Chapter 4 - THE MAN WHO SIGNED HIS OWN DEATH
Dominic did not take Elena and Lily to his mansion.
He took them somewhere nobody in Moretti Group knew existed.
An old brownstone in Brooklyn.
No security cameras.
No company vehicles.
No staff.
No electronic access system.
It had once belonged to his grandfather.
Dominic had kept it empty for twelve years.
Marco arrived twenty minutes later with a laptop and three folders.
“Northstar is a shell.”
Dominic poured coffee.
“How empty?”
“No employees. No office. Registered to a Delaware trust. The trust is controlled by another company.”
“Which one?”
Marco hesitated.
“Moretti Holdings.”
Dominic slowly set down the cup.
“That isn't possible.”
“It gets worse.”
Marco opened the laptop.
Northstar Civic Solutions had received $4.8 million over four years.
Every payment had been authorized through a dormant internal code.
D-17.
Dominic stared at the screen.
“Who owns Moretti Holdings?”
Marco answered quietly.
“Technically, you.”
Dominic said nothing.
“Which means someone has been using a company you own to pay a company you also technically own.”
Elena looked confused.
Dominic wasn't.
It was a laundering structure.
Money could disappear from one side and return to the other without attracting immediate suspicion.
But why?
“What were the payments for?” Dominic asked.
Marco opened another file.
“Political consulting. Property acquisitions. Legal settlements.”
Dominic scanned the names.
Then stopped.
One appeared repeatedly.
Bellhaven Redevelopment Project.
His mother's name was attached to it.
Dominic looked up.
“What is this?”
Elena went pale.
“That's where Michael worked.”
Dominic looked at her.
“You said your husband was a foreman.”
“He was.”
“On Bellhaven?”
“Yes.”
Dominic's memory shifted.
Bellhaven had been his father's final major project.
A massive waterfront redevelopment in New Jersey.
His father had planned it before his death.
Dominic inherited the project.
Then abandoned it.
Too many lawsuits.
Too many delays.
Too many workers claiming unsafe conditions.
He had assumed it was cursed.
Now he wondered whether it had been designed to fail.
“What happened to Michael?”
Elena's voice broke.
“He told me three days before the accident that he found something in the foundation reports.”
“What?”
“He said there were materials being billed twice.”
Dominic frowned.
“Construction fraud.”
“That's what he thought.”
Elena reached into her coat pocket.
She removed a tiny brass key.
“He gave me this.”
Dominic stared.
“What does it open?”
“I don't know.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because two days later he died.”
Silence.
Dominic took the key.
On the end was a number.
47.
Marco looked at him.
“Locker?”
Dominic nodded.
“Find every storage facility within ten miles of Bellhaven with locker 47.”
Marco picked up his phone.
Lily sat quietly on the couch.
She had been listening.
Dominic noticed.
“Lily.”
She looked at him.
“What?”
“Did your father tell you anything?”
She shook her head.
“He wasn't my daddy.”
Dominic paused.
“I'm sorry.”
“My daddy is gone.”
She said it matter-of-factly.
Then hugged her rabbit.
Dominic looked away.
He had spent years believing power meant being able to control outcomes.
A child's simple sentence reminded him that some losses could not be negotiated.
Marco's phone rang.
He answered.
Then looked at Dominic.
“We found it.”
“Where?”
“Old Harbor Storage.”
Twenty-five minutes later, Dominic stood in front of locker 47.
The brass key fit.
Inside was a black metal box.
No documents.
No money.
Only a digital recorder.
Dominic pressed play.
Static.
Then Michael Carter's voice.
“If anyone is listening to this, I didn't die because of the accident.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Dominic went rigid.
Michael continued.
“The scaffolding was deliberately weakened.”
A pause.
“I don't know who ordered it.”
Another pause.
“But I know why.”
Paper rustled.
“The Bellhaven foundation contains something they don't want found.”
Dominic looked at Marco.
Michael's voice continued.
“Not bodies. Not weapons. Records.”
The recording crackled.
“Old records. Financial records. Names.”
Then the final sentence.
“If anything happens to me, find the room beneath the east foundation.”
The recording ended.
Dominic stared into the darkness.
A room beneath the foundation.
He knew Bellhaven.
There was no room on any architectural plan.
Unless the original plans had been altered.
His phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number.
STOP DIGGING.
A second message arrived.
YOUR MOTHER SHOULD HAVE LISTENED.
Dominic's face went cold.
His mother.
Not Elena.
Not Michael.
His mother had known.
She had spent years trying to warn him.
And someone had been monitoring her.
Then Lily spoke from behind him.
“Mr. Moretti?”
Dominic turned.
She held a folded photograph.
“Mommy said this was supposed to stay hidden.”
Elena stared at it.
“I didn't give you that.”
Lily looked confused.
“It was inside the rabbit.”
Dominic took the photograph.
It showed his father standing beside four men.
One was Arthur Bell.
One was Jonathan Pike.
One was Helena Voss.
The fourth man was someone Dominic knew very well.
Someone who had died eleven years ago.
May you like
Dominic's father.
But the photograph had been taken six months after his official death.
