Chapter 3 - Beneath the DeLuca Estate
Dominic could not move.
The woman he had buried eighteen years earlier stood ten feet away.
His mother.
Sofia DeLuca.
Alive.
He had imagined seeing her again thousands of times as a child.
In dreams.
In crowds.
At airports.
In the face of strangers.
But he had never imagined silence.
He thought he would shout.
Cry.
Demand answers.
Instead he stared.
Sofia took one step forward.
Dominic stepped back.
Her face tightened.
“I understand.”
“No,” he said. “You don't.”
Grace watched from beside him.
Maisie remained in Dominic's arms.
He lowered her carefully.
She immediately reached for Grace.
Dominic pointed toward Sofia.
“You let me think you were dead.”
“I had no choice.”
“Eighteen years?”
“Dominic—”
“You had eighteen years.”
Sofia's eyes filled.
“I had men watching you every day.”
“That isn't being a mother.”
“I know.”
“Then don't call yourself one.”
The words hurt him as soon as he said them.
Sofia absorbed them quietly.
Elena locked the hidden passage.
“They'll search the house.”
Dominic looked at her.
“I don't care.”
“You will when they find this room.”
Grace crouched beside Maisie.
“We need to move.”
Dominic laughed once.
“Move where? Apparently everyone I ever buried is alive.”
Sofia flinched.
Grace stood.
“Dominic.”
“No. I want answers.”
“You'll get them.”
“Now.”
Sofia nodded.
“Then listen.”
She walked to the wall of photographs.
“Your father wasn't always the man you know.”
Dominic crossed his arms.
“That's supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.”
Sofia touched an old photo of Carlo DeLuca.
“He began laundering money for an international smuggling organization when you were a baby. At first, it was financial crime. Shell companies. Construction contracts. Port access.”
Dominic knew about some of that.
The DeLuca family fortune had never been entirely clean.
But he had believed his father left the worst of it behind decades ago.
Sofia continued.
“Then people began disappearing.”
Dominic looked at the photographs.
“Witnesses?”
“Investigators. Accountants. Anyone who discovered too much.”
“And you found out.”
“I helped him.”
Dominic's anger stalled.
Sofia met his eyes.
“I wasn't innocent.”
The confession was simple.
No excuses.
“I managed accounts. I moved money. I told myself it was business. Then a woman came to me.”
“Who?”
“Elena's sister.”
Dominic looked at Elena.
Her expression hardened.
“She had evidence Carlo had ordered two murders,” Sofia said. “She wanted protection.”
“What happened?”
“I promised her I would help.”
Elena answered.
“Carlo killed her the next morning.”
Silence.
Sofia continued.
“That was when I decided to cooperate with federal investigators.”
Dominic stared at her.
“You were an informant.”
“Yes.”
“The accident?”
“Matteo cut the brake line.”
Dominic's jaw tightened.
“Matteo.”
“He was Carlo's enforcer.”
“So how did you survive?”
“Elena pulled me from the wreck.”
Dominic looked at the housekeeper.
Elena nodded.
“I followed because your mother knew something was wrong.”
Sofia said, “The investigators helping me were compromised. One was working for Carlo. If I resurfaced, you would have become leverage.”
“So you disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“And watched me grow up with him.”
Sofia's voice cracked.
“I believed staying away kept you alive.”
Dominic looked at Grace.
“And four years ago?”
Grace walked toward a filing cabinet.
“I worked for the DeLuca Foundation.”
Dominic remembered.
That was how they had met.
Grace had been a financial compliance analyst.
Sharp.
Funny.
Completely unimpressed by his surname.
She pulled out a folder.
“I found transactions connected to shell companies Sofia had documented years earlier.”
“You never told me.”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“The night we argued.”
Dominic remembered.
Grace had asked him whether he trusted his father.
Dominic had become defensive.
She had left.
The next morning, she was gone.
Grace continued.
“I went to Carlo first because I didn't understand his role.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“You handed him the evidence.”
“I asked him to explain it.”
“And he ordered you killed.”
“Yes.”
“Matteo?”
“Yes.”
“How did you survive?”
Sofia answered.
“I intercepted the order.”
Dominic looked at her.
“We got Grace out before Matteo reached her apartment.”
