Chapter 5 - The Man Standing Beside Dominic
His name was Luca Ferraro.
For eleven years, he had protected Dominic Rossi.
He had driven Isabella.
Guarded family meetings.
Stayed inside Dominic’s homes.
Known his schedules.
Known his safe houses.
Known where I was being moved.
Which explained everything.
The attack at the hospital.
The leaked photograph.
Victor knowing about my pendant.
Dominic stared at Luca’s photograph on Enzo’s phone.
“No.”
Enzo said nothing.
“You’re certain?”
“We checked camera records. Communications. Financial transfers.”
“How long?”
“Probably three years.”
Dominic walked away.
I watched the strongest man I had ever met discover that loyalty could be counterfeit.
He didn’t shout.
That would have been easier.
He simply became quiet.
Dangerously quiet.
We returned to St. Catherine.
My mother had been abandoned outside the emergency entrance.
Bruised.
Dehydrated.
Alive.
When I entered her room, she cried.
I crawled carefully onto the bed beside her despite my own wounds.
For several minutes, we held each other.
“I’m sorry,” she kept whispering.
I didn’t tell her it was okay.
Not yet.
Because it wasn’t.
But she was alive.
That was enough for the moment.
Later, when we were alone, I showed her Gabriel’s letter.
Her hand shook.
“I never knew.”
“You knew the cipher.”
“I didn’t know it was a cipher.”
“What did Gabriel give you?”
She closed her eyes.
“A poem.”
“A poem?”
“He wrote it before he died.”
She recited it from memory.
The words seemed sentimental.
Until Enzo compared them to the ledger.
Every first letter corresponded to a banking institution.
Every line length represented account codes.
Within two hours, they unlocked the records.
The ledger was devastating.
Carlo Rossi had bribed officials.
Ordered killings.
Moved money.
But he wasn’t alone.
Victor Costa appeared throughout the pages.
So did businessmen whose names still appeared in newspapers.
Judges.
A senator.
Two police commissioners.
And then Dominic found something unexpected.
A payment made twenty-six years earlier.
To Victor Costa.
Three days before Gabriel disappeared.
I looked at my mother.
“What does that mean?”
She went pale.
Dominic answered.
“Victor helped my father find Gabriel.”
My mother shook her head.
“No.”
“Ellen.”
“No.”
“Victor sold Gabriel out.”
She began crying.
All those years she had believed her brother hated Carlo.
Believed Victor wanted revenge for Gabriel and Matteo.
The ledger showed the truth.
Victor had helped create the tragedy he spent decades blaming on the Rossis.
But there was another entry.
A later payment.
Carlo Rossi to Luca Ferraro Senior.
Enzo frowned.
“Luca’s father.”
“For what?” I asked.
Dominic read the notation.
“Cleanup after Matteo.”
The room became silent.
Luca’s father had helped murder Matteo.
And Luca had grown up serving Dominic.
Why?
Revenge?
Opportunity?
Or had the betrayal passed from father to son?
We didn’t have time to wonder.
A message arrived.
Video.
Victor appeared on screen.
He was sitting in an elegant room.
“Clara,” he said. “By now you know your father died because powerful men wanted his records. You also know Dominic’s family buried him like garbage.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
Victor continued.
“Bring me the ledger tomorrow at noon. Pier 18.”
I laughed bitterly.
“He doesn’t have Mom anymore.”
Enzo said, “He must have something else.”
Victor smiled on the recording.
Then the camera turned.
Isabella Rossi sat tied to a chair.
Dominic stopped breathing.
“Mother.”
Victor’s voice returned.
“Bring me Gabriel’s ledger, or Isabella joins him.”
Dominic reached for the phone.
His hands were shaking.
That frightened me.
He had been calm during gunfire.
Calm beside my hospital bed.
Calm while uncovering his father’s crimes.
But seeing Isabella tied to that chair broke something.
“I’m giving him the ledger.”
Enzo shook his head.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“It contains evidence against Costa. If we give it to him—”
“I don’t care.”
I looked at Dominic.
In that moment, I understood why Isabella’s ten seconds of kindness in the ballroom mattered.
Family was his weakness.
Just like mine.
“We make a copy.”
“He’ll check.”
“Then we give him the original.”
Enzo stared at me.
“And lose everything?”
“No.”
I looked toward the ledger.
“We let him think he has everything.”
Dominic understood.
“You want him to confess.”
“We already know he likes talking.”
Enzo smiled slightly.
It was the first time I had seen him do it.
The plan was simple.
Which meant it was probably terrible.
We scanned every page.
Encrypted multiple copies.
One went to a federal prosecutor outside New York whom Gabriel had mentioned on the tape—a man’s daughter, now an attorney, whose family had spent decades trying to expose the corruption.
