Chapter 7 - The Night My Father Died
“Yes,” Dominic said.
“His blood was in my car.”
My throat closed.
“Why?”
“Because I drove him to the hospital.”
“You told me he died at home.”
“That’s what the official report said.”
“Stop deciding which truth I can survive.”
The words echoed through the penthouse.
Dominic looked as if I had struck him.
Then he nodded.
“All of it.”
Six years earlier, my father had called Dominic at 1:13 a.m.
He had been poisoned but still conscious.
Dominic reached his apartment first.
Thomas refused an ambulance because he believed someone had compromised emergency dispatch.
Dominic drove him personally.
“He died before we reached the hospital.”
I stared at the floor.
“What did he say?”
Dominic’s voice broke slightly.
It was the first fracture I had ever heard in him.
“He made me promise you would never know what he had done for my family.”
I closed my eyes.
“And the missing page?”
“I tore it out.”
My eyes snapped open.
“Why?”
“Because it named you.”
I stopped breathing.
Dominic retrieved a safe from behind a painting.
Inside was the page.
He handed it to me.
There were no financial records.
Only a handwritten note.
Diana Bennett — emergency beneficiary.
My father had transferred ownership of twenty percent of Caruso Maritime into a trust.
For me.
“What?”
“Your father helped build the legitimate company. My father gave him equity off the books because acknowledging him publicly would have endangered him.”
“How much is it worth?”
Dominic hesitated.
“Approximately eighty-six million dollars.”
I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because my brain rejected the number.
“I have forty-three dollars in my checking account until payday.”
“Technically, you also own part of the building where you work.”
I stared at him.
“That was not helpful.”
“No.”
“Why hide it?”
“Because anyone who found out Thomas Bennett’s daughter controlled those shares would come looking.”
“They did anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Marcus?”
“I believe he discovered the trust.”
“And hired me?”
“Possibly to find the key.”
A terrible thought occurred.
“The laptop.”
Dominic nodded.
“Your father may have stored information on an old Caruso server. Your company laptop had legacy access.”
Suddenly Marcus’s kindness looked different.
The park.
The dinners.
The questions.
Had any of it been real?
I went to the address Marcus had given us anyway.
Dominic refused to let me go alone.
It was an abandoned church in Brooklyn.
Marcus sat in the front pew.
Blood stained his shirt.
A pistol rested beside him.
Dominic’s men stayed outside at my insistence.
Marcus looked at me.
“You came.”
“Tell me the truth.”
He laughed softly.
“Which one?”
“All of them.”
He looked at Dominic.
“Your boyfriend won’t enjoy this.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
Dominic’s expression remained stone.
Marcus smiled faintly.
“Not yet.”
Then he told me.
My father had paid him half a million dollars.
Not as blackmail.
To disappear.
Six years ago, Marcus had discovered Paolo had not been murdered by the Carusos.
He had found proof Enzo ordered it.
But Marcus had already spent years feeding information to the Vitellis in revenge.
When he tried to leave, Enzo threatened him.
Thomas paid Marcus enough to vanish.
Marcus took the money.
Then returned three years later.
“Why?”
Marcus looked ashamed.
“Because Enzo found my mother.”
The warmth I remembered in him suddenly seemed painfully human.
“He threatened her?”
Marcus nodded.
“So you became his man inside Dominic’s company.”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill my father?”
“No.”
“Did Enzo?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“Who poisoned Thomas?”
Marcus looked at him.
“Your father.”
Silence swallowed the church.
Dominic’s face changed.
“No.”
“Salvatore discovered Thomas was preparing to turn over the financial records to federal prosecutors.”
“My father was in Sicily.”
“His body was in Sicily. His order wasn’t.”
Dominic shook his head.
Marcus pulled a phone from his pocket.
“I have the recording.”
A man’s voice filled the church.
Older.
Italian-American.
Cold.
Dominic went pale.
Salvatore Caruso.
Thomas has forgotten who gave him a seat at the table. Handle it before he talks.
Then another voice.
Enzo.
Consider it handled.
The recording ended.
Dominic stared ahead.
His own father had authorized my father’s murder.
Enzo had carried it out.
Marcus looked at me.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to prove.”
“By using me?”
His eyes dropped.
“At first.”
My heart hurt.
“And later?”
He looked at me.
“Later was the mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“Falling for you.”
Dominic moved.
“Don’t.”
Marcus laughed.
“There he is.”
Then the church window exploded.
Dominic hit me before I heard the gunshot.
We fell behind the pew.
Marcus grabbed his weapon.
Another shot.
Wood splintered.
Dominic covered my body with his.
“Stay down.”
Outside, shouting erupted.
Marcus fired toward the balcony.
Then he jerked backward.
Blood spread across his shoulder.
“Marcus!”
Dominic dragged him behind cover.
Even after everything, he saved him.
Anthony’s men stormed the church.
The shooter fled.
Marcus was losing blood.
I pressed my hands against the wound.
His face turned gray.
He looked at Dominic.
“Enzo knows about the shares.”
Dominic nodded.
Marcus grabbed his sleeve.
“No. You don’t understand.”
His eyes moved to me.
“He doesn’t need Diana’s signature.”
“Why?”
Marcus swallowed painfully.
“Because Thomas created a second beneficiary.”
“Who?”
Marcus looked at Dominic.
“Your brother.”
Dominic froze.
“Matteo is dead.”
Marcus shook his head.
“No, Dom.”
May you like
Then his eyes closed.
“Matteo Caruso is alive.”
