Chapter 5 - The Son Who Never Forgave
Dominic did not sleep.
Neither did Norah.
Frank had been in the Moretti household longer than almost anyone.
He had escorted Dominic to school.
Protected him at public events.
Sat outside hospital rooms.
Managed security for the estate.
He had also been the person who warned Norah not to take Salvatore’s cruelty personally on her first day.
Dominic trusted him.
Maybe more than anyone.
That made the recording worse.
“What exactly did Frank say?” Norah asked.
They sat in Dominic’s private study shortly after one in the morning.
Salvatore had finally fallen asleep upstairs under the supervision of another nurse Dominic personally selected.
Dominic stared at the cassette player he had brought back from the retired attorney’s house.
“Not much.”
“Play it.”
His gaze moved to her.
“You don’t need to hear this.”
“You told me Frank is on it.”
“That doesn’t make it your problem.”
Norah leaned back.
“We’re past that.”
Dominic looked exhausted.
Then he pressed play.
Static filled the room.
A click.
A man’s voice emerged.
Pietro.
Sharp.
Agitated.
“You’ve lost your mind over that woman.”
Then Salvatore, much younger.
“If Elena leaves this house, she leaves with me and Dominic.”
Pietro laughed.
“You think the Commission will let you walk?”
“I’m not asking.”
Another voice.
Paolo.
“What happens to the crews?”
“Legitimate holdings stay. Everything else gets divided.”
Pietro swore.
Then:
“You built this family.”
Salvatore answered.
“And I decide when I’m finished.”
The recording crackled.
Elena’s voice appeared faintly from somewhere farther away.
“Salvatore.”
He responded in Italian.
She answered.
Then louder:
“Basta con il sangue.”
Enough with the blood.
Norah felt goose bumps rise along her arms.
The tape continued.
A door closed.
Pietro’s voice changed.
Cold now.
“If she gets you out, everything collapses.”
Paolo murmured something.
Then Frank’s younger voice.
“Mr. Moretti, Mrs. Moretti’s car is ready.”
Salvatore said, “Frank, take Dominic upstairs.”
Pietro added, “Yes, Frank. Take the boy.”
Then another door.
Several seconds of silence.
Pietro again.
“If she drives tonight, she doesn’t reach the highway.”
Salvatore exploded.
“You touch her and I will bury you.”
A crash.
Then the recording ended.
Norah looked at Dominic.
“That doesn’t prove Frank knew.”
“He was there.”
“He left before the threat.”
“Maybe.”
Dominic rubbed a hand over his face.
“But he lied.”
“About what?”
“He told investigators he wasn’t in the house that night.”
That was different.
“Did police investigate?”
Dominic laughed without humor.
“Police asked questions. Pietro answered them.”
Which meant there had never been a real investigation.
Norah looked toward the ceiling as though she could see Salvatore through two floors.
“Maybe your father knows why Frank lied.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“You’re very determined to defend everyone.”
“I’m determined not to decide guilt based on one piece of a twenty-eight-year-old recording.”
“I did that once.”
The words came quietly.
Norah looked at him.
Dominic sat back.
For the first time, he seemed less like the man who controlled rooms and more like the child who had lost his mother.
“When she died, my father didn’t come to me.”
Norah waited.
“He disappeared for three days.”
“Where?”
“I never knew.”
“When he returned, he wouldn’t speak about her.”
Dominic stared at the desk.
“The funeral was full of men in dark suits. Everyone kept touching my head and telling me to be strong.”
He laughed bitterly.
“I was seven.”
Norah felt something twist inside her.
“Then Pietro began visiting me.”
She already knew where this was going.
“He said my father had chosen the business over my mother.”
Dominic’s voice grew colder.
“He told me she had begged Salvatore to leave. That my father refused.”
“But the tape proves the opposite.”
“Yes.”
“He manipulated you.”
“For years.”
Dominic looked toward the dark window.
“When I was ten, my father sent me to Switzerland.”
“You thought he wanted you gone.”
“I thought he couldn’t stand looking at me because I reminded him of her.”
Salvatore’s message returned to Norah.
NOT ME.
He had spent almost three decades trying to carry a truth he could no longer speak after the stroke.
“Maybe he sent you away because Pietro was dangerous.”
Dominic looked at her.
The possibility had clearly occurred to him.
He hated it.
Not because it sounded impossible.
Because it sounded believable.
“If that’s true,” Dominic whispered, “then every reason I had for hating him…”
“Not every reason.”
Dominic frowned.
Norah continued.
“Protecting you doesn’t excuse sending a child away without explaining. It doesn’t excuse becoming cold. It doesn’t erase whatever else he did.”
