Chapter 5 - The Other MorettiDominic did not sleep.
Sarah knew because neither did she.
At three seventeen in the morning, she found him standing barefoot in the dark kitchen, staring through the windows toward Lake Michigan.
A glass of untouched whiskey sat on the counter.
That frightened her more than if he had finished the bottle.
Sarah entered quietly.
“You’re going to wear a hole through the floor.”
Dominic did not turn.
“He looked exactly like my father.”
“He looked like you.”
“No.”
Dominic’s voice was low.
“He looked like the version of me that would have existed if I had been raised without anyone.”
Sarah stopped beside him.
“That’s a lot to know from ten seconds across a lawn.”
“I know men.”
“You know enemies.”
Dominic finally looked at her.
“You think there’s a difference?”
“Yes.”
Sarah took the whiskey and poured it down the sink.
Dominic watched her.
“That was thirty-year Macallan.”
“I know.”
“You’re cruel.”
“Go to bed.”
“I can’t.”
“Then talk.”
He leaned against the counter.
“I was eight when I first realized my father hated my birthday.”
Sarah waited.
“He would disappear every September twenty-third. My mother would throw parties. Politicians came. Men gave me watches and guns I wasn’t old enough to use. My father would smile for photographs.”
Dominic rubbed his jaw.
“At midnight he drank alone.”
“For Marco.”
“I understand that now.”
“Maybe he regretted what happened.”
“Regret is useless without action.”
Sarah studied him.
That sentence was not about his father.
It was about Dominic.
“You regret not speaking to Marco in Marseille.”
His eyes sharpened.
“You think I caused this?”
“I think you’ve been wondering whether you did.”
Silence.
Sarah placed her hand over his.
“You were twenty-eight. You saw a brother you had never known. Then someone tried to kill him. You didn’t create whatever happened before that.”
Dominic looked at their joined hands.
“If he’s been alive this entire time, why wait?”
“Maybe he wasn’t ready.”
“Or maybe he wasn’t free.”
Dominic’s phone vibrated.
One message.
No number.
No sender ID.
MEET ME WHERE OUR FATHER LEARNED TO LIE.
Dominic stared.
Sarah read over his shoulder.
“Where is that?”
“I know.”
“Where?”
“Saint Anthony’s.”
Sarah frowned.
“The church?”
“My father was married there.”
“To your mother?”
“No.”
Dominic’s expression turned grim.
“To Elena Vitale.”
Sarah felt another piece of history break open.
“Your father married Marco’s mother?”
“For six weeks.”
“Before marrying your mother?”
“Two years before.”
“So Marco wasn’t illegitimate.”
“No.”
The implications were immediate.
If Dominic’s father had legally married Elena before later marrying Dominic’s mother, and if Marco was born first—
“The inheritance.”
Dominic nodded.
“In old family tradition, Marco could claim seniority.”
“But you’re twins.”
“Fourteen minutes apart.”
Sarah stared.
“Which one is older?”
Dominic’s mouth tightened.
“Marco.”
That explained the message.
THE WRONG BOY INHERITED THE NAME.
“Are you going?”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
“No.”
Sarah smiled without humor.
“We’ve already had this argument.”
“He asked for me.”
“And he photographed our child.”
“He may want to kill me.”
“Excellent reason for your wife to stay informed.”
“Sarah.”
“Dominic.”
They stared at each other.
Finally he cursed softly in Italian.
“Body armor.”
“Fine.”
“You stay beside Mateo.”
“Fine.”
“If shooting starts—”
“I know how guns work now.”
Dominic almost smiled.
“I remember your first answer.”
“I’ve improved since the video game days.”
“You terrify half my captains.”
“Only half?”
“Give it time.”
At six forty-five, three armored vehicles left the estate.
Saint Anthony’s Catholic Church stood in an old neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side, surrounded by buildings whose brick facades carried a century of weather.
The church had closed years earlier.
Moretti Holdings owned the property through three shell companies.
Of course it did.
Dominic entered first.
Sarah followed with Mateo.
Dust floated through shafts of morning sunlight.
Rows of wooden pews stretched toward the altar.
And there, seated in the front row, was the dead man.
Marco Moretti rose.
Sarah’s breath caught.
Up close, the resemblance was disturbing.
He was Dominic and not Dominic.
Same jaw.
Same height.
Same eyes.
But Marco’s hair was longer, touched with gray at the temples. A scar crossed his left cheek from ear to mouth. His clothes were simple: dark trousers, black shirt, no tie.
No visible weapon.
Dominic stopped twenty feet away.
