Chapter 5 - The Woman Who Raised HimDominic did not reach for his weapon.
That frightened Chloe more than anything.
Rosa stood in the doorway of the study with both hands wrapped around a pistol, tears running openly down her face. Dominic remained between Chloe and the gun, his posture perfectly still, as though a sudden movement might shatter the last remaining piece of his childhood.
Leo slowly lowered his own weapon.
“Rosa,” he said.
“Don’t.”
Her voice cracked.
“Please.”
Gabriel leaned back in his chair.
“This is touching.”
Rosa swung the gun toward him.
“Say one more word.”
For once, Gabriel obeyed.
Dominic stared at the woman who had raised him.
“You opened the garage.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Gabriel was coming.”
“Yes.”
“You let armed men into my home.”
“I didn’t know he would bring six.”
Gabriel muttered, “Five.”
Rosa glared.
He corrected himself.
“Five plus me.”
Chloe almost laughed from sheer disbelief.
Dominic did not.
“Why?” he asked.
Rosa lowered the weapon slightly.
“Because Victor knows about Chloe.”
“We knew that.”
“No.”
Her eyes met Dominic’s.
“You don’t understand. Victor doesn’t only know she exists. He knows where she is. He knows she is with you. And once he confirms Isabella’s daughter is inside Dominic Moretti’s protection, he won’t send one gunman.”
She looked around the destroyed penthouse.
“He’ll send a war.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“So you planned to give her to Gabriel?”
“To move her.”
“Without telling me.”
“You wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“Correct.”
Rosa’s face twisted.
“That is why.”
Chloe stepped around Dominic.
He immediately caught her arm.
“Stay behind me.”
“Dominic, she isn’t going to shoot me.”
“You don’t know that.”
Rosa looked horrified.
“I would die before hurting her.”
Dominic’s laugh was cold.
“You opened my door to men with rifles.”
“To save her from the men already inside your house.”
Silence.
Leo’s gaze sharpened.
“What does that mean?”
Rosa closed her eyes.
“There’s a traitor in the organization.”
Gabriel nodded.
“I mentioned that.”
“Be quiet.”
Rosa lowered the gun completely.
“I knew someone was reporting Dominic’s movements to Victor. I didn’t know who. Three months ago, Elaine called me.”
Chloe’s heart stopped.
“My mother called you?”
Rosa looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Three months ago?”
“A week before she died.”
Chloe walked toward her.
Dominic let go.
“What did she say?”
Rosa’s tears fell faster.
“She said the cancer had spread. She said she had very little time.”
Chloe clenched her fists.
“You knew she was dying.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t come?”
“She told me not to.”
“What else?”
Rosa swallowed.
“She made me promise that when the archive activated, I would protect you even if it meant protecting you from Dominic.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“Why would Isabella’s daughter need protection from me?”
“Because Elaine didn’t know what kind of man you had become.”
That hurt him.
Chloe saw it.
Rosa did too.
“You were twelve when Isabella died,” Rosa whispered. “You were a boy who still left cookies outside her bedroom because you thought she might come home at night and be hungry.”
Dominic looked away.
Rosa continued.
“Elaine never met you as an adult. All she knew was Carlo’s son had become the head of the Moretti organization. She feared you might see Chloe as leverage. Or an heir. Or a threat.”
“I would never hurt her.”
“I know that now.”
Dominic’s gaze returned.
“Do you?”
Rosa nodded.
“I watched you cover her with your body twice.”
Chloe felt something tighten beneath her ribs.
Rosa looked at her.
“And I watched you look at him like you were deciding whether to hit him or trust him.”
“I’m still deciding.”
Rosa almost smiled.
Dominic did not.
“Untie Gabriel,” Rosa said.
“No.”
“He can lead us to one fragment.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
“How?”
Gabriel lifted his chin.
“Because my father had one.”
Leo approached him.
“And you didn’t think to mention that?”
“You didn’t ask.”
Leo punched him.
The chair nearly overturned.
“Leo,” Chloe said.
“What? He’s annoying.”
Gabriel spat blood onto the floor.
“I was starting to like you.”
Dominic turned toward Rosa.
