Chapter 9 - Dominic Breaks His Own Rule
Dominic had one rule about family business that nobody questioned.
Never react to a family accusation in public.
His father had taught him that at sixteen after two uncles nearly started a feud over a missing shipment that turned out to be sitting in the wrong warehouse.
“Anger makes witnesses,” his father said. “Facts make decisions.”
Dominic had followed that rule for twenty years.
At 9:05 p.m., watching Victor stand inside the river warehouse and invoke his dead father, Dominic broke it.
“Bring him in.”
Nico’s voice came through the earpiece.
“Dom, no.”
“Bring him in.”
“We don’t know where Lorenzo’s other men are.”
“I don’t care.”
Bee grabbed the microphone.
“I do.”
Dominic went silent.
She could hear his breathing.
“Victor wants you angry,” Bee said. “That’s why he said your father’s name to a camera.”
“He said my father started this.”
“He said your father made the first deal. That is not the same thing.”
“Bee.”
“No.”
The word came out sharper than she intended.
Nico looked at her.
Bee continued anyway.
“You told me once I was the only person in the building who tells you what you don’t want to hear. You fired me, so technically I don’t work there anymore. But I’m going to do it anyway.”
Silence.
Then, unexpectedly, Nico smiled.
Bee ignored him.
“If you send men into that warehouse now, Victor becomes a victim. Lorenzo gets chaos. Adrian disappears in it. And we lose the chance to learn why Victor came.”
Dominic’s voice was cold.
“What do you suggest?”
“Let him leave.”
Nico stopped smiling.
Dominic said, “Absolutely not.”
“He came because he thought there were records in that folder.”
“So?”
“So he’s afraid of something specific.”
Bee watched Victor on the remaining camera.
“He didn’t come to save Adrian. Look at him.”
Adrian stood ten feet away, pale and furious.
Victor barely acknowledged him.
“He came for the documents,” Bee said.
Nico leaned closer to the screen.
“She’s right.”
Dominic did not answer.
Inside the warehouse, Victor closed the empty folder.
“You said she had the records,” he told Adrian.
Adrian’s voice shook. “That’s what Lorenzo told me.”
Victor laughed.
“Then Lorenzo wanted you here too.”
Adrian stared at him.
“What are you talking about?”
Victor looked around the warehouse.
“He’s cleaning the board.”
“Whose board?”
“Ours.”
Bee’s eyes widened.
Nico immediately increased the audio gain.
Victor lowered his voice.
“You think Lorenzo planned this last year? His father started it before Dominic was old enough to drive.”
Adrian took a step closer.
“You said Dominic’s father made the first deal.”
“He did.”
“What deal?”
Victor looked toward the door.
For a moment Bee thought he would leave without answering.
Then he said, “Lake Seventeen.”
Dominic went completely still on the other end of the connection.
Victor continued.
“Salvatore Moretti and my brother built the lake route together. Legal freight on paper. Favors underneath. Everybody made money.”
Adrian frowned.
“So North Meridian—”
“Was the name they used for the partnership before there was a company.”
“You revived it.”
Victor’s expression darkened.
“I preserved it.”
Adrian laughed nervously.
“You worked with Lorenzo.”
“I worked with his father.”
“And Lorenzo?”
Victor looked at him.
“Lorenzo inherited a promise.”
“What promise?”
Victor’s voice dropped.
“That if either family tried to leave the arrangement, the other took control of the lake assets.”
Bee felt the pieces connect.
Dominic had spent years dismantling old relationships.
By closing illicit side agreements and converting everything to documented commercial freight, he had unknowingly triggered an old understanding between his father and Salvatore Moretti.
Not a legal contract, perhaps.
But to men like Victor and Lorenzo, old promises had weight.
Adrian said, “That doesn’t give Lorenzo Rossi Logistics.”
“No,” Victor replied. “That was your idea.”
Adrian’s face changed.
Victor smiled without warmth.
“You wanted a promotion. Lorenzo wanted leverage. I wanted Dominic to stop destroying what his father built.”
“And Bee?”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“She saw too much.”
Bee’s breath caught.
Adrian looked toward the entrance.
“She’s still alive.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Victor’s face showed the first flicker of uncertainty.
“I don’t know.”
In the surveillance van, Bee looked at Nico.
Lorenzo had kept even Victor partially blind.
That mattered.
Adrian moved closer to Victor.
“What happens now?”
Victor gave him a contemptuous look.
“You still think there’s a job waiting for you?”
Adrian’s anger flared.
“You signed off on the charity payments.”
“And you arranged them.”
“You approved Project Meridian.”
“I approved pressure. Not a takeover.”
“You knew what Lorenzo wanted.”
“I knew what I wanted.”
Their voices rose.
Then the warehouse lights went out completely.
Nico cursed.
The final camera feed vanished.
“Power cut,” he said.
