Chapter 14 - Matteo’s Birthday Promise
I did not arrest Dominic.
I did not confront him.
I did not even let him know Anthony had spoken.
Instead, I went home and watched my oldest friend play chess with my son.
If Anthony was telling the truth, Dominic had lied to me for years.
If Anthony was lying, accusing Dominic could destroy the last trustworthy relationship I had.
So I watched.
Dominic laughed when Matteo stole his queen.
He helped adjust the wheelchair footplate.
He remembered Matteo hated grape juice.
All ordinary things.
All potentially meaningless.
At dinner, Matteo announced:
“My birthday is next week.”
As though none of us knew.
“Nine,” Clara said.
“Old.”
“You're thirty.”
Clara looked offended.
“Traitor.”
Matteo laughed.
Dominic smiled.
I watched him.
Did Shepherd smile like that?
The next day, Anthony gave investigators more context.
Dominic had once worked with Argent Wing before joining me.
Not as an assassin.
As an intelligence coordinator.
Shepherd had originally been Argent's operational director.
After the former Shepherd disappeared, someone inherited access.
Anthony claimed it was Dominic.
But he had never seen proof.
“Then why say it?”
“Because Marcus told me.”
Marcus, who was a proven liar.
Not enough.
I needed more.
Meanwhile, Matteo planned his birthday.
He wanted the garden.
No ballroom.
No hundred guests.
No expensive entertainment.
“Five people,” he said.
“Who?”
“You. Clara. Dominic. Uncle Luca.”
I waited.
“And?”
“Mom.”
Silence.
I knelt beside him.
“We may not find her by then.”
“I know.”
“Then who is number five?”
He smiled.
“Me.”
I laughed.
“You're counting yourself?”
“It's my party.”
Fair.
He wanted chocolate cake.
Blue candles.
And one impossible gift.
“What?”
“I want to go to the cliff path.”
The path led to an overlook half a mile from the mansion.
Before the bombing, Elena took Matteo there every birthday morning to watch sunrise.
The route was narrow.
Uneven.
Not wheelchair accessible.
“We can build a temporary track.”
Matteo shook his head.
“I don't want everyone carrying me.”
“Then how?”
“Make it accessible.”
He looked directly at me.
“Not just for my birthday.”
I understood.
He wanted the estate changed.
Not his body.
The world around it.
Within twenty-four hours, contractors began building a permanent accessible path.
Clara laughed when she saw the crews.
“You don't do small gestures.”
“I don't know how.”
“Learn.”
Maybe I was.
Three days before the birthday, Matteo wheeled into my office.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Did Dominic lie to you?”
My heart stopped.
“Why would you ask?”
“He looks scared.”
“Dominic?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When he thinks nobody sees.”
Children notice everything.
“What kind of scared?”
“Like Mom looked in the car.”
That chilled me.
I called Dominic that night.
Not to accuse him.
To ask one question.
“Were you ever Shepherd?”
Silence.
Too long.
Then:
“Yes.”
The world narrowed.
I stared at him.
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I left that life.”
“You joined mine.”
“Yes.”
“How comforting.”
“I wasn't the Shepherd who targeted Elena.”
“How do I know?”
“You don't.”
“Anthony says you are current Shepherd.”
“Anthony is wrong.”
“Marcus?”
“Liar.”
“Elena told me Shepherd is inside the family.”
Dominic looked genuinely hurt.
“I am family.”
“Exactly.”
He lowered his head.
“There is something I should have told you years ago.”
“I'm listening.”
“Argent kept a succession protocol.”
“What?”
“If Shepherd died or disappeared, access automatically transferred to a designated second.”
“Who was yours?”
“I never chose one.”
“That doesn't answer.”
“Someone chose for me.”
“Who?”
Dominic looked toward the window.
“Your father.”
My father had died five years earlier.
A ruthless man.
A brilliant strategist.
A terrible parent.
“What does he have to do with this?”
“Everything.”
Dominic spoke carefully.
“Your father secretly financed Argent.”
I felt sick.
“He used it to protect the Rossi organization.”
“By poisoning my wife?”
“No.”
“Then who inherited his authority?”
Dominic looked at me.
“When your father died, control should have transferred.”
“To?”
He swallowed.
“To his eldest living Rossi heir.”
Me.
I laughed once.
“No.”
“You never activated it.”
“I didn't know.”
“But the system may still recognize your identity.”
I stood.
“Are you telling me I am Shepherd?”
“Legally inside Argent's architecture, possibly.”
“Then Elena's message—”
“Shepherd is inside the family.”
Dominic nodded.
“It may have meant the organization was built into your family structure.”
“Who actually controls it?”
“That is what Marcus and Anthony were fighting over.”
Then Dominic said the words that finally made the pattern clear.
“Someone has been committing crimes under your inherited authority, Vincent.”
Someone had used my name.
My access.
My family.
May you like
Which meant the bomb may have been designed not only to kill Elena.
It may have been designed to make the world believe I ordered it.
