Chapter 9 - THE LAST COSTELLO
Dominic arrived at the protected residence just after midnight.
He looked exhausted, his jaw shadowed with stubble, but he was free.
Khloe met him at the door.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then she stepped forward and hugged him.
He froze.
It was the first time she'd touched him without anger, fear, or necessity.
His arms closed around her carefully.
“You found it,” he whispered.
“We found it.”
He held her a moment longer before stepping back.
“I'm sorry.”
“For what?”
“For bringing you into this.”
“You didn't bring me into it. Your family was already in my life before I knew your name.”
His eyes lowered.
“That's what frightens me.”
She studied him.
“Because you think everyone around you gets hurt?”
“Because I know what I've done to people in the name of protecting my family.”
“Then stop doing it.”
He looked at her.
“You make that sound simple.”
“It isn't. But you don't get to use your past as an excuse to keep repeating it.”
Dominic accepted the words without argument.
The following morning, the federal prosecutor confirmed that the ledger, the original trust, and the recording had established a clear connection between Senator Kensington, the former Costello administration, and several murders committed to protect the inheritance scheme.
The senator would remain in custody.
Lorenzo had agreed to cooperate.
But the evidence against Dominic was more complicated. Prosecutors still believed he had benefited from criminal activity carried out by the organization he now controlled.
Dominic didn't deny it.
“I can't undo the years before I took over,” he told Khloe. “But I can stop pretending the organization is something it doesn't have to be.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the ports become legitimate businesses. The gambling operations close. Anyone who refuses to leave the old business gets no protection from me.”
“And the people who worked for you?”
“They'll have a choice. Legal employment or no employment.”
Khloe studied his face.
“You could lose everything.”
“I inherited a kingdom built on stolen money. Maybe losing it is the only way to find out what I actually own.”
It was the first decision he'd made that didn't sound like a threat.
Over the next several weeks, the investigation widened. Former employees came forward. Financial records connected the senator's companies to offshore accounts. A retired judge admitted that someone had used his credentials to authorize the false warrant.
The case against Dominic's uncle grew stronger.
Then a former boat mechanic contacted Rebecca.
He claimed he'd repaired a damaged engine on a private vessel shortly after the accident that supposedly killed the older Costello. The man who paid him had used a false name, but he'd left behind a photograph.
Dominic recognized his uncle immediately.
The mechanic also remembered a second passenger.
A woman with a scar on her left hand.
Elena examined the photograph.
Her face turned white.
“That's Margaret Ellis.”
The nurse who had helped hide the baby.
But Margaret had supposedly died three years earlier.
Dominic called Matteo.
“Find her.”
Two days later, Matteo traced a payment from an offshore account to a small coastal property in Maine. The account had been opened under a name associated with Dominic's uncle.
Dominic insisted on going.
Khloe insisted on coming.
They traveled with federal agents, not armed Costello men. For once, Dominic accepted that his own instincts were not enough.
The property stood at the edge of a rocky shoreline. The house was dark, its windows covered from the inside.
A light flickered upstairs.
They entered with the agents.
The rooms were empty except for a desk, several boxes of medical records, and a photograph of a woman holding a baby.
Elena.
Margaret.
And a man whose face had been carefully cut from the picture.
On the desk lay a letter addressed to Dominic.
He opened it.
Dear nephew,
You have spent your life believing I took everything from you. You are mistaken. I kept you alive when your father would have destroyed you. I kept your mother hidden when she became a danger to the family. And I kept your sister alive when everyone else wanted her erased.
Dominic stopped reading.
“My sister?”
Khloe felt a chill move through her.
He continued.
You have the documents. You have the ledger. You have the child everyone tried to forget. But you still don't know who ordered the fire.
You never asked the right question.
Your father didn't die in an accident.
Dominic lowered the letter.
For years, the family had blamed the uncle for everything. But if his father had been murdered, the uncle might have been protecting a secret even older than the missing heir.
A sound came from the adjoining room.
An agent called out.
They rushed toward the doorway.
Inside stood a woman in her late forties, pale and visibly frightened. She wore a simple gray sweater and held a small photograph against her chest.
Dominic stared at her.
The woman stared back.
Then she spoke his name.
“Dominic.”
He couldn't move.
“Who are you?”
She swallowed.
“I'm the woman your father married before Elena.”
Khloe felt the world tilt.
Dominic's father had been married before Elena?
The woman extended the photograph.
It showed a little boy standing beside a young girl with dark hair.
The boy was Dominic.
The girl was a child no one had ever mentioned.
The woman began to cry.
“Your uncle didn't steal your sister's inheritance,” she whispered.
“He stole her identity.”
Dominic looked at the photograph.
Then at Khloe.
For the first time, he appeared genuinely afraid.
Because the woman standing before them was not the only person who knew the truth.
May you like
Someone had written a message on the back of the photograph.
THE FIRST HEIR IS STILL ALIVE.
