Chapter 5 - THE FAMILY THEY ERASED
Her name was Lucia Vascari.
And she had spent forty-one years being told she did not exist.
Dominic stared at her weapon.
“If you're Francesca's daughter, lower the gun.”
Lucia laughed.
“You sound exactly like your father.”
“That's not a compliment.”
“No.”
She lowered it.
“My mother survived the crash your grandfather arranged. Gideon found us years later.”
“Why?”
“Because he loved her.”
Dominic looked toward Celeste.
Pieces moved.
Gideon had not begun this coup for money.
“He was protecting Francesca's claim.”
“At first.”
Lucia's expression hardened.
“Then power became easier to love than people.”
“What does my daughter have to do with any of this?”
“Nothing.”
That answer came immediately.
Lucia's eyes softened.
“The baby was never supposed to be touched.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Mara was.”
Lucia did not deny it.
“My mother wanted justice against your father. After she died, Gideon decided justice wasn't enough.”
“So he decided to kill my wife?”
“He believed Mara had discovered too much.”
Dominic's face became lethal.
Lucia held his gaze.
“I came because Gideon has lost control.”
“Where is he?”
“Saint Agnes.”
Dominic turned.
Lucia said, “If you storm it, the baby dies.”
He stopped.
“Explain.”
“Gideon wired the basement exits. He has six men and a nurse. He's expecting you.”
“Why help me?”
Lucia's answer was almost a whisper.
“Because I know what it means to have your childhood stolen by Vascari men.”
At the rehabilitation wing, Mara refused morphine.
She needed her mind clear.
Hannah hated the decision but accepted it.
At 8:06 a.m., Dominic called.
“We found her location.”
Mara closed her eyes.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
“You've seen her?”
“No.”
“Then don't say yes like you know.”
He absorbed the correction.
“You're right.”
Silence.
Then Mara said, “What's your plan?”
“Go in.”
“That's not a plan.”
Despite everything, Dominic almost smiled.
There she was.
The woman who had once interrupted a dinner with three crime captains because their security strategy was “testosterone wearing expensive shoes.”
“I have building plans.”
“Send them.”
“Mara—”
“Send them.”
He did.
Mara studied the basement layout.
Her eyes stopped on an old utility corridor.
“What is this?”
Lucia leaned over Dominic's phone.
“A steam tunnel. Sealed decades ago.”
“Sealed from which side?”
Lucia frowned.
“Inside.”
Mara looked at Dominic through video.
“Then Gideon's watching doors he expects you to use.”
Marco understood.
“We enter through the tunnel.”
Dominic shook his head.
“No. Too obvious once we breach it.”
Mara stared at the plans.
Then smiled faintly.
“Don't breach it.”
Three hours later, a city maintenance truck parked beside Saint Agnes Church.
Two workers climbed down carrying equipment.
Neither was Vascari.
Hannah had called a former patient who ran municipal utilities.
The men opened an access chamber two blocks away.
Marco and Dominic entered underground.
No army.
No convoy.
No gunfire.
Exactly the opposite of what Gideon expected.
The tunnel smelled of rust and standing water.
At its end stood a brick wall.
Marco pointed toward an old ventilation shaft.
They climbed.
Above them, voices.
Dominic heard a baby cry.
His entire body stopped.
Small.
Weak.
Alive.
His daughter.
Marco put a hand against his shoulder.
Focus.
They emerged into a storage room.
Elena Ruiz sat beside an incubator.
A man with a gun stood at the door.
Dominic moved before the guard could turn.
One strike.
Marco caught the weapon before it hit the floor.
Elena gasped.
Dominic went directly to the incubator.
For the first time, he saw his daughter.
She weighed barely four pounds.
Tiny fingers curled beside her face.
A translucent tube ran beneath her nose.
Dominic had expected some grand revelation.
Instead, terror consumed him.
She was so small.
He placed one finger through the opening.
Her hand closed around it.
Dominic Vascari stopped breathing.
“Can we move her?”
Elena nodded.
“But carefully.”
A speaker crackled overhead.
Gideon's voice.
“I wondered how long it would take Mara to find the tunnel.”
Dominic looked up.
Red lights appeared on the wall.
“Take the baby,” he told Elena.
The door locked.
Gideon continued.
“Your wife was always smarter than you.”
Dominic's jaw tightened.
“I know.”
A pause.
Perhaps Gideon had expected anger.
“You've changed.”
“No. I finally stopped mistaking arrogance for strength.”
Marco examined the door.
“Electronic.”
Gideon's voice came again.
“Give me Lucia.”
Dominic looked at Marco.
So that was it.
The baby had become leverage not against Dominic's empire.
Against Lucia.
“She's not here.”
“Then bring her.”
A countdown appeared on the security panel.
Ten minutes.
Elena stared.
“What happens at zero?”
Dominic already knew.
Gideon had wired the building.
His phone rang.
Mara.
“Dominic?”
“I found her.”
Mara began sobbing.
He closed his eyes.
“She grabbed my finger.”
A broken laugh escaped her.
“Of course she did.”
“Mara, listen. We have a problem.”
He explained.
She went silent.
Then:
“The ventilation system.”
“What?”
“Old clinics had independent mechanical exhaust for tuberculosis wards. Look at the ceiling.”
Dominic did.
A steel grille.
Marco understood immediately.
They removed it.
The shaft was narrow.
Elena could fit.
The transport incubator could not.
“We can't leave her,” Dominic said.
Elena looked at the baby.
“You won't.”
She disconnected the portable unit and carefully wrapped the infant into a specialized transport sling against her chest.
“Premature babies are transported skin-to-skin in emergencies.”
Dominic stared.
“Give her to me.”
Elena hesitated.
“You?”
“My daughter.”
Seconds later, the tiny baby was secured against Dominic's chest beneath his shirt and jacket.
Her heartbeat fluttered against him.
The most feared man on Boston's waterfront climbed into a rusted ventilation shaft carrying a four-pound child against his heart.
The timer reached thirty seconds as Marco pulled him through the final opening.
They dropped into the tunnel.
Behind them, an explosion shook Saint Agnes.
Dominic covered his daughter with his entire body.
Dust filled the tunnel.
Then silence.
A tiny cry came from beneath his jacket.
Dominic laughed.
Actually laughed.
And then he cried.
Back at the hospital, Mara heard the sound through the phone.
Her husband whispering to their daughter.
“Your mother's waiting for you.”
But across town, Gideon Rusk watched Saint Agnes burn from inside his car.
His driver glanced at him.
“The child survived.”
Gideon smiled.
“I know.”
“You wanted them to escape?”
“I wanted Dominic to believe he won.”
He opened a folder.
Inside was Mara's original divorce petition.
And beneath it, a DNA report.
May you like
Gideon tapped the page.
“Now we find out what he does when he learns the child isn't his.”
