Chapter 4 - The Brother Dominic Couldn’t Save
Working for Dominic Moretti was nothing like I expected.
Nobody kissed his ring.
Nobody called him Don.
There were no men smoking cigars around a giant wooden table discussing bodies.
Most days involved accountants, lawyers, spreadsheets, and people carrying expensive coffee.
That almost made the truth underneath it more disturbing.
Crime, I learned, did not always look dramatic.
Sometimes it looked like a consulting contract.
A fake trucking invoice.
A shell company registered in Delaware.
A transfer approved at 4:52 on a Friday when nobody would review it until Monday.
I spent two weeks inside Moretti Holdings comparing Daniel's notes with archived freight records.
Every morning I dropped Wyatt at school.
Every afternoon I left by four.
Dominic never challenged that.
Rick from Bellweather called twice asking if I could cover emergency shifts.
I said no.
It felt incredible.
My temporary salary allowed me to buy groceries without calculating every item before reaching the register.
I bought milk.
Two gallons.
I stood in the dairy aisle staring at them longer than any sane person should stare at milk.
Then I cried in my car.
Poverty changes your definition of luxury.
Sometimes luxury is not looking at the price of cereal.
Wyatt got new winter boots.
Not designer boots.
Normal boots.
He wore them around the apartment for two hours.
I didn't buy the giant LEGO truck.
Not yet.
I was still careful.
The investigation into Victor moved quietly.
Dominic brought in an outside forensic accounting team.
I showed them Daniel's annotations.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Falcon Ridge Development.
The company had received more than eleven million dollars from Moretti-linked freight and construction businesses over seven years.
It owned almost nothing.
No office.
No employees.
No real projects.
The beneficiary was hidden through trusts.
But Daniel had written one note beside the earliest transfer.
Luca says V owns Falcon.
Victor.
Dominic stared at his brother's handwriting for a long time.
“I didn't know Luca was investigating him.”
“Would he have told you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because we had stopped trusting each other.”
That surprised me.
“You were brothers.”
“So were Dominic and Victor's father once.”
He leaned back.
“Family doesn't automatically mean trust, Grace.”
“I know that now.”
Dominic walked toward the window.
“Luca thought I was a coward.”
“Were you?”
He glanced back.
Most people probably didn't ask Dominic Moretti that.
“I don't know.”
“That's not an answer.”
“I left Chicago because I didn't want to inherit my father's life.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“I also left my brother here to deal with it.”
“That part sounds less reasonable.”
He nodded.
“He called me three nights before he died.”
“What did he say?”
“Come home.”
“And?”
“I told him I couldn't keep cleaning up Angelo's mess.”
“What did Luca say?”
Dominic's voice changed.
“He said, ‘Maybe I'm not asking you to come home for Dad.’”
I felt a pressure in my chest.
“You didn't ask what he meant?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I was angry.”
The simplicity of it hurt.
We imagine tragedy announcing itself.
It rarely does.
Sometimes the last important conversation of your life sounds like an ordinary argument.
“Did you speak again?”
“No.”
Dominic looked at Daniel's handwriting.
“Three days later, Luca died.”
I wanted to comfort him.
I didn't know how.
Dominic Moretti did not look like a man people touched when he was hurting.
So I simply stood beside him.
For a minute, neither of us spoke.
Then the office door opened.
A woman walked in without knocking.
She was tall, elegant, maybe thirty-five, with dark red lipstick and a camel-colored coat that probably cost more than my car.
Her eyes landed on me immediately.
“So you're Grace Miller.”
I looked at Dominic.
“Does everyone in Chicago know me now?”
“Unfortunately.”
The woman extended her hand.
“Elena Russo.”
I recognized the surname.
Matteo Russo.
“Matteo's sister?”
“Older, smarter sister.”
From the doorway, Matteo said, “Debatable.”
Elena ignored him.
She was an attorney.
Not a Moretti attorney.
A former federal prosecutor who now ran a private law practice specializing in corporate investigations.
Dominic had brought her in because she had spent years refusing to work for Angelo.
