Chapter 4 - THE MAN WHO SENT ME AWAY
Dominic insisted on sending two security officers to my apartment.
I refused to let them inside.
“I don't want armed men standing in my kitchen while my daughter eats cereal.”
“They won't come inside,” he said. “They'll stay downstairs.”
“I'm not asking for permission.”
He studied me for a moment.
Then he nodded.
“Downstairs.”
It was the first time he had accepted a boundary without challenging it.
Lily fell asleep on the bus ride home, clutching the bag containing her red dress. I carried her upstairs, tucked her into bed, and stood beside her until her breathing became steady.
When I returned to the living room, Dominic was waiting outside the building.
He had dismissed his driver and stood beneath the weak light of the entrance, looking like a man who had forgotten what it meant to be helpless.
I stepped outside.
“Five minutes,” I reminded him.
“I remember.”
“Then tell me why you thought I abandoned you.”
He looked at the sidewalk.
“Six years ago, I was preparing to leave Chicago for a few weeks. My family was involved in a dispute, and I didn't want you caught in it.”
“You told me you loved me.”
“I did.”
“You told me we'd build a life together.”
“I meant it.”
“Then you disappeared.”
His face tightened.
“My brother, Anthony, told me you had accepted money from a rival family. He showed me messages that appeared to come from you. They said you were leaving because I couldn't give you the life you wanted.”
I stared at him.
“What messages?”
“I have copies.”
“Show me.”
He pulled out his phone.
The texts were unmistakable.
They used my name. They mentioned private conversations between us. One referred to a silver necklace I had worn the night we met.
But the words were not mine.
“I never sent these.”
“I know that now.”
“You believed your brother over me?”
Dominic's silence answered.
I stepped backward.
“Then you never knew me at all.”
“I was twenty-nine and convinced everyone around me was trying to manipulate me. Anthony said he was protecting the family.”
“And you let him destroy ours.”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The honesty disarmed me.
For years, I had imagined that Dominic would deny everything, blame me, or tell me that the past was too complicated to discuss.
Instead, he stood in the cold and accepted the worst of what I said.
“I waited for you,” I whispered. “For weeks, I thought you were hurt. Then I thought you were angry. When I finally went to your house, Anthony told me you never wanted to see me again.”
Dominic's head snapped up.
“You went to the house?”
“Of course I did.”
“What did he say?”
“That you had moved on. That you were engaged to someone from a wealthy family. That you had laughed when he told you I was asking for you.”
Dominic looked as though I had struck him.
“I never got engaged.”
“I know that now.”
He gripped the railing.
“Anthony told me you had left Chicago. He said you were safe.”
“I was pregnant.”
The words fell between us.
Dominic's face drained of color.
“When did you find out?”
“Two weeks after I went to your house.”
“Why didn't you call me?”
I laughed bitterly.
“I did. Your number was disconnected. I wrote to you. The letters came back. I went to your office, and security told me I wasn't welcome.”
Dominic looked down at his hands.
“I never saw any letters.”
“Neither did I see the woman you supposedly chose over me.”
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then Dominic asked quietly, “Where is Anthony now?”
“Your brother?”
“Yes.”
“I don't know. I never wanted to hear his name again.”
Dominic looked toward the street.
“Anthony died five years ago.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Car accident outside Milwaukee. At least, that's what we were told.”
The world seemed to tilt.
The man who had driven us apart was dead. The man I had loved had spent years believing I had betrayed him. And our daughter had grown up without knowing her father.
“Why are you telling me this now?” I whispered.
“Because the message you received today used a phrase Anthony used to say.”
My stomach tightened.
“What phrase?”
“Stay away from the Morettis.”
I remembered the words on the screen.
Dominic took a breath.
“Anthony said it to me the night he showed me those messages. He said you'd eventually come back and try to use me.”
“That's what he believed?”
“That's what he wanted me to believe.”
My phone rang.
A hospital number.
I answered immediately.
A nurse informed me that my mother had been brought into the emergency department after collapsing at home.
I barely heard the rest.
Dominic took one look at my face.
“What happened?”
“Mom's in the hospital.”
He opened the passenger door of his car.
“Get in.”
I hesitated.
“I can take a cab.”
“Elena, please. Let me do this much.”
I looked at him.
Then I climbed inside.
As the car pulled away, Dominic's phone buzzed with a message from his security chief.
He read it once.
His face changed.
“What?” I demanded.
He turned the screen toward me.
A photograph showed the entrance to my mother's apartment building.
A man stood beside the door.
I recognized him immediately.
May you like
Anthony Moretti.
The brother Dominic had buried five years earlier.
