Chapter 2 - The Photograph They Tried to Burn
Dominic moved before the key completed its turn.
He pushed Elena and Sofia toward the bedroom.
“Service stairs.”
“What about you?”
“Go.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
Elena stared at him.
For six years, she had obeyed his orders because she was paid to.
This time she obeyed because Sofia was trembling.
She pulled the girl toward the bedroom.
Dominic waited beside the front door.
The lock clicked.
The door opened three inches.
Dominic slammed it shut.
A grunt sounded outside.
“Dominic,” Vittorio called. “This is unnecessary.”
Dominic locked the deadbolt.
“You have a key to my assistant’s apartment?”
“I have keys to many places.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the only one you need.”
Dominic heard movement behind him.
Elena had opened a narrow utility door inside the bedroom.
Sofia slipped through.
Elena looked back.
Their eyes met.
For one second, Dominic saw everything she had never said.
Fear.
Guilt.
And something dangerously close to love.
Then she disappeared.
Dominic opened the apartment door.
Marco stood nearest.
Vittorio waited behind him in a charcoal overcoat.
At sixty-eight, Vittorio Vale remained elegant, silver-haired, and perfectly composed. He looked more like the chairman of a bank than a man who had ordered murders before breakfast.
Two guards stood behind him.
“Where is she?” Vittorio asked.
“Not here.”
Vittorio looked past Dominic at the open archive box.
His composure cracked.
Only slightly.
But Dominic saw it.
“You should come with me.”
“Why?”
“Because your wedding is seventy-two hours away, and you’re wasting time chasing an unstable employee.”
“Unstable?”
“She has been stealing confidential records.”
Dominic picked up the photograph.
Vittorio’s eyes fixed on it.
There.
Fear.
Real fear.
Dominic had seen men facing execution who looked less frightened.
“Know her?” Dominic asked.
Vittorio recovered quickly.
“No.”
“My father did.”
“Your father knew many women.”
“Her name was Valentina Rossi.”
Marco glanced at Vittorio.
A mistake.
Small.
Fatal to the lie.
Dominic noticed.
“So Marco knows too.”
Marco lowered his eyes.
“Boss—”
“Don’t.”
Vittorio sighed.
“Dominic, some family history is ugly. Your father made mistakes.”
“What kind?”
“The kind dead men cannot correct.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“And you can?”
“I spent twenty-seven years correcting Salvatore’s mistakes.”
That sentence stayed with Dominic.
Not protecting his brother’s legacy.
Correcting his mistakes.
Dominic slipped the photograph inside his jacket.
Vittorio’s expression hardened.
“Give me that.”
“No.”
“It belongs to the family.”
“So do I.”
“Exactly.”
Dominic smiled coldly.
“Then perhaps the family should stop trying to kill me.”
Marco looked up sharply.
Vittorio did not.
That told Dominic enough.
He walked past them.
Vittorio caught his arm.
“Where is the child?”
Dominic stopped.
There it was.
Not Elena.
The child.
He turned slowly.
“What child?”
Vittorio released him.
For the first time, the older man realized he had said too much.
Dominic leaned close.
“You came here for a ten-year-old girl.”
Vittorio’s eyes became flat.
“You have no idea what you’ve found.”
“Then explain it.”
“I am trying to save you.”
“Funny. Elena said the same thing.”
Vittorio’s jaw tightened at her name.
“That woman has manipulated you.”
“For six years?”
“Yes.”
“Toward what?”
“Exactly what is happening now. Doubt.”
Dominic stared at him.
Vittorio lowered his voice.
“Your father nearly destroyed this family because he confused affection with loyalty. Do not repeat his weakness.”
Dominic thought of Elena.
Then he thought of Sofia clinging to her.
“Where is Alessandra?”
“At the estate.”
“Why?”
“Wedding preparations.”
Dominic knew Alessandra hated the estate.
She preferred hotels, private clubs, anywhere without portraits of dead Vales watching from the walls.
She would not voluntarily spend the afternoon there.
He pulled out his phone.
Vittorio said, “Don’t.”
Dominic called Alessandra.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then a text appeared.
From Elena.
SAFE FOR NOW. DON’T TRUST MARCO. CHECK PHOTO 1998.
Dominic deleted the message immediately.
“What was that?” Vittorio asked.
“Wedding caterer.”
He walked toward the elevator.
Marco followed.
Dominic stopped him.
“Not you.”
Marco looked wounded.
“Boss—”
“You brought my uncle to Elena’s apartment without telling me.”
“He ordered me.”
“I employ you.”
Marco looked at Vittorio.
Another mistake.
Dominic stepped into the elevator alone.
