Chapter 3 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Marco Bellini had forgotten almost everything.
He remembered Dominic.
He remembered Gabriel.
And when Emma entered his room, he began to cry.
“You,” he whispered.
Emma stopped beside the bed.
The old man’s hands trembled.
“Gabriel’s girl.”
Dominic moved closer.
“You knew about her?”
Marco looked toward Lily, who waited outside with security.
Then he shook his head desperately.
“Not here.”
Dominic dismissed the nurse.
Marco’s fear did not ease.
“They listen.”
“Who?”
“Salvatore.”
Dominic stiffened.
“Who inside my family?”
Marco gripped his wrist.
“Blood.”
The word changed the room.
Dominic’s father had died years earlier.
His mother had died when he was a teenager.
Gabriel was gone.
That left very few people.
“Uncle Enzo?” Dominic asked.
Marco shut his eyes.
Emma saw the answer before he spoke.
“No.”
Dominic exhaled.
Enzo Salvatore had practically raised him after his father’s death.
He had taught Dominic to drive.
To shoot.
To negotiate.
He was the one person Dominic trusted without question.
Marco whispered another name.
“Matteo.”
Dominic went pale.
Matteo Salvatore was Dominic’s cousin and chief financial officer.
He had access to every legitimate company.
Every account.
Every shipment.
For ten years, Matteo had sat at Dominic’s right hand.
Emma watched betrayal settle into Dominic’s face like ice.
“What did Gabriel find?” he asked.
Marco struggled to speak.
“Matteo… Raines… weapons through hospitals. Charity trucks. Your father found out.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“My father died of a heart attack.”
Marco shook his head.
“Poison.”
Emma covered her mouth.
Dominic did not move.
“Gabriel discovered it later,” Marco continued. “He copied records. Matteo learned Emma was pregnant.”
Emma’s heart pounded.
“He knew?”
“Gabriel told me. Only me.”
“Then why did he disappear?”
“He was protecting you.”
Marco’s eyes filled.
“He planned to give evidence to federal prosecutors. Matteo intercepted him.”
Dominic leaned closer.
“Did Matteo kill him?”
Marco began crying again.
“I don’t know.”
That answer was worse.
Dominic pressed him.
“Where is my brother?”
Marco looked at Emma.
“Gabriel escaped the first attack. He was hurt. He called me from a pay phone. Said he had hidden the original ledger where only his child could find it.”
Emma frowned.
“His child wasn’t born.”
Marco smiled weakly.
“He said you would understand one day.”
Emma thought of the blue box.
The letters.
The photograph.
The watch.
Then her mind landed on Lily’s name.
Lily Gabriel Carter.
She had given her Gabriel’s name as a middle name.
But Gabriel had once joked that if they had a daughter, he wanted to call her Lily because his mother had planted white lilies along the south wall of the Salvatore estate.
Dominic saw her expression.
“What?”
“Your mother’s garden.”
He stared.
“The south wall.”
They returned to Chicago immediately.
At the estate, Lily ran toward the old garden before anyone could stop her.
“Mommy, look!”
White lilies still grew beneath the stone wall.
Emma’s eyes filled.
Dominic crouched beside them.
“My mother planted these.”
Lily touched one carefully.
“Daddy liked them?”
“Yes.”
Dominic’s voice broke slightly.
“He loved them.”
Emma searched along the wall.
One stone near the ground had a tiny carved G.
Dominic removed it.
Behind the stone was a narrow cavity.
Inside lay an old cassette tape sealed in plastic and a small brass key.
They listened to the recording in Dominic’s study.
Gabriel’s voice filled the room.
Emma sat down as if her legs had disappeared.
“Emma, if you’re hearing this, then I failed to come back.”
She began crying silently.
“I need you to know I tried. I tried to build a life far away from this family. But some things follow you.”
The recording crackled.
“Dominic, if you are the one listening, I’m sorry. I should have trusted you sooner.”
Dominic looked away.
“Matteo is working with Victor Raines. They murdered Dad. They are using our businesses to move military weapons. I have enough to destroy them, but the original ledger is in a safe-deposit box under a name only Emma knows.”
Emma whispered, “What name?”
Gabriel answered from eight years ago.
“The name of the restaurant where we met.”
Emma’s breath caught.
“Bluebird.”
Dominic looked at her.
She nodded.
“I was a waitress at the Bluebird Café.”
Gabriel continued.
“If Emma is pregnant, protect the baby. Matteo knows there is a child. He believes the child is the key to the evidence. He may be right.”
The tape ended.
The room remained silent.
Dominic picked up the brass key.
“Safe-deposit box.”
Emma stared at him.
“If we take the ledger, Matteo will know.”
“He already knows we found you.”
“Then what do we do?”
Dominic looked toward Lily, asleep on the sofa with Bruno curled beside her.
“We make him believe we haven’t found anything.”
For the next two days, Dominic behaved publicly as if nothing had changed.
He attended a charity dinner.
He allowed photographs.
He met Matteo in the office.
He even smiled.
Emma watched the performance from a security feed and understood for the first time why men feared him.
Dominic could hide rage behind perfect calm.
But that night, when he returned to the mansion, he found Lily waiting on the stairs.
“You look sad.”
“I’m tired.”
“That’s what Mommy says when she’s sad.”
Emma nearly smiled.
Lily held out a small paper bracelet.
“I made this for you.”
Dominic accepted it.
Purple beads spelled UNCLE D.
He stared at it far too long.
Then he put it around his wrist beside a watch worth more than Emma’s yearly salary.
“Thank you.”
Lily hugged him.
Dominic closed his eyes.
Emma saw something inside him surrender.
Not to danger.
To love.
And for the first time, she wondered what would happen when the war ended.
Would they simply leave?
Would Dominic return to the cold empire he had ruled before them?
May you like
She should have hoped so.
Instead, the thought hurt.
