Chapter 22 - THE NIGHT DOMINIC LOST EVERYTHING AGAINAt 9:03 Monday morning, every account connected to Dominic’s investment company was frozen.
At 9:11, regulators entered the office.
At 9:24, financial news networks reported that Marino Strategic Partners was under investigation for historic money laundering.
At 9:40, three clients terminated contracts.
By noon, Dominic had lost almost seventy percent of the company’s value.
He sat behind his desk.
Calm.
His CFO looked more frightened than he did.
“What do we do?”
“Cooperate.”
“Dominic.”
“Everything.”
“Some records go back to Marino Holdings.”
“Give them everything.”
“That could expose—”
“Everything.”
His CFO left.
Carrie arrived twenty minutes later.
She expected anger.
Instead, Dominic was packing a box.
“What are you doing?”
“Going home.”
“Why?”
“My lawyers think I should step away until the investigation clears.”
Carrie stared.
“You’re just agreeing?”
He looked at her.
“I already learned this lesson once.”
“But this is probably Evelyn.”
“Maybe.”
“You built this company clean.”
“Yes.”
“You’re letting her destroy it.”
Dominic smiled sadly.
“Carrie.”
“What?”
“It’s a company.”
She stopped.
Years earlier, he had chosen business over everything.
Now she was the one furious on his behalf.
He walked around the desk.
“My daughter was taken from school.”
His voice tightened.
“My mother was shot.”
“Walter died.”
Carrie looked down.
Dominic touched her cheek.
“If Evelyn thinks taking my office makes me desperate, she learned nothing from Vanessa.”
Carrie kissed his palm.
“You worked hard for this.”
“I did.”
“You’re allowed to care.”
“I care.”
He looked around.
“I just know what comes first now.”
That afternoon, the board asked him to resign temporarily.
He did.
No fight.
No threats.
No calls to powerful friends.
Reporters waited downstairs.
One shouted:
“Mr. Marino, is the Marino family criminal empire finally collapsing?”
Dominic stopped.
Carrie tensed.
He turned.
“My father committed crimes.”
Cameras moved closer.
“I committed failures.”
Silence.
“But my wife and daughter are not responsible for either.”
A reporter asked:
“Are you saying you’re innocent?”
Dominic thought.
“I’m saying innocence is something investigators determine from evidence.”
Carrie almost smiled.
“Power doesn’t make me exempt from that.”
The clip spread everywhere.
Public reaction shifted.
Not entirely.
But enough.
Then Evelyn made her move.
She called Carrie directly.
No disguised voice.
No intermediary.
“Your husband’s company can be restored.”
Carrie put the call on speaker.
Dominic listened.
“What do you want?”
“You know.”
“Pier Nine.”
“Yes.”
Carrie looked at Dominic.
He shook his head.
Not because he wanted his company.
Because he understood the trade was poison.
Carrie said:
“No.”
Evelyn laughed softly.
“You’re willing to let him lose everything?”
Dominic mouthed:
Yes.
Carrie almost laughed.
“He didn’t lose everything.”
A pause.
Evelyn understood.
“That sentiment is sweet.”
“It isn’t sentiment.”
Carrie looked at Dominic.
“It’s experience.”
Evelyn’s voice cooled.
“Then perhaps we test it.”
The line disconnected.
Dominic immediately called security.
Too late.
At Margaret’s rehabilitation center, two men entered using forged medical credentials.
They reached her floor.
They never reached her room.
Sebastian did.
He had been visiting.
The first man pulled a gun.
Sebastian struck his wrist.
The shot hit the ceiling.
The second man tackled him.
Nurses screamed.
Security arrived thirty seconds later.
One attacker escaped.
The other was arrested.
Sebastian lay on the floor bleeding from the head.
Margaret sat beside him.
Her good hand pressed a towel to his wound.
When Dominic and Carrie arrived, they stopped outside the room.
Margaret was holding Sebastian’s hand.
Neither appeared comfortable with it.
Neither let go.
Dominic entered.
Sebastian looked up.
“Your mother is terrifying.”
Margaret replied:
“You’re welcome.”
Dominic almost smiled.
“Why were they here?”
Sebastian’s expression changed.
“They weren’t here for Margaret.”
“What?”
He nodded toward her bedside drawer.
Open.
Empty.
Margaret looked confused.
“What did they take?”
She thought.
Then her face went white.
“Anthony’s signet ring.”
Dominic frowned.
“Dad’s ring?”
“I kept it after he died.”
Carrie remembered the trust documents.
A sentence nobody had understood.
Pier Nine required “the founder’s mark and blood authority.”
Carrie whispered:
“The ring.”
Sebastian sat upright.
“Founder’s mark.”
Dominic looked at Carrie.
“And blood authority?”
Grace’s trust.
Two pieces.
Evelyn now had one.
That night, security footage showed the escaped attacker entering a black car.
The driver’s face was visible for less than two seconds.
Reyes froze the frame.
Carrie stared.
She knew him.
Dominic did too.
Victor Salazar’s oldest son.
Adrian Salazar.
A man everyone believed had left the United States ten years earlier.
Reyes looked at them.
“Evelyn isn’t working alone.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“No.”
Carrie understood.
Victor’s empire had never died.
May you like
His son had inherited it.
And now the children of Anthony Marino and Victor Salazar were fighting over secrets their fathers had buried decades earlier.
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