Chapter 4
Domenico felt as though the floor had moved beneath him.
Elena had been driving to meet Valentina.
Not Sofia.
Not Matteo.
Valentina.
His current wife.
The woman who had entered his life after Elena’s funeral.
The woman who had stood beside him through grief.
The woman who had eventually taken Elena’s place at his table.
“What did she want from you?” Domenico asked.
Valentina’s back pressed against the concrete wall.
“She wanted information.”
“About what?”
“The foundation.”
Matteo laughed quietly.
Valentina glared at him.
“You don’t know everything.”
“I know enough.”
Domenico pointed at Matteo.
“Quiet.”
Matteo raised his hands.
Domenico turned back to Valentina.
“Talk.”
Valentina wiped tears from her cheeks.
“Elena had discovered missing money. Millions were passing through charities that didn’t exist. She knew Marcus had done courier work for some of the shell companies.”
Marcus stared.
“You told her about me?”
“She already knew.”
“You swore my name never came up.”
“She knew everything.”
Domenico’s anger sharpened.
“And you?”
“I had access to foundation donor records. Elena came to me privately. She wanted copies.”
“Why trust you?”
Valentina laughed bitterly.
“She didn’t.”
That answer surprised him.
“She threatened me.”
Ruby looked up.
“With what?”
Valentina looked at her.
“Your mother knew Marcus had been laundering money for people connected to the foundation. She told me I could help her expose them or watch my brother go to prison.”
Marcus stepped closer.
“So you set her up.”
“No.”
“You put her on that road.”
“I agreed to meet her.”
“Then what?”
Valentina looked at Domenico.
“I received another call before she arrived.”
“From who?”
“I didn’t know then.”
“Now?”
Valentina looked toward Matteo.
“Carlo.”
Domenico stared.
“My father called you.”
“Yes.”
“You had never met him.”
“I thought he was dead.”
“What did he say?”
“He knew Elena was meeting me. He knew exactly where.”
Matteo’s jaw tightened.
Valentina continued.
“He told me if I gave Elena the documents, Marcus would be killed.”
Marcus stopped breathing.
“He said that?”
“Yes.”
“You never told me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
Marcus laughed in disbelief.
“You married the man whose wife died because you were protecting me?”
Valentina flinched.
“That wasn’t why.”
“Then why?”
She could not answer.
Domenico did not need one.
Not yet.
“What happened on the road?”
Valentina inhaled shakily.
“I drove to the meeting point. I wanted to warn Elena.”
“Why were you ahead of her?”
“I was trying to reach the abandoned gas station before she did.”
Matteo interrupted.
“That part is true.”
Domenico looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“I was listening to Carlo’s people.”
“You were working for him.”
“I was pretending.”
“For thirty years?”
Matteo’s eyes hardened.
“You know nothing about what I was doing.”
“You let us bury you.”
“I was twenty-three and Dad told me Sofia would die if I came home.”
Sofia.
Always Sofia.
Carlo had apparently built his empire by turning his children into hostages.
Domenico looked back at Valentina.
“What happened next?”
“Elena passed me.”
“Passed you?”
“She was driving too fast. I tried calling her. She didn’t answer. Then her car started swerving.”
“The brakes.”
“Yes.”
Valentina’s voice broke.
“I saw the crash.”
Marcus looked confused.
“You told me you arrived after.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw someone else stop before you reached the embankment.”
“The dark sedan?”
Valentina nodded.
“A woman got out.”
“Sofia?” Ruby asked.
“No.”
Matteo’s expression became grim.
Domenico noticed.
“You know who.”
Matteo did not respond.
Domenico grabbed his coat.
“Who was it?”
Matteo stared back.
“Our mother.”
Silence.
Even the security team looked stunned.
Domenico released him.
“No.”
“I saw her.”
“You were there too?”
“Yes.”
“How many people were following my wife that night?”
“Too many.”
Domenico wanted to hit something.
Instead he stepped backward.
“My mother was locked in Switzerland.”
“Not continuously,” Matteo said. “Carlo moved her when he needed her.”
“Needed her for what?”
“To control us.”
Domenico stared.
Matteo’s voice lowered.
“Mom was sick after the villa fire. Not before it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Dad made her sick.”