“Where is the fragment?”
“Rhode Island.”
Gabriel stopped smiling.
Rosa noticed.
“So that part is still true.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“You know too much.”
“I changed your diapers.”
“That was thirty-six years ago.”
“You were unpleasant then too.”
Chloe covered her mouth.
Dominic actually looked close to smiling.
For one strange moment, the room felt almost like a family argument.
Then Leo’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed immediately.
“How many?”
Dominic turned.
Leo moved toward the window.
“When?”
He listened.
Then ended the call.
“The Brass Lantern exploded twenty minutes ago.”
Chloe froze.
“What?”
“Fire department thinks gas leak.”
“No.”
Her chest tightened.
“Sarah. Mr. Callahan. The cooks—”
“Restaurant was closed.”
Relief hit her so hard her knees weakened.
“Anyone hurt?”
“One firefighter. No staff.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“Victor.”
Gabriel nodded.
“A message.”
Chloe thought about the restaurant.
The dark wood.
The brass lamps.
The place where she had worked doubles to pay Elaine’s hospital bills.
The only place that had still belonged to her old life.
Gone.
Victor Vale was burning every bridge behind her.
Dominic walked toward his desk and opened a drawer.
He removed a map.
“Rhode Island. Where?”
Gabriel looked at Rosa.
She answered.
“Newport.”
Leo cursed.
“What?”
Dominic spread the map flat.
“Carlo had a house there.”
“Had?”
“Sold twenty years ago.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Not sold.”
Dominic looked at him.
“My father transferred it through shells until nobody could trace the ownership.”
“Why?”
“Because beneath it is the original Moretti vault.”
Rosa lowered herself into a chair.
“I thought Carlo sealed it.”
“He did.”
Gabriel looked at Chloe.
“The lock was made for Isabella.”
Chloe felt cold.
“What does that mean?”
“Biometric.”
Leo understood first.
“Blood.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Moretti blood.”
The words from the drive.
Not only the name of the archive.
A literal instruction.
Chloe stared at Dominic.
“You could open it.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The lock was coded to Isabella’s maternal line.”
Dominic’s mother.
Isabella.
Chloe.
Dominic had inherited Carlo’s Y chromosome and his mother’s mitochondrial DNA, but the lock apparently required something more specific.
Chloe hated that she understood even that much.
“My blood opens the vault.”
“Yes.”
Dominic folded the map.
“No.”
Everyone looked at him.
Chloe crossed her arms.
“Here we go.”
“You are not going.”
“You need me.”
“I’ll destroy the vault before I use you as a key.”
Gabriel laughed.
“That’s adorable.”
Dominic drew his gun.
Gabriel stopped.
Chloe stepped closer.
“Dominic.”
“No.”
“If Victor wants whatever is inside, we need to get there first.”
“I said no.”
“And I said yesterday I wasn’t going anywhere with you.”
“You eventually did.”
“Because you were right.”
His eyebrows rose.
Chloe pointed at him.
“Do not enjoy that.”
A faint shadow of amusement crossed his eyes.
Then vanished.
“I won’t put you in that house.”
“Your penthouse was attacked.”
“We’ll use another location.”
“The restaurant was destroyed.”
“I know.”
“My apartment was searched.”
“I know.”
“Exactly. There is no safe room. There is no safe building. Victor knows where I am because someone inside your organization is telling him.”
Dominic went still.
Chloe continued.
“If we keep running, we’re waiting for him to decide where the next attack happens.”
Leo nodded slowly.
“She’s right.”
Dominic looked at him.
Leo lifted both hands.
“I hate it too.”
Rosa said, “We go to Newport.”
“No.”
Chloe stared at Dominic.
“You know what your problem is?”
“I suspect you’re about to tell me.”
“You think control and protection are the same thing.”
His expression hardened.
“I have kept myself alive for thirty-four years by controlling risk.”
“And look how well your windows are doing.”
Leo turned away to hide a laugh.
Dominic ignored him.
Chloe stepped closer.
“You can protect me without deciding everything for me.”
“You were carrying dessert plates yesterday.”
“And yesterday I also saved your life.”
His eyes darkened.