Dominic studied her.
“You’re not trying to make him innocent.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because people aren’t that simple.”
For a while neither spoke.
Then Dominic asked, “Why hospice?”
Norah blinked.
“What?”
“You could have worked emergency. Surgery. Pediatrics.”
“Those all require patients who throw fewer water pitchers?”
He almost smiled.
She sighed.
“My mother died when I was nineteen.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She had ovarian cancer. The last six months were bad.”
Norah stared at her hands.
“A hospice nurse named Teresa treated her like she was still a person when everyone else had begun treating her like a diagnosis.”
Dominic listened.
“She taught me that dignity matters most when a person starts losing everything else.”
Norah looked at him.
“That’s why I don’t let your father terrorize me. And it’s why I don’t let anyone treat him like furniture.”
Dominic’s gaze softened.
“So this is personal.”
“Most important things are.”
A soft knock interrupted them.
Both turned.
Frank stood in the doorway.
Dominic’s face instantly changed.
The man disappeared.
The boss returned.
“Need something?”
Frank looked between them.
“Security found the entry point.”
Dominic remained seated.
“And?”
“Someone cut the sensor wire near the east wall.”
“When?”
“Sometime yesterday afternoon.”
“You were supervising security.”
Frank did not flinch.
“Yes.”
Dominic let silence work.
Frank’s eyes narrowed.
“What’s wrong?”
Norah wondered whether he could feel suspicion in the room.
Dominic rose.
“Come in.”
Frank stepped inside.
Dominic closed the door behind him.
Then placed the old photograph on the desk.
Frank looked down.
His face changed.
“Where did you get that?”
“My father.”
Frank looked at Norah.
Dominic saw it.
“Why?”
Frank returned his attention to Dominic.
“Why what?”
“Why did that photograph frighten you?”
“It didn’t.”
“You’ve worked for my family thirty-one years. Don’t insult me.”
Frank’s jaw flexed.
Dominic placed the cassette beside the photograph.
This time Frank went pale.
Silence.
Norah could hear the antique clock ticking.
Dominic spoke softly.
“You were there.”
Frank closed his eyes.
“When?”
“The night my mother died.”
Frank’s shoulders sagged.
It was the first time Norah had seen the massive man look old.
“I was nineteen.”
“You lied to the police.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Frank looked at Dominic.
“Because Pietro told me if I said I’d been inside the house, he would kill my father.”
Dominic’s face remained hard.
“Did you know what he planned?”
“No.”
“Did you help him?”
“No.”
“Did you help Paolo?”
Frank shook his head immediately.
“No.”
Dominic moved closer.
“Then why did my father never tell me you were there?”
Frank’s eyes shifted toward the floor.
“Because Salvatore didn’t trust me afterward.”
“Why?”
Frank swallowed.
“Because I did something worse than lie.”
Norah felt the room tighten.
Frank reached inside his jacket.
Dominic’s hand instantly moved beneath his own.
But Frank removed no weapon.
He removed a folded photograph.
He placed it on the desk.
It showed a wrecked sedan on a dark road.
On the back was a handwritten date.
The night Elena died.
“I followed her car,” Frank said.
Dominic’s face drained of color.
“Why?”
“Your father told me to.”
The revelation struck like thunder.
“He knew something was wrong,” Frank continued. “He sent me after her.”
Dominic barely breathed.
“I got there three minutes after the crash.”
His voice broke.
“She was alive.”
Norah stared.
Dominic stepped backward.
“My mother survived the crash?”
“For a few minutes.”
“Then why—”
Frank’s eyes filled.
“Because Paolo got there before the ambulance.”
Silence.
Dominic looked physically ill.
“What did he do?”
Frank’s voice dropped.
“He stopped me from helping her.”
Dominic lunged forward.
Norah caught his arm.
“Dominic.”
Frank did not retreat.
“He had two men with him. I was nineteen. I was scared.”
“You left her?”
“No.”
Tears stood in Frank’s eyes now.
“I fought them long enough to reach her.”
His hand shook.
“She gave me something.”
Frank reached beneath his shirt.
A small chain hung around his neck.
On it was a tiny brass key.
“She said one sentence.”
Dominic’s entire body went still.
“What?”
Frank looked directly at him.
“She said, ‘Give this to my son when Salvatore is finally ready to tell him the truth.’”
Dominic stared at the key.
For twenty-eight years, Frank had worn the final message of Elena Moretti around his neck.
And the key opened something Salvatore had been too afraid to show his son.
Something hidden outside the mansion.
May you like
Something Pietro and Paolo had spent decades trying to find.
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