Ruby pressed closer to Domenico.
Matteo continued.
“He kept her medicated. Confused. Dependent. Sometimes he convinced her we were in danger. Sometimes he convinced her we were dead.”
Domenico felt physically ill.
“Why was she at Elena’s crash?”
“Carlo brought her.”
“For what?”
Matteo looked toward Valentina.
“Because Carlo wanted witnesses who would tell different stories.”
Domenico understood.
Marcus saw one thing.
Valentina saw another.
Matteo another.
Isabella, unstable and medicated, became the perfect source of confusion.
“What did Mom do?”
Matteo answered carefully.
“She climbed down to Elena’s car.”
Ruby’s chin trembled.
“To help her?”
“Yes.”
Domenico closed his eyes.
A breath left him.
Then Matteo added, “But someone stopped her.”
Domenico opened his eyes.
“Who?”
Matteo looked down the corridor.
A distant mechanical sound echoed.
The elevator.
Someone was descending.
Security turned.
Weapons raised.
Matteo’s expression changed.
“We need to move.”
“You called someone?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“The person who has been trying to get into this vault for six years.”
The elevator bell rang.
Doors opened.
Empty.
Nobody emerged.
One guard approached.
“Clear.”
Then something rolled from the elevator floor.
A small metal cylinder.
“Gas!”
Security grabbed Ruby.
Domenico covered her face with his jacket.
White vapor burst through the corridor.
Matteo kicked open a maintenance door.
“This way!”
They ran.
Valentina stumbled.
Marcus pulled her upright.
Behind them, guards coughed and shouted.
The maintenance passage climbed through narrow concrete stairs.
Domenico carried Ruby.
She buried her face against his shoulder.
“Dad, I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“Are we going to die?”
“No.”
He said it with absolute conviction despite having no idea whether it was true.
They reached another steel door.
Matteo entered a code.
It opened into an alley behind the bank.
Two black SUVs waited.
Domenico stopped.
“You planned this.”
“I planned an exit.”
“You knew we’d come.”
“I knew Elena left you a path.”
“Where is Sofia?”
“Get in.”
“No.”
Matteo faced him.
“If you want Sofia alive, get in.”
Domenico looked at his security team emerging behind them.
Three were coughing badly.
The rest spread across the alley.
A distant siren sounded.
Matteo stepped into the SUV.
Domenico turned to his chief.
“Track us.”
“Sir—”
“From a distance.”
The chief nodded reluctantly.
Domenico put Ruby in the SUV.
Valentina followed.
Marcus hesitated.
“You trust him?”
Domenico looked at his supposedly dead brother.
“No.”
“Great.”
Marcus climbed in.
The SUV pulled away.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
Matteo drove.
Domenico sat directly behind him.
“If you make one wrong turn—”
“You’ll kill me?”
Matteo glanced at the mirror.
“You’ve been wanting to say that since you saw me.”
Domenico’s voice stayed flat.
“I don’t know you well enough to want anything.”
That hurt.
Matteo’s face showed it.
Good.
Ruby broke the silence.
“Did you know my mom?”
Matteo looked at her through the mirror.
“Yes.”
“Did she know you were alive?”
“Yes.”
“Did Dad?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Matteo glanced at Domenico.
“Because your mother didn’t trust him yet.”
Domenico looked out the window.
Valentina whispered, “That’s cruel.”
Matteo laughed.
“You’re giving lessons on cruelty?”
Valentina fell silent.
Ruby persisted.
“Why didn’t Mom trust Dad?”
Matteo’s answer came more gently.
“She loved him. But loving someone and trusting what they’ll do under pressure aren’t always the same.”
Domenico swallowed.
Elena had asked him to leave the Vittori company.
He refused.
She had asked him to investigate his father’s old accounts.
He refused.
She told him Sofia was afraid.
He called it sibling drama.
Every warning he dismissed now stood around him like ghosts.
The SUV turned north.
Domenico recognized the route.
“The winery.”
“Yes.”
“You said Sofia is there.”
“She was.”
“Was?”
Matteo’s hands tightened on the wheel.
“The video was recorded three hours ago.”
Domenico leaned forward.
“You showed me old footage?”
“I showed you proof she was alive.”