That made her trustworthy by Moretti standards.
She was also Dominic's former fiancée.
I learned that five minutes later.
Not from Dominic.
From Elena.
“We were engaged once.”
I nearly choked on my coffee.
Dominic glared at her.
“Was that relevant?”
“To me.”
Elena smiled.
“You look exactly like a man who doesn't want his current emotionally complicated situation meeting his former emotionally complicated situation.”
I stared at Dominic.
“There is no current emotionally complicated situation.”
Elena looked at me.
“Of course not.”
I liked her immediately.
Which was inconvenient.
She reviewed the Falcon Ridge documents.
Her humor disappeared.
“This is enough to subpoena banking records if the government wants to move.”
“Will they?” I asked.
“Eventually. But Victor has friends.”
Dominic said, “We know.”
Elena pointed at the documents.
“If we move too early, he destroys whatever isn't digital.”
“What are we missing?”
“The connection between the money and Luca's death. The connection between Victor and Daniel's kidnapping. Right now we have circumstantial evidence and Angelo's confession of cowardice.”
I hated that phrase.
Confession of cowardice.
So accurate.
“So we keep looking.”
“Yes.”
Three days later, Victor made his first direct move against me.
I was picking Wyatt up from school when the receptionist stopped me.
“Mrs. Miller, we need to speak.”
My heart immediately raced.
“Is Wyatt okay?”
“Yes. He's in the office.”
Inside sat a social worker from the Department of Children and Family Services.
For a second, I couldn't breathe.
There had been an anonymous report claiming I routinely left Wyatt alone overnight while working and that dangerous men had recently been entering our home.
I knew immediately.
Victor.
The accusation was absurd.
But absurd accusations can still terrify a mother.
The social worker was professional.
She asked questions.
Inspected our apartment.
Spoke privately with Wyatt.
Mrs. Alvarez confirmed she watched him whenever I worked late.
School records showed excellent attendance.
There was no evidence of neglect.
But I spent forty-eight hours sick with fear.
Dominic was furious.
“I'll handle him.”
“No.”
I stood in his office.
“You said we were doing this differently.”
“He went after your child.”
“Exactly. Which means he wants you angry.”
Dominic paced.
I had never seen him lose control.
“Grace.”
“Don't.”
“He involved Wyatt.”
“And if you break Victor's jaw, what happens?”
Dominic stopped.
“He tells everyone the accusations were true and a mafia boss threatened him because I couldn't pass a child-welfare investigation.”
His jaw tightened.
I stepped closer.
“Don't give him the story he wants.”
For several seconds, Dominic said nothing.
Then he exhaled.
“You are very annoying.”
“I've been told.”
A week later, DCFS closed the case.
Unfounded.
Elena traced the anonymous complaint to an internet address linked to a property-management office controlled by Victor.
Not enough for criminal charges.
Enough to show a pattern.
That evening, I arrived home and found a large package outside my apartment.
My heart stopped.
Matteo inspected it first.
Inside was the giant LEGO truck Wyatt had wanted.
No card.
I looked at Dominic.
He raised both hands.
“Not me.”
“Matteo?”
“No.”
Mrs. Alvarez opened her door.
“That came from the church.”
I called Pastor Samuel.
He laughed.
“Christmas assistance program.”
“You didn't have to—”
“It wasn't me.”
“Then who?”
“A donor.”
“Dominic?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“He requested anonymity.”
I looked at Wyatt.
He was staring at the box like someone had delivered a Ferrari.
“Mom?”
I thought about my pride.
Then I thought about how many times pride had forced me to make hardship unnecessarily lonely.
“Open it.”
He screamed.
For three hours, our living room became a LEGO construction site.
At nine, Dominic came by with documents.
He stopped when he saw the truck.
“You got it.”
“The church did.”
He looked at the enormous half-built machine.
Wyatt pointed.
“You can help if you know Technic pieces.”
Dominic removed his coat.
“I know regular LEGO.”
Wyatt shook his head sadly.
