Chapter 4 - The Voice From the Grave
Dominic could not speak.
Eighteen months of grief collapsed into one syllable.
“Luca?”
Elena grabbed the edge of the piano.
Victor closed his eyes.
Marcus swore under his breath.
The voice returned.
“Don’t trust Victor.”
The call ended.
Dominic immediately called back.
Disconnected.
He turned toward Victor.
“You knew.”
Victor looked older now.
Not defeated.
Tired.
“I suspected.”
“You buried somebody under my brother’s name.”
“I protected Luca.”
Dominic almost struck him.
Marcus stepped between them.
Victor finally explained.
After the staged crash, Luca had survived.
Victor found him before the people pursuing him did.
He arranged the false identification and funeral.
Luca agreed to disappear.
“Why wouldn’t he contact me?”
“Because someone close to you was feeding information to the people moving money through your company.”
“Who?”
“I never knew.”
Dominic looked at Marcus.
Then Rebecca.
Then Elena.
Trust had become a luxury.
Victor claimed the illegal financial network had existed before Dominic became CEO.
Dominic’s father discovered it too late.
Someone had infiltrated Caruso International and used its global subsidiaries.
Victor tried to dismantle the network quietly.
Luca found pieces and assumed Victor controlled it.
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“Because I didn’t know who was listening.”
Dominic held up the ledger.
“You let him believe you killed Dad.”
Victor looked at the piano.
“I made mistakes.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No. It’s the only confession you’re getting tonight.”
Dominic wanted to hate him.
But one fact mattered more.
Luca was alive.
Elena stepped forward.
“Where is he?”
Victor shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“He disappeared from me six months ago.”
Elena’s face broke.
“He knew about Matteo.”
“Yes.”
“And he never came.”
“He thought coming back would put a target on the child.”
Tears filled Elena’s eyes.
“He already had a target.”
Victor looked at her.
“What?”
Elena pulled up Matteo’s sleeve.
A faint bruise marked his arm.
Dominic frowned.
“When?”
“Yesterday. Someone grabbed him outside my mother’s building.”
Dominic’s expression changed instantly.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“You were going to fire me.”
“Who grabbed him?”
“I don’t know. A man came from behind me. Rosa screamed. He ran.”
Dominic turned toward Marcus.
“Lock down Elena’s apartment. Her mother gets protection.”
Marcus nodded.
Victor watched them.
“You’re still thinking like this is a family problem.”
“What is it?”
“A succession problem.”
Victor explained that Dominic’s father had created a private controlling trust years earlier.
If Dominic died without descendants, control of certain family holdings transferred through Luca’s bloodline.
Dominic looked at Matteo.
Elena understood.
“No.”
Victor nodded.
“If Luca is legally alive, he has a claim. If Luca is dead but Matteo’s paternity is established, the child has a claim.”
Dominic’s blood went cold.
“So whoever wants control—”
“Needs both brothers gone.”
Elena held Matteo tighter.
“And my son.”
Dominic crossed the room.
He crouched before her.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“Nobody touches him.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Yes, I can.”
“You couldn’t protect Luca.”
The words cut.
Elena regretted them instantly.
Dominic stood.
“No. I couldn’t.”
His honesty silenced her.
“But I can do better now.”
Rebecca traced the Swiss transaction.
The money had moved to a private bank account connected to a hotel outside Geneva.
Dominic prepared to leave immediately.
Elena insisted on going.
“No.”
“He’s Matteo’s father.”
“It could be a trap.”
“Then it’s my trap too.”
Dominic looked at the baby sleeping against her.
He finally agreed—but Matteo would remain in New York under Rebecca’s protection.
Elena kissed her son before leaving.
“Bring his father home,” she whispered.
The flight to Switzerland felt endless.
Dominic barely slept.
Elena sat across from him.
At one point she asked, “What was Luca like as a boy?”
Dominic looked surprised.
She had known Luca as a man.
Not the child.
Dominic told her about the staircase.
About stolen cannoli.
About Luca breaking Dominic’s nose with a baseball at age nine and crying harder than Dominic did.
Elena smiled through tears.
“He never told me that.”
“He probably preferred looking brave.”
“He was terrible at it.”
For the first time, they laughed.
It lasted seconds.
But it changed something.
By morning they reached Geneva.
The hotel account had been used to pay for a room under an alias.
Dominic entered first.
Empty.
A coffee cup remained warm.
Someone had been there minutes earlier.
Elena found a photograph on the bedside table.
Matteo.
Taken through the window of her Queens apartment.
On the back:
HE HAS LUCA’S EYES.
Dominic’s face hardened.
Then the bathroom door opened.
Elena gasped.
A thin man with a beard stepped out.
Gray eyes.
Luca.
Alive.
Elena stopped breathing.
Luca looked at her.
Then at Dominic.
“Where’s Matteo?”
Elena crossed the room and slapped him.
The sound cracked through the silence.
Then she threw her arms around him.
Luca held her.
Both began crying.
Dominic stood frozen.
His brother finally looked over Elena’s shoulder.
“Dom.”
Dominic crossed the room.
For a second he looked ready to hit him.
Instead he pulled Luca into an embrace.
Eighteen months vanished.
Then Luca whispered:
“We have to leave.”
Dominic pulled back.
“Why?”
“They followed you.”
A bullet shattered the window.
Everyone dropped.
Dominic dragged Elena behind the bed.
Luca crawled toward a side door.
Security alarms erupted.
Marcus’s men rushed from the corridor.
Within minutes the threat was gone, but Luca refused to remain.
They moved to a secure property outside the city.
There, Luca finally told them everything.
He had discovered that someone within Dominic’s closest circle had been approving transfers.
Victor was involved—but not as the mastermind.
The real architect had access to Dominic’s contracts, passwords, legal structures, and personal schedule.
Dominic asked the obvious question.
“Who?”
Luca looked at him.
“I never got proof.”
“You disappeared for eighteen months.”
“I got proof yesterday.”
Dominic waited.
Luca slid a photograph across the table.
Dominic stared.
His face emptied.
“No.”
Elena looked.
The photograph showed the person meeting the financial network’s accountant.
Rebecca Sloan.
Dominic’s attorney.
The woman currently protecting Matteo.
Dominic reached for his phone.
At that exact moment, it rang.
Rebecca.
He answered.
Her voice was shaking.
“Dominic, we have a problem.”
“What happened?”
Silence.
May you like
Then Rebecca whispered:
“Matteo is gone...”