The moment the doors closed, he removed the photograph.
The photo looked older.
But perhaps Elena meant another photograph.
He remembered the box.
He had seen a picture on the table showing a young girl with curled hair.
A date was written on the white border.
He had left it behind.
Dominic pressed the elevator stop button.
Then seventh floor.
The doors reopened.
Vittorio and the others were gone.
Dominic returned to Elena’s apartment.
The archive box remained.
He found the photograph.
A little girl stood beside a birthday cake.
Behind her was a younger Elena.
Perhaps five years old.
Dominic turned it over.
VALENTINA’S GIRLS. MAY 1998.
Girls.
Plural.
Only two people were visible.
He examined the photograph.
Then noticed a mirror in the background.
A third child appeared in the reflection.
A boy.
Dominic.
He almost dropped the photograph.
He remembered that room.
A house near Lake Geneva.
His father had taken him there once.
Salvatore had said they were visiting an old friend.
Dominic remembered playing with a little girl while the adults argued downstairs.
Elena.
He had met Elena as a child.
Why had he forgotten?
His phone rang.
Elena.
He answered.
“Where are you?”
“Moving.”
“Sofia?”
“With me.”
“What does ‘Valentina’s girls’ mean?”
Silence.
“Elena.”
“My mother had two daughters.”
“You have a sister?”
“Had.”
“What happened to her?”
“Dominic, not on the phone.”
“Was Sofia hers?”
Elena began crying.
Quietly.
“Yes.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“What was her name?”
“Lucia.”
A memory stirred.
A girl laughing near a lake.
Older than Elena.
Dark hair.
A red ribbon.
“What happened to Lucia?”
“She died eight years ago.”
“How?”
“They said overdose.”
“They?”
“Your family.”
Dominic’s grip tightened.
“And you don’t believe them.”
“I watched her die.”
Dominic said nothing.
Elena’s breathing shook.
“She came to me with Sofia. She said Vittorio had found her. She had records proving Salvatore had created a protected trust before he died. Not for money. For evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“Everything.”
“Everything what?”
“Payoffs. Judges. Police. Bellini accounts. Vale accounts. Murders.”
Dominic stared at the flash drive in his palm.
“Why Sofia?”
“Because Lucia was the legal heir to the trust.”
“And after Lucia died?”
“Sofia.”
Dominic understood.
The girl was not dangerous because of what she knew.
She was dangerous because of what she owned.
“And the wedding?”
“Eliminates competing claims if you sign the consolidation documents.”
“How?”
“Because the Bellinis have a second agreement.”
Dominic’s voice hardened.
“What second agreement?”
“A marriage survivorship clause.”
He went still.
“If I die after marrying Alessandra…”
“Your controlling interests transfer through her to the Bellini-Vale holding company.”
“Controlled by Vittorio.”
“Yes.”
Dominic walked to the window.
The SUVs were gone.
“Elena.”
“Yes?”
“Why did you stay with me?”
Another silence.
“You hired me.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“You were Salvatore’s son.”
“So?”
“My mother believed he was trying to change.”
Dominic laughed bitterly.
“My father was a murderer.”
“Yes.”
“And you protected his son anyway.”
“No.”
Her answer surprised him.
“I protected the man you became despite him.”
Dominic did not know what to say.
Nobody spoke to him that way.
Nobody dared.
“Elena, where are you?”
“I can’t tell you yet.”
“Why?”
“Because Marco can access your phone location.”
Dominic immediately powered it off.
Smart.
Too late, perhaps.
He removed the SIM card.
Then noticed something inside the archive box.
An envelope.
DOMINIC.
His father’s handwriting.
Dominic recognized it from birthday cards kept by his mother.
His fingers became unsteady.
He opened it.
Inside was a single sheet.
Son,
If you are reading this, Vittorio succeeded.
Dominic stopped breathing.
He continued.
Do not believe the accident.
Do not believe what they tell you about Valentina.
Find Daniel.
He knows what happened at the bridge.
Dominic read the final line twice.
Protect the girls.
He lowered the letter.
Find Daniel.
Which Daniel?
A floorboard creaked behind him.
Dominic turned.
Nobody.
Then the apartment door opened.
A man stepped inside.
Dominic raised his gun.
The stranger lifted both hands.
He was around sixty, scarred across one cheek, wearing a janitor’s uniform.
“Dominic Vale?”
“Who are you?”
The man stared at the letter.
Then at Dominic.
“My name is Daniel Serrano.”
Dominic’s finger tightened on the trigger.
May you like
Daniel slowly closed the door behind him.
“I was driving your father the night he died.”