“Three hours ago.”
“Yes.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”
Domenico grabbed Matteo’s shoulder.
The SUV swerved.
Ruby screamed.
“Dad!”
Domenico released him.
Matteo regained control.
“If you cause a crash, Nico, we repeat history in the stupidest possible way.”
“Don’t call me Nico.”
Matteo’s jaw clenched.
They reached the winery twenty minutes later.
The iron gates stood open.
That was wrong.
Matteo killed the headlights.
“Stay behind me.”
Domenico laughed quietly.
“You disappear for thirty years and now you give orders?”
“I know the building.”
“So do I.”
“Not the parts Dad built underground.”
Domenico stared.
“Of course there are underground rooms.”
Marcus muttered, “Your family needs a therapist and fewer basements.”
Nobody disagreed.
They entered through the loading dock.
The winery smelled of dust and old oak.
Rows of empty barrels stretched into darkness.
Ruby held Domenico’s hand.
Valentina stayed close.
Matteo stopped near the old tasting room.
A chair stood in the center.
Ropes on the floor.
Sofia’s chair.
Empty.
Domenico walked toward it.
There was blood on one rope.
Not much.
But enough.
Ruby turned away.
Domenico lifted a folded card from the chair.
His name was written on it.
He opened it.
YOU WERE ALWAYS THE SLOWEST SON.
Domenico’s face hardened.
Carlo.
He knew that voice even in writing.
Matteo looked over his shoulder.
“He’s here.”
Domenico stared at him.
“Our father?”
“Yes.”
“You said he was alive.”
“I never said he was far away.”
A sound came from the balcony above the tasting room.
Slow footsteps.
Ruby looked up.
Domenico pushed her behind him.
An old man appeared behind the railing.
White hair.
Thin shoulders.
A cane in one hand.
But the posture was unmistakable.
Carlo Vittori.
Domenico’s dead father looked down at his children.
His face showed no surprise.
No love.
Only disappointment.
“Matteo,” Carlo said.
“You brought him.”
Matteo raised a pistol.
Carlo smiled.
“You still point guns when you feel powerless.”
Domenico could barely breathe.
“You killed Elena.”
Carlo’s eyes moved toward him.
“My second son.”
“Answer me.”
Carlo’s gaze shifted to Ruby.
“And Elena’s little insurance policy.”
Domenico stepped forward.
“Look at her again and I’ll come up there.”
Carlo chuckled.
“You finally learned to sound like a father.”
Ruby whispered, “Grandpa?”
Carlo looked at her.
“Yes, child.”
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
“Many people are supposed to be many things.”
“Did you hurt my mom?”
For the first time, Carlo’s smile faded.
“No.”
Domenico shouted, “Don’t lie to her!”
“I didn’t touch Elena’s brakes.”
“Your people did.”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Carlo looked toward Valentina.
Then Marcus.
Then Matteo.
Finally back to Domenico.
“I spent my life cleaning your mistakes.”
Domenico stepped toward the stairs.
Matteo stopped him.
Carlo tapped his cane against the floor.
“Elena’s mistake was discovering the truth too early.”
“What truth?”
Carlo smiled faintly.
“That the Vittori fortune never belonged to me.”
Domenico stared.
Carlo continued.
“It belonged to your mother.”
Matteo froze.
“What?”
Carlo looked amused.
“You really never figured it out?”
Domenico’s mind raced.
Isabella came from an old banking family.
Her inheritance had funded the earliest Vittori acquisitions.
But Domenico had always been told Carlo built the empire.
Carlo leaned against the railing.
“Isabella owned sixty-eight percent of everything when we married.”
Ruby whispered, “Then why did you lock her away?”
Carlo’s eyes hardened.
The child had asked the question none of the adults wanted to say aloud.
“Because she tried to take it back.”
Domenico started up the stairs.
“Where is she?”
Carlo smiled.
“Closer than you think.”
A door opened behind him.
Someone stepped onto the balcony.
Silver hair.
Thin face.
A trembling hand gripping the doorframe.
Domenico stopped halfway up the staircase.
The woman stared down.
Her eyes found him.
She made one broken sound.
“Nico?”
May you like
Domenico’s legs nearly gave way.
His mother was alive.
