Chapter 6 - The Wife’s Last Move
The vault had oxygen for six hours.
Victoria gave us twenty minutes.
A screen illuminated on the wall.
She appeared wearing white.
I had never hated a color before.
“Sign the custodial transfer,” she said, “and everyone leaves.”
Dominic stood beneath the camera.
“You’re Carlo’s daughter.”
Victoria smiled.
“So your mother finally crawled out of her grave.”
“You married me knowing.”
“I married you because you were the key to an empire my family built and yours stole.”
Vittoria stepped forward.
“Your grandfather stole it from thousands of people.”
Victoria’s expression changed.
“You don’t get to lecture me.”
I studied the document displayed on the screen.
Something was wrong.
Again.
Not a mistranslation this time.
A date.
I whispered to Dominic, “Keep her talking.”
He understood instantly.
“You spent eleven years married to me for a signature?”
Victoria laughed bitterly.
“Do you know what it’s like to sit beside a man who never truly sees you?”
Dominic said nothing.
Her anger grew.
“You respected enemies more than you respected me.”
“I trusted you.”
“No. You tolerated me.”
That landed.
Because it was partly true.
And for a moment, Victoria stopped being the villain in a red dress.
She became a woman who had allowed resentment to rot into cruelty.
That did not excuse what she had done.
But it explained why revenge had become easier than leaving.
I read the clause again.
There.
The agreement cited the 1954 instrument as amended in 1978.
The amendment in our hands was dated 1979.
They had drafted their transfer using the wrong version.
I almost laughed.
“What’s funny?” Victoria asked.
“Nothing.”
“Sign.”
“I will.”
Dominic turned sharply.
I gave him the smallest possible look.
Trust me.
I placed the document on the signature tablet.
“Casey,” Vittoria warned.
I signed.
Victoria smiled.
Then Dominic signed.
For five seconds, nothing happened.
Then an alarm began ringing somewhere outside the vault.
Victoria’s smile disappeared.
“What did you do?”
I held up the original amendment.
“You asked us to transfer authority under the 1978 amendment.”
“So?”
“There was no 1978 amendment.”
Her face changed.
“Your document is fraudulent on its face.”
“You signed it.”
“Exactly.”
Dominic understood.
“The signatures trigger the bank’s fraud review.”
Vittoria smiled.
“Clever girl.”
The vault door unlocked automatically.
Swiss banking security flooded the corridor.
Victoria vanished from the screen.
Carlo escaped before police reached the building.
Victoria did not.
She was arrested at the private terminal two hours later.
But she had one final weapon.
Before her arrest, she released thousands of Russo financial records to journalists and federal authorities.
By the time Dominic and I returned to New York, his empire was collapsing.
Stocks in his legitimate companies plunged.
Banks froze accounts.
Federal investigators raided offices.
Men who had called Dominic “brother” stopped answering phones.
He lost nearly half his fortune in seventy-two hours.
And strangely, that was when I began to understand him.
Dominic didn’t panic.
He didn’t order revenge.
He sold assets.
Paid employees.
Closed shell companies.
Turned over records.
For three weeks, I watched a mafia boss systematically destroy the mafia part of his own life.
One evening, I found him alone in his office.
The city glowed beneath us.
“You could run,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Because I’m tired.”
He looked older.
Not weak.
Human.
“My father taught me that power protects family. Then I spent twenty years watching power destroy everyone close enough to touch it.”
He looked at me.
“I don’t want it anymore.”
“What do you want?”
His eyes held mine.
“That answer would make you leave.”
“Try me.”
“You.”
My heart stopped.
Dominic didn’t move closer.
“I know the timing is terrible.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“I know you don’t trust my world.”
“I hate your world.”
“So do I.”
“You’re still married.”
“Temporarily.”
“My mother thinks you’re handsome.”
He blinked.
“That seems irrelevant.”
“It’s extremely relevant. She’s become unbearable.”
He laughed.
It was the first real laugh I had heard from him.
I smiled despite myself.
Then his phone rang.
His expression changed as he listened.
“What?”
He put the call on speaker.
A federal investigator spoke.
“We found Carlo Ventresca.”
“Where?”
“Ohio.”
My smile vanished.
The investigator continued.
“Near Mary Miller’s treatment center.”
I was already reaching for my coat.
May you like
Then he said the words that stopped my heart.
“Ms. Miller is missing.”
