Chapter 3 - The Dead Man’s Bracelet
Dominic reached the family mausoleum forty minutes later.
Grace came with him despite every order to remain home.
Samuel stayed with Sofia under armed protection.
Police lights reflected off stone.
A detective met Dominic at the entrance.
“Elena’s alive.”
“Where?”
“Ambulance.”
“And the coffin?”
The detective looked toward Grace.
“Who is she?”
“She stays.”
That ended the discussion.
Inside, the air smelled of stone and disturbed earth.
Eva Valenti Moretti’s coffin stood open.
Grace expected something horrifying.
Instead she saw emptiness.
No body.
Only faded velvet lining.
Dominic stared.
“My mother was buried here.”
Nobody answered.
On the floor lay a second object.
A man’s wristwatch.
The glass cracked.
The leather strap rotten.
Dominic picked it up.
“Matteo’s.”
Grace looked at him.
“You recognize it?”
“I gave it to him when he turned eighteen.”
A detective stepped closer.
“Your brother’s grave is forty feet away.”
Dominic looked toward the wall.
“Open it.”
Two hours later, Matteo’s coffin was opened.
Also empty.
The official burial records were real.
The funerals had happened.
But neither body remained.
Grace found Elena in the ambulance.
She was weak but conscious.
“Samuel?”
“Safe.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Thank God.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No.”
Grace squeezed her hand.
“You told us Matteo’s name.”
Terror flashed across Elena’s face.
“I shouldn’t have.”
“Is he alive?”
Elena began crying.
“I don’t know anymore.”
That answer frightened Grace more than yes would have.
Dominic appeared.
Elena turned away.
“Please.”
He stopped.
“You knew my mother?”
Elena shook her head.
“Then how did you have her bracelet?”
Silence.
“Elena.”
Grace touched Dominic’s arm.
“Give her room.”
His jaw clenched.
Then he stepped back.
Elena whispered, “My father gave it to me.”
“Who was your father?”
“Dr. Elias Martin.”
Dominic went still.
Grace noticed.
“You know that name.”
Dominic nodded.
“He signed my mother’s death certificate.”
Elena covered her face.
“That wasn’t all he did.”
The story came out in fragments.
Twenty-six years earlier, Eva Valenti had discovered that several men inside her husband’s organization were using family businesses to hide money belonging to a trafficking network.
She threatened to expose them.
Days later, she died in what the family was told was a medication reaction.
Dr. Elias Martin certified the death.
Matteo, then twenty-one, believed his mother had been murdered.
He began investigating.
Fourteen years later, Matteo supposedly died in a car explosion.
Elena’s father disappeared soon afterward.
“But he didn’t die?” Grace asked.
Elena shook her head.
“He went into hiding.”
“And Matteo?”
“My father never told me.”
“Why did you have the bracelets?”
“Insurance.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“Against whom?”
Elena looked directly at him.
“Your family.”
Dominic took that like a blow.
“My father?”
“Not only him.”
Grace thought of the people inside the mansion.
Anthony.
Julian.
Victor.
Sofia.
Staff.
Business partners.
“Someone close to Dominic,” she said.
Elena nodded.
“My father said the person responsible was still near him.”
Dominic turned away.
Grace could see the calculation beginning.
Every memory being reexamined.
Every loyal face becoming suspect.
Elena continued.
“Three months ago, my father contacted me.”
“You said he disappeared years ago.”
“He did.”
“What did he want?”
“To meet Samuel.”
“Why?”
Elena began trembling.
“Because Samuel’s father is Matteo.”
Silence.
Dominic slowly faced her.
“My brother?”
Elena nodded.
Grace could barely process it.
“If Matteo died fourteen years ago—”
“He didn’t.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“You saw him?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“He contacted me. We met for months. He told me he’d been hiding because the people who killed Eva would kill him too.”
“And he let me believe he was dead?”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“He said he was protecting you.”
Dominic laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Fourteen years.”
“Dominic—”
“Fourteen years I buried my brother.”
Grace stepped between them before the anger could land on Elena.
“She didn’t do this to you.”
His eyes met hers.
That stopped him.
Again.
Just like Midtown.
Grace realized something strange.
Dominic listened to her when he listened to almost nobody.
They returned to the mansion before dawn.
Samuel was sleeping.