“The burned car?”
“A woman from Carlo's organization had died the previous evening,” Elena said. “They used her remains.”
Dominic felt sick.
“And everyone simply accepted it?”
“Your father controlled the investigation.”
Maisie tugged on Grace's sleeve.
“Mommy, home?”
Grace knelt.
“Soon.”
Maisie looked at Dominic.
“Domic home?”
No one spoke.
Dominic stared at the little girl.
His daughter.
His child had been hidden because of his father.
“What happened after Grace disappeared?”
Sofia answered.
“We moved her repeatedly.”
“Why return here?”
Grace looked embarrassed.
“Because sometimes the safest place is the one nobody expects.”
“You've been living on the estate?”
“Not exactly.”
Elena explained.
“There is an old groundskeeper's cottage beyond the south woods. Officially abandoned.”
Dominic remembered it.
He hadn't visited since childhood.
“You raised my daughter half a mile from me.”
Grace's eyes filled.
“I wasn't allowed near the main house.”
“You could have told me.”
“And risked Carlo discovering her?”
“He knew anyway.”
That silenced everyone.
Dominic looked toward the wall.
“If Matteo knows, Carlo knows.”
Sofia shook her head.
“Not necessarily.”
“Why?”
“Matteo and Carlo haven't trusted each other for years.”
Dominic remembered Matteo's words.
You think Carlo controlled me?
“Matteo's running something of his own.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Sofia opened another cabinet.
Inside were photographs taken over the last twelve months.
Matteo meeting men at docks.
Matteo with police officers.
Matteo entering warehouses.
“He's been rebuilding the network,” Sofia said.
“Why tie me in the shed?”
“To eliminate the heir before moving against Carlo.”
Dominic laughed bitterly.
“Family unity.”
Grace looked at the rabbit Maisie held.
“There's more.”
Dominic noticed her tone.
“What?”
Grace took Bunny from Maisie's hands.
Maisie protested.
“Just for a moment, sweetheart.”
Grace turned the stuffed rabbit over.
Using a small knife, she cut one old seam.
Dominic frowned.
“What are you doing?”
Grace reached inside.
She removed a tiny plastic capsule.
Inside was a memory card.
Dominic stared.
“You hid evidence in my daughter's toy?”
Sofia shook her head.
“I did.”
“When?”
“The day she was born.”
Dominic turned toward his mother.
“Why?”
“Because it contains the only complete copy of Carlo's original accounts.”
Dominic stared at the card.
Names.
Transactions.
Murder payments.
Everything.
A stuffed rabbit had carried enough evidence to destroy the DeLuca organization for three years.
“And you let a toddler carry it?”
Sofia looked ashamed.
“No one searched the child.”
Grace took the card.
“Until now.”
Dominic understood.
“The shed.”
Sofia nodded.
“Matteo didn't just want you dead.”
“He wanted Bunny.”
A heavy impact echoed from above.
Everyone froze.
Elena switched off one light.
Footsteps.
Several people.
Moving through the pantry.
Dominic looked toward the staircase.
“They found the entrance.”
Elena whispered, “There's another exit.”
She opened a panel.
A narrow tunnel extended into darkness.
“Where?”
“The old chapel.”
Sofia handed Grace the memory card.
“Go.”
Dominic shook his head.
“I'm staying.”
Grace grabbed him.
“Maisie needs you alive.”
The words stopped him.
Needs you.
He looked down.
Maisie had reached for his hand.
Her fingers barely wrapped around two of his.
Dominic swallowed.
Then followed them into the tunnel.
Behind them, metal screamed.
Someone was forcing the steel door.
They moved quickly.
Elena went first.
Grace carried Maisie.
Sofia followed.
Dominic remained last.
Halfway through the tunnel, his phone vibrated.
Impossible.
He pulled it out.
No signal.
Yet a message had appeared.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
He opened it.
A photograph loaded.
The image showed Grace's cottage.
Taken minutes earlier.
Another message appeared.
YOU HAVE SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO ME.
Then a third.
Dominic stopped walking.
It was a live photograph.
Taken from somewhere ahead of them.
It showed Maisie in Grace's arms inside the tunnel.
May you like
Dominic slowly raised his eyes.
Someone was already waiting at the other end.