Another copy went to a journalist.
Scheduled release.
If none of us canceled it by one p.m., everything became public.
At noon the next day, Dominic and I arrived at Pier 18.
He objected to my coming.
I reminded him Victor had addressed the message to me.
The warehouse smelled of salt and oil.
Victor waited inside.
Isabella sat beside him.
Luca Ferraro stood behind her.
Dominic looked at Luca.
Eleven years of trust passed between them without words.
Luca smiled.
“You should have listened to your father.”
Dominic’s voice was quiet.
“My father was a murderer.”
“He was a realist.”
“You betrayed my mother.”
“I served my family.”
Victor interrupted.
“Enough.”
I held up the metal case containing the ledger.
“Let her go.”
“First the case.”
“No.”
Victor smiled.
“You have Gabriel’s stubbornness.”
“Apparently it runs in the family.”
His smile vanished.
I continued.
“You betrayed him.”
Victor’s eyes hardened.
“Your mother told you that?”
“The ledger did.”
Dominic watched him.
Victor laughed.
“Carlo would have found Gabriel eventually.”
“So you sold him.”
“I protected Ellen.”
“You protected yourself.”
Victor stepped forward.
“You know nothing about that time.”
“I know you took money.”
His face changed.
Small.
But enough.
“I know you helped Carlo find my father. And when Matteo discovered what you had done, you let Carlo kill him too.”
My mother had guessed that part.
Victor’s silence confirmed it.
Isabella stared at him.
“You caused the war between our families.”
Victor shrugged.
“Wars are useful.”
Dominic’s hand tightened.
“You spent twenty-six years blaming my family.”
“Your father deserved blame.”
“So did you.”
Victor smiled again.
“History remembers whoever survives.”
I looked at the clock.
12:17.
Everything was being recorded through a device hidden in my ring.
The same Rossi ring Dominic had placed on my finger while I was unconscious.
Victor noticed me touching it.
His eyes narrowed.
Then Luca shouted.
“She’s wired!”
Everything exploded.
Victor grabbed Isabella.
Dominic drew his weapon.
Luca fired.
The bullet struck Dominic in the shoulder.
I screamed.
Dominic returned fire.
Luca fell.
Enzo’s men stormed the warehouse from both entrances.
Victor dragged Isabella toward the pier.
I ran after them.
“Stop!”
Victor turned his gun toward me.
Dominic shouted my name.
Victor fired.
The bullet struck the metal railing beside my head.
I kept moving.
Maybe surviving seven bullets had destroyed my common sense.
“Let her go.”
Victor pressed the gun against Isabella.
“You think Dominic can protect you?”
“No.”
That surprised him.
“I think we protect each other.”
Sirens approached.
Federal agents.
Not local police.
Victor’s expression changed.
“You gave them the ledger.”
“All of it.”
His face twisted.
He shoved Isabella aside and raised the gun toward me.
Dominic fired.
Victor dropped.
The gun slid across the pier.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then Isabella ran toward Dominic.
He sank against the warehouse wall.
Blood spread across his shirt.
I reached him.
“Dominic.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been shot.”
“So have you.”
“Seven times.”
He actually laughed.
Weakly.
“Competitive.”
I pressed my hand over his wound.
Federal agents secured Victor.
Alive.
He would stand trial.
Luca was also alive.
Barely.
As paramedics arrived, Isabella hugged me.
“You saved me twice.”
“Please stop making that a habit.”
She laughed through tears.
Dominic was loaded onto a stretcher.
I walked beside him.
He looked at the ring on my hand.
“You can take that off now.”
I looked down.
The symbolic marriage.
The ring that had started everything.
“You want me to?”
His expression became unreadable.
“What I want isn’t relevant.”
For some reason, that answer hurt.
I removed the ring.
Dominic watched silently.
Then I placed it in his palm.
His fingers closed around it.
Something between us ended there.
Or I thought it did.
Because three days later, while Dominic recovered in the same hospital where he had married me, Enzo arrived with the final decoded page of Gabriel’s ledger.
He placed it on the table.
Dominic read it.
Then looked at me.
“What?”
He didn’t answer.
“Dominic?”
He handed me the page.
At the bottom was an account created twenty-six years earlier.
Beneficiary:
CLARA MARIE DELUCA.
Balance:
$48,700,000.
But money wasn’t the shocking part.
Below the account was a handwritten instruction from Gabriel.
If my daughter survives, give her everything—including ownership of the Rossi Harbor property Carlo stole from me.
Dominic looked at me.
The Rossi Harbor property was the foundation of his legitimate empire.
And according to my dead father—
May you like
it belonged to me.
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