.”
“I was drunk.”
“That does not improve the apology.”
He closed his eyes.
“I know.”
I waited.
Finally he said, “Matteo told me to end the engagement publicly.”
“I know.”
His eyes opened.
“How?”
“Elena recorded part of the meeting in Room 917.”
Fear flashed across his face.
“Then you heard—”
“Enough.”
He looked toward Cosimo.
Then back at me.
“I didn’t know the whole plan at first.”
“Tell me the part you did know.”
Dominic breathed slowly through the pain.
“Matteo offered me territory on the South Side if I made the engagement impossible to repair. He said your father was going to remove you from the financial side after the scandal because you had become an embarrassment.”
“My father never publicly admitted I was on the financial side.”
“Matteo knew.”
“Yes.”
“He said once you were out, he could restructure everything.”
“And you agreed.”
Dominic looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“Because you hated me?”
“No.”
I gave him a look.
He winced.
“I didn’t understand you.”
“That is a very elegant way to say you thought I was boring.”
“I thought you looked down on me.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“You barely spoke to me.”
“You spent every dinner talking to my father.”
“Because I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.”
“I didn’t want to marry you.”
“Exactly.”
For one strange second, we both almost laughed.
Then reality returned.
Dominic stared at the blanket.
“I was angry that Carlo offered me a daughter who clearly did not want me. I thought he was insulting both of us. Matteo knew that. He fed it.”
“So you decided to humiliate me.”
“Yes.”
At least he did not hide from it.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
“Good.”
“I’m asking you to believe that I did not agree to kill you.”
I leaned forward.
“When did you learn that part?”
“In Room 917. Sal brought the envelope. There were photographs inside.”
“What photographs?”
“You leaving the Lombardi office. Your car. The parking garage under your building downtown.”
My blood chilled.
“There was a schedule.”
Cosimo’s voice went flat.
“For what?”
Dominic looked at him.
“An accident.”
I did not ask for details.
I did not want them.
“Matteo said after the engagement ended, Francesca would be emotional. Distracted. Nobody would question it.”
My stomach turned.
“He planned to make my death look accidental.”
Dominic nodded.
“And my father?”
“Different plan.”
Cosimo stepped closer.
“You said you had the name of the person assigned to Carlo.”
Dominic hesitated.
“Not a name exactly.”
Cosimo’s expression darkened.
Dominic quickly continued.
“A title. Matteo called him the Gardener.”
I frowned.
“That means nothing.”
“It means something to me,” Cosimo said.
I looked at him.
His face had changed.
“Who is the Gardener?”
“A contract killer used by old Syndicate families.”
Dominic nodded.
“Matteo said the Gardener was already in Chicago.”
“When?” Cosimo asked.
“Three days ago.”
“Target date?”
“Tomorrow night.”
My lungs stopped working.
“Where?”
Dominic shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“We tell my father now.”
Cosimo did not argue this time.
Dominic grabbed my hand before I could move away.
“Wait.”
I looked down at him.
“There’s more.”
“Then say it.”
“Matteo didn’t just want Carlo dead.”
“What does that mean?”
“He wants a war.”
Cosimo went still.
Dominic continued.
“The missing Ferraro money was phase one. Your death was supposed to make Carlo irrational. Then Carlo dies and evidence points back to Ferraro.”
I stared at Cosimo.
“Why?”
“Because Matteo can’t take over while the families are stable,” Dominic said. “Too many captains are loyal to Carlo. Too many Syndicate votes would oppose him. But during a war? If Carlo dies and Ferraro looks responsible, Matteo becomes acting head of Lombardi. He rallies everyone against Cosimo.”
“And if I’m alive?” I asked.
Dominic looked at me.
“You can prove the money trail is fake.”
There it was.
The reason I had to disappear.
Not because I was unwanted.
Because I was dangerous.
For the first time in my life, I understood the true value Matteo had assigned me.
He had decided I was important enough to kill.
It was not the validation I had ever wanted.
Cosimo asked, “Who else is involved?”
“Sal. Two captains I don’t know. Someone inside Ferraro Development.”
Cosimo’s face hardened.
“Who?”
“I never heard the name.”
“Think.”
“I am thinking.”
Dominic’s monitor sped up.
I raised a hand.
“Enough.”
Cosimo looked at me.
“He was shot last night.”
“So was my money.”
“That sentence makes no sense.”
“It makes emotional sense.”
Dominic let out a weak laugh and immediately grimaced.
I looked at him.
“Why did someone shoot you?”
His smile disappeared.
“Because I told Matteo I was out.”
“When?”
“After Elena left Room 917. I said I would humiliate you because I had already agreed to that. But I wouldn’t be part of killing you.”