“And today?”
“I hit your cousin with a coffee pot.”
Gabriel nodded.
“She did.”
“Not helping,” Chloe said.
Dominic looked at her for a long moment.
Then he exhaled.
“When we get there, you do exactly what I say.”
“No.”
His face darkened.
“I’m negotiating.”
“So am I.”
“You stay beside me.”
“That’s reasonable.”
“You wear a vest.”
“Fine.”
“You do not wander.”
“I’m twenty-four, not five.”
“That was not agreement.”
“Fine.”
“If shooting starts, you get down.”
“Obviously.”
“And if I tell Leo to remove you—”
“I’ll make his life difficult.”
Leo sighed.
“I believe her.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“One day,” he said quietly, “you’re going to be the reason I develop a heart condition.”
Chloe looked at him.
“For someone with people shooting at him regularly, that seems dramatic.”
Rosa finally laughed.
It broke the tension.
For less than ten seconds.
Then Leo received another message.
A vehicle registered to one of Dominic’s captains had been seen near The Brass Lantern fifteen minutes before the explosion.
The captain’s name was Michael Russo.
Dominic stared at the screen.
Chloe recognized the name.
“Was he at the restaurant?”
Dominic nodded.
“One of the two men who stood up when Leo tackled the shooter.”
Her stomach dropped.
“One of your own men helped save you.”
“And may have helped arrange the second attack.”
Rosa looked horrified.
Dominic called Russo.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Leo checked internal tracking.
Russo’s phone was turned off.
His wife’s number disconnected.
His house cameras offline.
“He’s gone,” Leo said.
Gabriel smiled without humor.
“Victor cleans quickly.”
Dominic pocketed his phone.
“Then we move faster.”
They left Boston eleven minutes later.
Not in the black SUV Chloe had entered the night before.
Three vehicles departed separately from three garages.
Decoys.
Routes changed twice.
Phones went into shielded cases.
Dominic drove.
Chloe sat beside him wearing a bulletproof vest beneath a dark sweater Rosa had found for her.
Leo and Gabriel were in another vehicle.
Rosa rode behind them with two guards.
Rain followed them south.
For the first twenty minutes, neither Chloe nor Dominic spoke.
The coastline appeared and disappeared beyond wet trees.
Eventually Chloe looked toward him.
“You were twelve?”
Dominic kept his eyes on the road.
“When Isabella died?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“What was she like?”
His fingers tightened on the steering wheel.
“Loud.”
Chloe smiled faintly.
“Loud?”
“She sang terribly. She stole my dessert. She fought with my father about everything.”
“That sounds familiar.”
Dominic glanced at her.
Chloe looked innocent.
He almost smiled.
“She wanted to study architecture.”
“Did she?”
“For one year.”
“What happened?”
“My father decided university made her ‘difficult.’”
“Maybe she was already difficult.”
“She was.”
There was affection in his voice now.
Pain, but affection.
Chloe looked through the windshield.
“I wish I’d known her.”
Dominic was silent.
Then he said, “She would have loved you.”
Chloe swallowed.
“You can’t know that.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
He glanced at her again.
“Because you’re difficult.”
She laughed before she could stop herself.
It was the first real laugh since the gunman entered The Brass Lantern.
Dominic stared at her half a second too long.
The car drifted slightly.
“Road,” Chloe said.
His eyes snapped forward.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“I can make Dominic Moretti lose focus.”
“You hit my cousin with a coffee pot. I already knew you were dangerous.”
The warmth lasted until Newport.
The old estate sat behind stone walls overlooking the Atlantic, a gray mansion surrounded by wind-bent trees and neglected gardens.
Nobody had lived there in years.
Yet when Dominic’s convoy turned through the rusted gates, Chloe saw tire tracks in the mud.
Fresh.
Dominic saw them too.
He stopped the car.
“Stay here.”
“You promised.”
“I promised nothing.”
Chloe opened her door.
Dominic cursed.
They entered through the rear.
The house smelled of dust and sea air.
Sheet-covered furniture stood like ghosts.
A chandelier hung crooked above the foyer.
Gabriel led them toward the library.
