Chapter 2 - The Secret Behind His Father's Desk
“IF YOU OPEN THAT DRAWER, DOMINIC, YOU'LL DESTROY EVERYTHING YOUR FATHER BUILT!”
Vanessa Sterling stood in the doorway of Antonio Moretti's private study, her face twisted with terror.
Dominic didn't turn around.
He was holding the tiny brass key that Emily Carter had nearly died protecting.
Six months.
His father had been dead for six months.
And tonight, for the first time, Dominic wondered whether Antonio Moretti had died knowing someone inside his own home was betraying him.
“Get out, Vanessa.”
“Please. You don't understand.”
“Then explain why my maid was locked in a freezing cellar.”
Vanessa swallowed.
“I told you. She stole from us.”
Dominic finally faced her.
“Emily wasn't even working here when those jewels disappeared.”
Vanessa's expression faltered.
Only for a second.
But Dominic saw it.
“That's impossible,” she whispered.
“Is it?”
He held up the confession.
“The inventory dates are right here. Every missing item was reported five months before Emily was hired.”
Vanessa opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Dominic stepped toward her.
“Who wrote this confession?”
“I did.”
“Who gave you permission to interrogate my employees?”
“Dominic—”
“WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO LOCK A WOMAN IN MY BASEMENT?”
Vanessa flinched.
For the first time in their two-year relationship, Dominic saw something in her eyes that he had never noticed before.
Not heartbreak.
Not guilt.
Calculation.
She was deciding which lie might still save her.
His phone vibrated.
A message from his security chief, Caleb Ross.
Ambulance departed. Emily conscious briefly during transport. Paramedics report severe hypothermia. Taking her to St. Catherine's.
Dominic read it twice.
Then he called Caleb.
“Put two men at the hospital. No one approaches Emily without my authorization, except medical staff and law enforcement.”
“Understood.”
“And Caleb?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Preserve every security recording from this house. Nobody touches the servers.”
Dominic glanced at Vanessa.
“Especially my fiancée.”
He ended the call.
Vanessa's eyes filled with tears.
“You're treating me like a criminal.”
Dominic looked at the brass key.
“I'm trying to find out whether you are one.”
He closed the study door between them.
Then he turned toward his father's desk.
It was a massive walnut piece Antonio had purchased forty years earlier.
Dominic remembered sitting beneath it as a little boy, playing with wooden soldiers while his father worked late into the night.
Antonio had always kept the right-hand drawer locked.
Even after Dominic became head of the family business, his father had never explained why.
Some things aren't yours to carry yet, son.
Those had been Antonio's words.
Dominic inserted the key.
It fit.
The lock clicked.
Inside lay three objects.
A sealed envelope.
A small black recording device.
And a photograph.
Dominic picked up the photograph first.
His father stood beside an unfamiliar woman outside a medical clinic.
The picture was dated eight months earlier.
Antonio looked thinner than Dominic remembered.
The woman was perhaps forty, with dark hair and frightened eyes.
On the back, in Antonio's handwriting, were five words.
Find her before they do.
Dominic frowned.
He had never seen the woman before.
He reached for the envelope.
His name was written across it.
Dominic.
The handwriting was unmistakably his father's.
He opened it.
Son,
If you're reading this, something has happened that I was unable to prevent.
There are things I should have told you while I was alive.
I thought keeping you ignorant would keep you safe.
I was wrong.
Dominic stopped reading.
His throat tightened.
He hadn't heard his father's voice in six months.
And now, somehow, Antonio was speaking to him from the grave.
He continued.
Do not trust the official account of the missing family jewelry.
Those pieces were never stolen.
I removed them myself.
Dominic's hand tightened around the letter.
They were payment for evidence that could expose someone close to you.
The evidence was delivered to me in September.
Before I could act, I discovered that the person I was investigating had access to my medication.
Dominic went completely still.
Medication.
His father had suffered from a heart condition for years.
His death certificate listed cardiac arrest.
Nothing suspicious.
Nothing unusual.
Or so Dominic had believed.
He looked at the next sentence.
If I die suddenly, ask Dr. Helen Brooks why she changed my prescription.
The study seemed to tilt.
Dr. Helen Brooks.
His father's longtime physician.
The same woman who had signed Antonio's death certificate.
Dominic reached for his phone.
Before he could dial, he heard a sound behind him.
A soft click.
The door.
Vanessa had entered again.
