Chapter 5 - My Sister’s Secret
I called Rachel seventeen times.
No answer.
By the eighteenth, Dominic took my phone.
“That’s enough.”
“Give it back.”
“You’re telling whoever has her that we know.”
“You don’t know anyone has her.”
“Neither do you.”
“She’s my sister.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
My voice broke.
Dominic’s expression softened.
“My brother died when I was twenty-seven.”
I stopped.
He had never mentioned a brother.
“Matteo was twenty-two. He thought our last name made him untouchable.”
Dominic looked toward the windows.
“It didn’t.”
“What happened?”
“Wrong car. Wrong night. Bomb under the chassis.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
He handed my phone back.
“That is why I need you to think before you move.”
We found Rachel at my apartment.
Alive.
Terrified.
Packing.
The moment she saw Dominic, she backed against the wall.
“No.”
I ran to her.
“Rachel, what did you do?”
She started crying.
“I didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
“That anyone would die.”
Dominic closed the door.
Rachel looked at him.
“You have to believe me.”
“Then give me something worth believing.”
I glared.
“Dominic.”
He stepped back.
Rachel explained.
Six months earlier, she had accumulated nearly $90,000 in debt after our mother’s old house developed structural problems and insurance refused most of the claim.
She had hidden it from me because she knew I was already working constantly.
Then a consultant named Edward Lane approached her.
He claimed to work for an investment firm conducting due diligence on Caruso Holdings.
All Rachel had to do was answer questions about my schedule.
Nothing confidential, she thought.
When did I usually leave?
Did I work weekends?
Did Dominic travel?
Then the questions changed.
Passwords.
Deliveries.
Names.
Rachel refused.
That was when the photographs arrived.
Pictures of me walking home.
Pictures of Rachel outside her apartment.
A photograph of our mother’s nursing facility.
“They said they’d hurt Mom.”
I felt sick.
“The seventy-five thousand?”
“They deposited it after I gave them your old laptop.”
My heart stopped.
“What laptop?”
“The one you gave me last year.”
I had forgotten.
My previous company-issued laptop had suffered a damaged screen. IT wiped it—or claimed to—and released it for disposal.
I had asked whether I could keep it after the drive was removed.
Rachel used it for streaming.
Except apparently the drive had not been removed.
“Who took it?”
Rachel whispered, “Marcus.”
Dominic became perfectly still.
“What?”
“He came to me three weeks ago. He said he knew I was in trouble. He said he could make the threats stop if I gave him the computer.”
I sat down.
“No.”
“He told me not to tell you.”
Dominic’s eyes closed briefly.
Marcus had known.
Maybe not everything.
But enough.
My phone rang.
Marcus.
Dominic looked at me.
“Answer.”
I put it on speaker.
“Diana?”
“Where are you?”
A pause.
“With people who don’t particularly like Dominic.”
My chest tightened.
“Did you take my laptop from Rachel?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the Vitellis were going to take it.”
“You should have told me.”
“I couldn’t.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I was trying to find who inside Caruso’s company had been feeding them information.”
Dominic spoke.
“You could have brought it to me.”
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“And trust you?”
“Yes.”
“Paolo trusted your family.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
I interrupted.
“Marcus, where is the laptop?”
Silence.
“Gone.”
“What does that mean?”
“Enzo has it.”
Rachel covered her mouth.
I felt cold everywhere.
“How?”
“He took it from me.”
“You gave it to him?”
“No.”
Marcus’s breathing sounded strange.
Then I heard it.
A second voice in the background.
Enzo.
“Tell her the rest.”
Marcus went silent.
A sound followed.
A blow.
I flinched.
“Marcus?”
Enzo came onto the line.
“Ms. Bennett.”
Dominic reached for another phone, silently signaling Anthony to trace the call.
“You have something I want,” Enzo said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You do. You just haven’t realized it yet.”
“What?”
“Eighteen months ago, Dominic Caruso hired you personally. No recruitment agency. No second interview.”
I looked at Dominic.
That was true.
Enzo continued.
“Ask him why.”
The call ended.
I stared at Dominic.
“Why?”
He said nothing.
“Why did you hire me?”
Rachel looked between us.
Dominic’s silence became an answer before he spoke.
“Your father.”
I felt the floor shift beneath me.
“My father died six years ago.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because I was at his funeral.”
I stared at him.
“No, you weren’t.”
“Yes.”
“I would remember you.”
“You didn’t know me then.”
“Why were you there?”
Dominic removed his wallet.
From behind his license, he took a folded piece of paper worn soft at the edges.
He placed it in my hand.
My father’s handwriting.
I knew it instantly.
If anything happens to me, keep Diana away from Caruso business. She deserves a life outside this.
My vision blurred.
“What is this?”
Dominic’s voice was quiet.
“Your father worked for mine.”
“No.”
“For nineteen years.”
“He was an accountant.”
“Yes.”
“For a shipping company.”
“Caruso Maritime.”
I sat down hard.
The company name had changed before I was old enough to notice.
“My father knew you?”
“He saved my life.”
Dominic looked at me.
“And six years later, when your résumé crossed my desk, I broke the only promise I ever made him.”
“Why?”
For once, Dominic Caruso looked afraid of an answer.
“Because someone had already marked your application before it reached me.”
“Who?”
May you like
He looked at the phone Marcus had called.
“Marcus.”