For several seconds, neither brother spoke.
Marco smiled first.
“So.”
His voice was slightly lighter than Dominic’s.
“The prince arrives.”
Dominic’s expression remained blank.
“You sent a vehicle to my son’s school.”
“I sent an empty vehicle.”
“You photographed him.”
“I needed your attention.”
“You have it.”
Marco looked toward Sarah.
“And this must be the nurse.”
Sarah did not appreciate the tone.
“Sarah Moretti.”
Marco smiled.
“I know.”
Dominic stepped slightly in front of her.
Marco noticed.
“You always wanted to protect broken things.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know everything about you.”
“No. You watched.”
Marco laughed softly.
“That is rich coming from the man who watched me for two days in Marseille and never crossed the street.”
Dominic froze.
Sarah felt it.
Marco knew.
“You saw me,” Dominic said.
“Of course.”
“Then why didn’t you approach?”
“I wanted to see whether you would.”
Marco walked toward the altar.
“When you didn’t, I understood what our father had taught you.”
“And what was that?”
“That the Moretti crown mattered more than blood.”
Dominic’s voice lowered.
“I didn’t know whether you were my brother or bait.”
“And when the bullet hit me?”
“I spent four years looking for who fired it.”
Marco turned.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I killed him.”
Marco’s amusement vanished.
Dominic continued.
“Dmitri Volkov. Serbian contractor. Hired through a Corsican intermediary. I found him in Prague.”
Marco stared.
“You killed Volkov?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You were my brother.”
For the first time, Marco seemed genuinely unsettled.
He looked away.
Sarah watched carefully.
This was not simply hatred.
There was grief here.
Decades of it.
“Why are you here?” Dominic asked.
Marco reached inside his coat.
Mateo immediately raised his weapon.
Marco stopped.
“Relax.”
He slowly withdrew a flash drive.
“I’m here because somebody is going to kill Leonardo.”
Sarah’s entire body tightened.
Dominic’s gun appeared in his hand.
Marco looked bored.
“If I wanted the boy dead, he would already be dead.”
“You mention my son again like that and—”
“And what? You’ll shoot your twin in a church?”
Dominic took one step forward.
“Yes.”
Marco smiled.
“There he is.”
Sarah intervened.
“Who wants Leo dead?”
Marco looked at her.
“The same people who separated us.”
“Who?”
“A group older than the Moretti organization.”
Dominic scoffed.
“I don’t have time for mythology.”
“It isn’t mythology.”
Marco placed the flash drive on a pew.
“Your father wasn’t capo when we were born.”
Dominic frowned.
“Our grandfather was.”
“Publicly.”
Marco sat.
“There was another structure. Judges. bankers. industrialists. politicians. They used families like ours as enforcement.”
“The Commission?”
“No.”
Marco laughed.
“The Commission were street merchants compared with these people.”
Sarah glanced at Dominic.
“Name.”
Marco’s expression became serious.
“La Tavola Bianca.”
The White Table.
Dominic’s face showed no recognition.
Marco continued.
“They controlled shipping on the Great Lakes, construction contracts, pharmaceutical distribution, unions, hospitals. Your legitimate businesses grew because they permitted it.”
“Our businesses grew because I built them.”
“You improved them. You never asked why nobody stronger tried to take them.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
Marco looked toward Sarah.
“Five years ago, a neonatal machine was sabotaged.”
Sarah froze.
“How do you know that?”
“Because the order did not come from Luca.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“Luca confessed.”
“Luca financed the assault on your estate. He did not design the hospital operation.”
Marco pushed the flash drive toward them.
“The technician was paid through an account belonging to Centurion Medical Logistics.”
Sarah knew the company.
They supplied equipment to dozens of hospitals.
Including several clinics run by the Moretti charitable foundation.
“Who owns it?”
“Nobody on paper. Six holding companies eventually lead to a private trust in Luxembourg.”
“And behind the trust?” Sarah asked.
Marco looked at Dominic.
“Our mother.”
Silence.
Dominic’s face became unreadable.
“My mother is dead.”
“No.”
Marco’s answer came instantly.
“She isn’t.”
Dominic laughed once.
A dangerous sound.
“I buried her.”
“You buried a woman.”
“I saw her body.”
“You saw a closed casket after a car explosion.”
Dominic stopped.
Sarah remembered the story.
Dominic’s mother, Isabella Moretti, had supposedly died when Dominic was nineteen.
Her vehicle had exploded outside Milwaukee.
The body had been identified by dental records.
“Records can be changed,” Sarah said quietly.