Leo kept a weapon against his back.
“Do you really need that?”
“Yes.”
“Fair.”
Gabriel removed a section of paneling behind the fireplace.
A steel door waited behind it.
No keypad.
Only a glass plate.
He looked at Chloe.
“Your turn.”
Dominic stepped between them.
“I do it.”
“It won’t work.”
“Then we find another way.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes.
Chloe took the small lancet Rosa offered.
Dominic caught her wrist.
Their eyes met.
“You don’t owe us this.”
“Maybe I owe her.”
He knew she meant Isabella.
Slowly, he released her.
Chloe pricked her finger.
One drop of blood touched the glass.
For three seconds, nothing happened.
Then the steel door unlocked.
The sound echoed through the library.
Dominic stared.
Whatever doubt remained about Chloe’s connection to his family had just disappeared.
Gabriel opened the vault.
Inside were shelves.
Boxes.
Old cash.
Weapons.
Documents.
And one red leather ledger.
Chloe approached it.
On the cover was an embossed letter.
I.
Isabella.
She reached for it.
A gunshot cracked through the room.
The ledger jumped from her hand.
Dominic grabbed her and pulled her down.
More shots followed.
Men poured through the house.
Leo returned fire.
Gabriel swore.
“How did they find us?”
Dominic shoved Chloe behind the vault door.
“Someone told them.”
Rosa screamed from the hallway.
Dominic turned.
A man had grabbed her.
Another stepped from behind him.
Chloe recognized the face.
She had seen him before.
The restaurant.
The night Dominic had been attacked.
He had been sitting near the bar.
One of the men who rose after Leo tackled the shooter.
Michael Russo.
Dominic’s missing captain.
Russo held a gun against Rosa’s head.
“Drop it, Dom.”
Dominic froze.
Russo smiled.
“Victor sends his regards.”
Chloe looked at the red ledger near her feet.
Russo followed her gaze.
“And he wants the book.”
Dominic’s weapon remained raised.
Russo pressed the gun harder against Rosa.
“Book for the old woman.”
Rosa looked at Dominic.
“No.”
Russo smiled.
“Choose.”
Dominic’s eyes moved from Rosa to Chloe.
For the first time, Chloe understood the impossible structure of his life.
Every enemy learned where you loved.
Then they put a gun there.
Chloe picked up Isabella’s ledger.
Russo’s eyes shifted toward her.
Exactly as she wanted.
Gabriel moved.
Fast.
He slammed into Russo.
The gun fired.
Rosa fell.
Dominic shot the second man.
Leo took another attacker.
Chloe crawled toward Rosa.
Blood spread across the older woman’s blouse.
“Rosa!”
Dominic reached them.
His face went white.
Rosa gasped.
“Shoulder.”
Not chest.
Chloe almost cried with relief.
Then a new sound filled the estate.
An engine.
Outside.
Leo looked through the broken window.
A black helicopter rose beyond the cliff.
Gabriel stood in the library doorway.
The red ledger was gone.
Dominic turned.
Gabriel met his eyes.
“Sorry, cousin.”
He backed toward the terrace.
“You son of a—”
Gabriel smiled.
“I told you. I wanted Victor dead.”
The helicopter dropped lower.
Gabriel jumped onto the terrace railing.
“And now I know how to find him.”
He leaped.
A rope hung beneath the aircraft.
Gabriel caught it.
The helicopter pulled away over the Atlantic.
Dominic ran onto the terrace and fired.
Too late.
Chloe stood behind him.
Gabriel disappeared into the gray sky carrying Isabella’s ledger.
And from somewhere inside the house, a phone began to ring.
Not Dominic’s.
Not Chloe’s.
The sound came from the open vault.
Leo found the device beneath a stack of documents.
He answered on speaker.
A man’s voice filled the room.
Calm.
Educated.
Old.
“Dominic.”
Dominic stared toward the ocean.
“Vale.”
Victor Vale laughed softly.
“Thank you for finding my goddaughter.”
Chloe’s blood turned cold.
May you like
Then Victor said the words that changed the war again.
“Bring Chloe to me, and I’ll tell her which one of you killed Elaine Bennett.”
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