Dominic stood over the bassinet.
“My nephew.”
Grace leaned against the doorway.
“Apparently.”
“He has Matteo’s eyes.”
“You said last week he looked like a potato.”
“I was wrong.”
Grace smiled faintly.
Dominic did not.
“What kind of man abandons his child?”
“One who thinks staying will get the child killed.”
“I would find another way.”
“You don’t know what he survived.”
“He could have come to me.”
“Could he?”
Dominic looked at her.
She regretted the question immediately.
He walked away.
For the next two days, the house changed.
Security doubled.
Phones were collected from staff.
Victor Hale checked every room.
Dominic canceled meetings.
Anthony complained loudly.
Julian warned that paranoia could destroy the organization faster than an enemy.
Sofia cooked enough food for an army because anxiety made her feed people.
Grace cared for Samuel.
And she watched.
Anthony asked too many questions about Elena.
Victor never did.
Julian knew facts before Dominic told him.
Sofia avoided the west wing.
On the third morning, Grace entered Dominic’s study without knocking.
He looked up.
“I told everyone—”
“I know who leaked the photograph.”
He stood.
“Who?”
“I don’t know the name.”
“That’s not knowing.”
“I know how.”
Grace placed a sugar bowl on his desk.
Dominic stared at it.
“You brought me sugar?”
“There is a camera inside.”
His expression changed.
Victor entered moments later.
He dismantled the bowl.
A transmitter had been built beneath the ceramic base.
“Professional,” Victor said.
Dominic looked at Grace.
“How did you find it?”
“It moved.”
“What?”
“Kitchen objects have places. Whoever put this back left the handle facing the wrong direction.”
Victor gave Dominic a look.
Dominic almost smiled.
“I hired the correct cook.”
Grace ignored him.
“Who has kitchen access?”
“Everyone in the household.”
“Helpful.”
Victor checked the signal.
“This isn’t transmitting now.”
“Why?”
“Receiver must be nearby.”
Grace thought.
“Inside the property?”
“Likely.”
Dominic ordered a sweep.
They found two more devices.
One in the library.
One near the upstairs hallway.
All recently installed.
Then Grace remembered something.
“The grocery bag.”
Dominic frowned.
“What?”
“The day Samuel arrived, someone photographed us from the east garden.”
“Yes.”
“My grocery bag was visible.”
“So?”
“I brought that bag from Brooklyn.”
Understanding hit him.
“If the leak started before you entered the estate…”
“Then someone followed me.”
Victor said, “Or someone placed something in the bag.”
They found a tracker sewn beneath the paper base.
Grace felt sick.
“How long has that been there?”
Victor examined it.
“Maybe weeks.”
“Since before I came here?”
“Yes.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“This began with you.”
“No.”
Grace looked at the tracker.
“It began with Leo.”
The bracelet.
Midtown.
The drunk man.
The frightened boy.
“What if that attack wasn’t random?” she asked.
Dominic understood immediately.
“The drunk man was supposed to take Leo.”
“And I interfered.”
Victor was already on his phone.
The drunk man had been released on bail.
He disappeared the next morning.
Grace went upstairs.
Samuel slept.
She suddenly remembered the first moment at the clinic.
Elena waking.
Seeing Grace.
Saying:
Don’t take him to Dominic’s house.
Not because Dominic was dangerous.
Because someone inside his house was.
Grace lifted Samuel from the bassinet.
A folded piece of paper lay underneath him.
She froze.
She had changed the bedding herself thirty minutes earlier.
The note had not been there.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
Four words.
YOU BROUGHT HIM TO US.
Grace ran into the hallway.
“Dominic!”
No answer.
She hurried downstairs.
His study stood empty.
The front door was open.
Sofia appeared from the kitchen.
“Where is he?”
“He left five minutes ago.”
“With who?”
“Mr. Cross.”
Julian.
Grace grabbed her phone.
Before she could call, a message arrived from Dominic’s number.
A photograph.
Dominic sat in the back of a car.
His head tilted unnaturally against the seat.
His eyes closed.
Beneath it were six words.
BRING THE BABY IF YOU WANT HIM.
Grace stared at the screen.
Then a second message appeared.
It contained an address.
May you like
And the name attached to the property made Sofia drop the glass in her hand.
“Matteo Valenti.”