Marco nodded.
Dominic stared at him.
“You’re telling me our mother tried to kill Leo.”
“Our mother?”
Marco’s smile held no warmth.
“Isabella was never my mother.”
“But she arranged for you to disappear.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because our father made a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“He decided he wanted both sons.”
Marco looked toward the faded stained glass above the altar.
“Elena was his first wife. Isabella came from a more powerful family. Their marriage was political. When Isabella discovered our father already had a legitimate son, she understood what that meant.”
“The succession,” Sarah whispered.
Marco nodded.
“She could tolerate one child if that child became hers. Dominic.”
Dominic went pale.
Sarah understood.
“Your parents switched the babies.”
Marco looked at her.
“Not exactly.”
“What happened?”
“Our father was told Elena and one child died during labor.”
Dominic’s fists clenched.
“And you?”
“I was taken.”
“By Isabella?”
“Yes.”
“Then why keep me?”
Marco looked directly at his brother.
“You weren’t supposed to survive either.”
Dominic became perfectly still.
Marco continued.
“The physician refused to kill an infant. He forged the record and gave you to Isabella as the surviving child.”
Sarah covered her mouth.
Dominic stared ahead as if the floor had disappeared.
“All my life,” he whispered, “I thought Isabella was my mother.”
“She raised you.”
“She was my mother.”
“She tried to have you killed twice before you turned fifteen.”
Dominic looked at Marco.
Sarah felt something frightening change in him.
“Prove it.”
Marco pointed to the flash drive.
“Everything I have.”
Dominic picked it up.
“If you’re lying—”
“I’m not.”
“Why tell me now?”
Marco’s eyes shifted toward Sarah.
“Because the White Table has chosen a successor.”
“To what?”
“To the Moretti bloodline.”
Sarah frowned.
“Leo?”
“No.”
Marco leaned back against the pew.
“They don’t want Leo.”
“Then why kill him?”
“Because another child exists.”
Dominic stared.
“What child?”
Marco’s eyes held his.
“My son.”
The church became silent.
Sarah felt the implications rush through her mind.
Another Moretti boy.
An older branch.
Another possible heir.
“Where is he?” Dominic asked.
“I don’t know.”
Marco’s calm cracked for the first time.
“He was taken six days ago.”
“How old?”
“Seven.”
Sarah’s heart tightened.
“What is his name?”
“Gabriel.”
Marco looked at Dominic.
“They sent me a photograph yesterday.”
He removed one final picture from his coat.
A dark-haired boy sat tied to a chair.
Behind him was a white wall.
On the wall was a black eagle.
Marco’s hand trembled.
“They told me I could have him back.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“In exchange for what?”
Marco looked toward the church doors.
Then toward Sarah.
Finally at Dominic.
“For Leonardo.”
The sniper fired from the bell tower across the street.
Mateo shouted first.
“DOWN!”
The stained-glass window exploded.
Dominic threw Sarah behind a stone pillar.
Marco rolled behind the altar.
A second round punched through the wooden pew where he had been sitting.
“They followed you!” Dominic roared.
“They follow everyone!”
Another shot.
Mateo’s men returned fire.
Sarah remained low.
Then she saw blood.
Dominic’s blood.
His sleeve was torn.
“Are you hit?”
“Graze.”
“Let me see.”
“Later.”
Marco shouted from behind the altar.
“North roof! Twelve degrees left of the chimney!”
Mateo relayed the position.
Gunfire erupted outside.
Thirty seconds later, silence returned.
Dominic stood.
Marco emerged.
The two brothers looked at each other.
Sarah realized something neither wanted to admit.
They had reacted identically.
Same movement.
Same instinct.
Same refusal to abandon family.
Dominic looked toward the shattered window.
“They know we met.”
Marco nodded.
“They knew before we arrived.”
Sarah looked at the flash drive in Dominic’s hand.
“Then whatever is on that thing is important.”
Dominic looked at his brother.
“You’re coming with us.”
Marco laughed.
“To your house?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds unwise.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“Good.”
“But I trust the people trying to kill us even less.”
Marco considered him.
Then he looked at Sarah.
“And the nurse?”
Sarah smiled.
“The nurse gets a vote.”
Marco raised an eyebrow.
Sarah picked up one of the pistols dropped during the attack.
“We find Gabriel.”
Then she looked at Dominic.
“And after that, we find the woman who started all of this.”
Dominic understood.
Isabella.
His dead mother.
The woman who had buried her past under an empty grave.
May you like
Somewhere in the world, she was alive.
And Sarah Moretti intended to find her.
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