“This is advanced.”
I covered a laugh.
Dominic Moretti sat on my cheap living-room rug while my seven-year-old lectured him about axles.
I made hot chocolate.
The scene felt dangerously normal.
That frightened me more than his reputation.
After Wyatt fell asleep on the couch, Dominic carried him to bed.
I watched from the doorway.
He placed Wyatt carefully beneath the blanket.
Then he noticed a framed photograph beside the bed.
Daniel holding two-year-old Wyatt.
Dominic stared at it.
“He looks like Daniel.”
“I know.”
“Do you still love him?”
The question startled me.
“Daniel?”
“Yes.”
I thought about it.
“I love who he was.”
“That isn't the same answer.”
“No.”
I touched the edge of the photograph.
“For five years, I had to turn love into anger because anger was easier to survive.”
Dominic looked at me.
“And now?”
“Now I don't know what to do with either.”
He nodded as though he understood too well.
In the living room, we reviewed documents until almost midnight.
Then I found something.
A vehicle-maintenance invoice dated three days before Luca's crash.
One of Moretti's fleet mechanics had replaced the brake lines on Luca's car.
The authorization signature belonged to a manager named Frank D'Amato.
Dominic went pale.
“Who is Frank?”
“He's worked for my uncle for twenty-five years.”
“Still?”
“Yes.”
Elena ran the name the next morning.
Frank owned a cabin near Lake Geneva.
He had retired suddenly two weeks after Daniel disappeared.
And Angelo Moretti had paid him $250,000 through a private company the same month.
Hush money.
Dominic wanted to confront him.
Elena insisted federal investigators do it.
Frank initially denied everything.
Then agents showed him the payment records.
He asked for a lawyer.
Forty-eight hours later, he requested immunity.
His statement changed the entire case.
Victor had ordered Luca's brake lines weakened.
Not completely cut.
Damaged enough to fail under pressure.
Frank believed Victor only wanted to scare Luca.
He claimed he didn't know Luca would die.
After the crash, Victor paid him.
Then Daniel discovered the maintenance records.
Victor learned Daniel had copies.
“What did he do to Daniel?” I asked when Elena finished explaining.
Her expression tightened.
“Frank says Victor ordered Daniel taken to Warehouse Twelve.”
The photograph.
Red number 12.
“What happened there?”
“Frank doesn't know.”
I didn't believe him.
Neither did Elena.
But he gave investigators the warehouse address.
It had been demolished four years earlier.
The land now belonged to a luxury condominium company.
Dominic stood silently when he heard.
Then he punched the wall.
Once.
Hard.
His knuckles split.
I didn't flinch.
“You promised.”
“I promised not to hit Victor.”
“Technicality.”
He looked at the blood.
“Luca died because I left.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Victor killed him.”
“I could have—”
“You could have what? Predicted your uncle would sabotage his brakes?”
“I could have listened.”
I understood that pain.
I had spent five years replaying my last breakfast with Daniel.
Had he looked frightened?
Had he tried to tell me something?
Could I have stopped him?
Guilt loves impossible alternatives.
I took a towel and wrapped Dominic's hand.
“You don't get to make Victor less responsible because you need someone to blame.”
His eyes met mine.
“Is that what you did with Daniel?”
“Yes.”
The answer silenced him.
“I blamed Daniel because believing he chose to leave was easier than imagining something happened and I couldn't save him.”
Dominic's voice softened.
“And now?”
“Now I'm trying to stop confusing guilt with love.”
Something shifted between us.
He lifted his uninjured hand as though he might touch my face.
Then stopped.
I didn't know whether I was relieved or disappointed.
His phone rang.
Elena.
Dominic answered.
He listened for ten seconds.
Then his expression changed.
“What?”
I waited.
He ended the call.
“Investigators searched the old warehouse property.”
“And?”
“They found a sealed maintenance pit beneath the demolished building.”
My body went cold.
“What's inside?”
“They don't know yet.”
“Dominic.”
May you like
His face told me before his words did.
“They found human remains.”