Bee removed her headset.
“Can you restore it?”
“Not remotely.”
A gunshot echoed faintly through the audio before the system died.
Bee froze.
Dominic’s voice exploded through the line.
“Nico.”
“We’re moving.”
Nico started the van.
Bee grabbed his arm.
“No.”
He looked at her like she had lost her mind.
“Someone fired.”
“That’s what they want us to hear.”
“Bee—”
“If Lorenzo wanted Adrian and Victor dead, why send four men and cut cameras after letting them talk?”
Nico stared at her.
Dominic said, “Because he wants us inside.”
Bee nodded.
“Exactly.”
The warehouse was the trap inside the trap.
They had baited Lorenzo with fake evidence.
Lorenzo had baited them back with Victor and Adrian.
Dominic was already moving from his location.
Bee heard a car door slam through the connection.
“Dominic, stop.”
“No.”
“You just agreed it’s a trap.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going anyway?”
“They’re still my people.”
“Adrian betrayed you.”
“Yes.”
“Victor betrayed you.”
“Yes.”
“Then why?”
Dominic’s answer was immediate.
“Because I don’t let Lorenzo decide who dies for my mistakes.”
Bee closed her eyes.
There it was.
The reason she had stayed.
The reason she had lied in the office.
The reason she was still risking everything.
Dominic was difficult, proud, and sometimes infuriatingly certain of himself.
But when the cost arrived, he paid it before asking anyone else to.
“Then we go together,” Bee said.
“No.”
“You don’t get to say no.”
“I absolutely do.”
“You fired me, remember?”
Nico muttered, “She’s going to use that forever.”
Dominic ignored him.
“Bee, stay in the van.”
“No.”
“You are not armed.”
“That’s one reason I make better decisions.”
Nico coughed to hide a laugh.
Dominic said nothing for three seconds.
Then: “Fine. But you stay behind Nico.”
Bee smiled despite the danger.
“That is not the same as winning this argument.”
“It’s the closest you’re getting.”
They reached the warehouse perimeter at 9:14.
Dominic arrived from the opposite side with two trusted security officers.
Nobody rushed the doors.
Nico cut the building’s external power completely, preventing anyone inside from controlling the lights. One officer opened a side entrance manually.
The interior was dark except for emergency strips along the floor.
Bee stayed behind Nico as promised.
They found Adrian first.
He was crouched behind a concrete support, alive and furious.
The gunshot had struck a metal door above him.
Victor was gone.
So were Lorenzo’s four men.
On the folding table, the blue folder had disappeared.
Adrian looked at Dominic.
“You set me up.”
Dominic stared at him.
“You were planning to steal my company.”
Adrian stood slowly.
“You think this ends with me?”
“No.”
“You have no idea what your father signed.”
Dominic’s expression tightened.
Bee stepped forward.
“Then tell us.”
Adrian saw her and laughed.
“There she is. The loyal little accountant.”
Bee did not react.
“Where is Victor?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who cut the power?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who fired?”
“I don’t know.”
Nico said, “You know a lot of nothing for a CFO.”
Adrian glared at him.
Dominic stepped closer.
“What did my father sign?”
Adrian’s confidence returned.
“Not paper.”
“What?”
“Your father and Salvatore Moretti recorded their agreement.”
Dominic frowned.
“Recorded how?”
“Video.”
Bee’s pulse quickened.
Adrian continued.
“Victor has it.”
“Where?”
“He never told me.”
Dominic studied him.
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because Lorenzo wants the recording more than he wants this company.”
That made no sense.
Unless the recording contained something dangerous to Lorenzo too.
Bee understood first.
“If it proves the old agreement was limited to one route,” she said, “then Lorenzo’s claim to the whole company is a lie.”
Adrian looked at her.
“Smart.”
“And if it contains admissions by Salvatore Moretti,” Bee continued, “it could expose where the Moretti network came from.”
Adrian’s smile faded.
Dominic looked toward the dark warehouse entrance.
Victor had not come for payment records.
He had come because he believed Bee had found the old evidence.
The question was why.
Then Bee remembered the hidden note in Dominic’s father’s ledger.
Old names. New companies.
Maybe there was one old name they had not examined closely enough.
She looked at Dominic.
“The recording isn’t at Victor’s house.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“Your father hid important things where nobody opened them.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“The ledger.”
“No. That was paper.”
Bee thought of the office library, the glass cabinet, the framed photographs, the old family objects nobody touched because they were treated as history instead of evidence.
“What else did your father leave you?”
Dominic went still.
Then he turned toward Nico.
“The lake house.”
Nico frowned.
“You haven’t used that place in years.”
“Exactly.”
Dominic looked at Bee.
For the first time since this began, they reached the same conclusion at the same moment.
May you like
Lorenzo was not trying to win a company.
He was racing them to a secret that had been waiting thirty years to be found.