She stood beside the bookshelf, staring at the letter.
“What did you find?”
Dominic folded it.
“Nothing that concerns you.”
Vanessa's eyes shifted toward the open drawer.
Then toward the black recorder.
Her expression changed.
“Dominic.”
He watched her carefully.
“What?”
“Whatever your father left, you shouldn't listen to it.”
A cold silence settled between them.
Dominic slowly lifted the recorder.
“I never told you there was anything to listen to.”
Vanessa went pale.
He pressed the power button.
A tiny green light appeared.
One saved recording.
Dated three days before Antonio's death.
Dominic pressed play.
Static crackled through the study.
Then his father's voice emerged.
Weak.
Breathless.
But unmistakable.
“Dominic, if you're hearing this, I need you to understand something.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“Dad…”
The recording continued.
“I made a terrible mistake trusting someone I thought loved this family.”
A chair scraped in the background.
Then a woman's voice.
“Antonio, you promised you wouldn't tell him.”
Dominic opened his eyes.
Vanessa stood motionless.
The voice on the recording was hers.
Antonio spoke again.
“You've had enough chances.”
“Please,” Vanessa whispered on the recording.
“If Dominic finds out, he'll leave me.”
“He deserves the truth.”
A sharp sound followed.
Glass breaking.
Then Antonio cried out.
Dominic gripped the edge of the desk.
On the recording, Vanessa shouted:
“YOU SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE MONEY AND KEPT YOUR MOUTH SHUT!”
The recording ended abruptly.
For several seconds, Dominic couldn't move.
Then he looked at the woman standing in his father's study.
Vanessa was crying now.
Real tears.
But Dominic no longer knew what they meant.
“What happened that night?”
She shook her head.
“It's not what you think.”
“My father was threatening to expose you.”
“He misunderstood something.”
“What?”
Vanessa took a step backward.
Dominic raised the recorder.
“Why did he cry out?”
“I didn't hurt him!”
“Then what happened?”
“He dropped his glass!”
Dominic stared at her.
The recording hadn't established who broke the glass.
Yet Vanessa remembered exactly what had happened.
He stepped closer.
“Were you alone with him?”
She hesitated.
“No.”
Dominic's pulse quickened.
“Who else was there?”
Vanessa looked toward the door.
Then whispered something he barely heard.
“Your brother.”
Dominic froze.
For eleven years, the Moretti family had lived with one terrible truth.
Dominic's younger brother, Michael, had disappeared after a violent dispute involving a rival organization.
The police had found his burned car.
His wallet.
Blood on the driver's seat.
But never his body.
Antonio had eventually accepted that Michael was dead.
Dominic never had.
He stared at Vanessa.
“My brother is dead.”
She shook her head.
“That's what Antonio wanted you to believe.”
Dominic felt the room grow unbearably quiet.
“What are you saying?”
Vanessa's voice trembled.
“Michael was alive three days before your father died.”
Dominic took a step toward her.
“Where is he?”
Vanessa began to answer.
Then her phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
Her face went white.
Dominic caught a glimpse of the caller ID.
DR. HELEN BROOKS.
Vanessa declined the call.
Immediately, a text appeared.
Dominic saw the first line before she turned the screen away.
Did he find Antonio's recording?
He held out his hand.
“Give me the phone.”
Vanessa backed toward the door.
“Dominic, please.”
“Give it to me.”
Another message arrived.
This time, the notification was fully visible.
IF HE KNOWS ABOUT MICHAEL, EMILY CARTER CANNOT LEAVE THAT HOSPITAL.
Dominic stared at the screen.
Then he reached for his own phone.
“Caleb. Get to St. Catherine's. Now.”
“What's wrong?”
Dominic looked directly at Vanessa.
“Someone is going to try to kill Emily.”
Before Caleb could answer, a loud crash sounded through the phone.
A man's voice shouted in the background.
Then the connection went dead.
Dominic called again.
No answer.
He ran toward the door.
Behind him, Vanessa whispered:
“Dominic, wait.”
He stopped.
She was staring at the photograph of the unknown woman beside Antonio.
Her next words were barely audible.
“That woman isn't a witness.”
Dominic turned.
Vanessa looked as though she might collapse.
“She's Michael's wife.”
And for the first time in eleven years, Dominic realized his brother might not have disappeared because someone had killed him.
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He might have disappeared because someone inside the Moretti family wanted him erased.
END OF CHAPTER 2