“That was noble of you.”
“I know it wasn’t.”
“Then why continue with the humiliation?”
He stared at me.
“Because Matteo had my brother.”
I went silent.
“Tony?”
Dominic nodded.
“He has a gambling problem. Matteo arranged for him to owe money to the wrong people. They picked him up yesterday afternoon.”
“Is he alive?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic’s eyes filled with something I had never seen from him before.
Terror.
“I did what Matteo wanted because he said Tony would go home if I did. Then in the ballroom, after you took off the ring…”
He swallowed.
“What?”
“I saw Matteo’s man near the west column. He was watching you. Not me.”
My skin crawled.
“I realized the plan had moved forward. I started walking toward him.”
“And that’s when you were shot.”
“Yes.”
The bullet had not been punishment for humiliating me.
It had been punishment for trying to prevent my murder.
That did not erase what Dominic had done.
But it changed what happened after.
I pulled my hand free from his.
“I’ll find Tony.”
His eyes widened.
“Why?”
“Because he didn’t humiliate me.”
A sound escaped Cosimo that might have been a laugh.
Dominic looked at me for a long moment.
“I really was an idiot, wasn’t I?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
As we reached the door, Dominic called my name.
I turned.
“There’s one more thing.”
Cosimo looked irritated.
Dominic ignored him.
“Your father signed something for Matteo last week.”
“What?”
“I don’t know exactly. Matteo called it an emergency succession instrument.”
My stomach tightened.
“Succession?”
“He said once Carlo was gone, nobody could challenge him for control of Lombardi assets for ninety days.”
I thought about my father’s signature.
His habit of signing documents Matteo placed in front of him after late dinners.
His absolute confidence that his brother would never betray him.
“What if my father didn’t know what he signed?”
Dominic gave me a sad look.
“Then Matteo has been planning this longer than any of us realized.”
We left the hospital through a private corridor.
In the elevator, I stared at the polished steel doors.
Cosimo stood beside me.
“You were right,” I said.
“About what?”
“One feeling not canceling another.”
He waited.
“I still hate Dominic for what he did.”
“You can.”
“And I believe he tried to stop Matteo from killing me.”
“You can believe that too.”
I looked at him.
“Do you always make everything sound simple?”
“No.”
The elevator doors opened.
He placed his hand lightly against my lower back as we stepped out.
“Only numbers.”
My phone rang.
Father.
I answered.
His voice was low.
“Francesca, I need you to come home.”
Something was wrong.
“What happened?”
A pause.
Then he said, “Matteo is here.”
I stopped walking.
Cosimo turned.
My father continued.
“He says you stole twenty-three million dollars from Ferraro and tried to blame him.”
My blood went cold.
“And Francesca…”
“Yes?”
“He has documents with your signature on every page.”
The drive back to Lincoln Park felt longer than it was.
I opened the photographs my father had sent of Matteo’s evidence and enlarged each page on my phone.
Cosimo sat beside me, making calls to his security team and his forensic accountant.
I barely heard him.
The signatures looked perfect.
That was what frightened me.
Someone had not simply copied my name. They had studied the way I structured approvals, the language I used in authorization notes, even the order in which I attached supporting schedules.
“This took months,” I said.
Cosimo ended his call.
“What did?”
“The forgery.”
I turned the phone toward him.
“Look at this resolution. Whoever made it knew my formatting habits.”
“So Matteo had access longer than we thought.”
“Yes.”
“And your father signed the succession agreement last week.”
I nodded slowly.
“This was not a reaction to the engagement.”
“No.”
“The engagement was part of the schedule.”
The realization made me cold.
Dominic humiliating me at 9:17 had felt spontaneous because he was drunk. It had not been. The timing, the public scene, the loss of my access, the forged transfers, my planned death—everything was meant to collapse in a sequence too fast for anyone to stop and examine.
I looked out the window at the city passing in streaks of gray winter light.
“He counted on me being ashamed.”
Cosimo was quiet.
“He counted on me running away after the ballroom. On my father being angry. On everyone seeing an unwanted woman instead of a financial officer.”
I turned back to him.
“That is why the evidence is so obvious. Matteo never needed it to survive an audit. He only needed it to survive the first twenty-four hours.”
Cosimo’s eyes sharpened.
“Long enough for Carlo to lose control.”
“And long enough for the Council to believe a story before I could tell mine.”
He nodded.
“So what do we do?”
I looked again at the forged documents.
For most of my life, men in my family had assumed silence meant surrender.
Matteo had built his entire plan on the same mistake.
“We let him show us every lie,” I said.
Cosimo studied me.
“Then?”
May you like
I locked my phone.
“Then I take them apart one page at a time.”
