Chapter 14 - Fire at Hayes Prime Cuts
The money was a trap.
Lena knew it immediately.
“If Riley touches the account, it links her to Tony’s stolen funds.”
Dominic looked at the transfer.
“Twelve million dollars with Arthur’s name attached.”
Riley’s jaw tightened.
“Whoever did this knew exactly what would hurt.”
Vincent traced the account.
Created two days earlier.
Authorized digitally.
Source signature belonged to Captain Brennan.
But Brennan was already in custody.
Paulie frowned.
“Somebody has his credentials.”
Dominic knew one person capable of arranging it.
Gerald Santucci.
But Santucci was also in custody.
Then Riley saw something.
The account address.
Hayes Prime Cuts.
“This isn’t about the money.”
Dominic looked at her.
“What?”
“They want investigators to search the shop.”
Lena understood.
“Evidence planting.”
Riley ran toward the basement.
Dominic followed.
They searched.
Freezers.
Storage rooms.
Old boxes.
Nothing.
Then Noah called from the stairs.
“Mom?”
“Stay upstairs.”
“There’s smoke.”
Dominic smelled it.
Fire.
From the rear alley.
Paulie ran outside.
Flames climbed the wooden service door.
Someone had poured fuel.
Riley grabbed Noah.
Dominic called emergency services.
Smoke filled the cutting room.
Vincent used an extinguisher.
Too much.
The fire spread into the wall.
“Out!” Dominic shouted.
Riley tried to move toward Arthur’s photographs.
Dominic caught her.
“No.”
“My dad’s—”
“No.”
He pulled her toward the front.
She fought him.
“Dominic!”
“Riley, your son!”
That stopped her.
They escaped.
Firefighters arrived.
Neighbors gathered.
Riley stood across the street holding Noah.
Dominic beside her.
Flames broke through the upstairs window.
Noah began crying.
“Our house.”
Riley held him.
Dominic watched Hayes Prime Cuts burn.
The place where Arthur worked.
Where Riley grew up.
Where Noah slept.
Where Dominic had first been forced to look at himself honestly.
His chest hurt.
Paulie came running.
“They found a van.”
“Who?”
“Driver escaped.”
Dominic wanted violence.
For one full minute, he wanted the old solution.
Find them.
Break them.
Make everyone afraid again.
Then Riley touched his arm.
He looked at her.
She knew.
“Don’t.”
One word.
Dominic breathed.
Then called Lena.
“Freeze the fake account.”
“Already moving.”
“Send the attempted framing evidence to federal investigators.”
“Yes.”
“Find the van.”
“Working on it.”
Dominic put away his phone.
Paulie nodded.
“You’re getting boring.”
Dominic almost smiled.
Firefighters fought the blaze for three hours.
The front half survived.
The upstairs apartment did not.
Riley refused to leave until sunrise.
Noah slept wrapped in a firefighter’s blanket.
Dominic sat beside her on the curb.
“You can stay at my house.”
Riley shook her head.
“It has twelve bedrooms.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because your furniture looks judgmental.”
Dominic stared.
She smiled weakly.
He laughed.
It felt wrong beside a burned building.
Then necessary.
Mrs. Alvarez offered her spare room.
Riley accepted for one night.
Dominic understood.
She needed neighborhood, not marble.
At nine, investigators found the van.
Registered to a company connected to Captain Marino.
Dominic stared at the report.
“No.”
Lena looked at him.
“Evidence says yes.”
“Arthur’s rule.”
She nodded.
“Evidence before people.”
“Exactly.”
Marino answered Dominic’s call immediately.
When told about the van, he swore.
“My company sold that vehicle six months ago.”
“To whom?”
“Santucci.”
Lena checked.
True.
The ownership transfer had never been filed.
Marino had proof.
Another frame.
The conspiracy was collapsing, but someone kept building new pieces.
Then Sarah Klein called.
She had discovered Hale maintained a private server.
Federal agents accessed it overnight.
One email chain continued after Tony’s arrest.
Sender initials:
M.V.
Matthew Vale.
Tony.
Dominic frowned.
“He’s in custody.”
Lena read the emails.
“They were scheduled.”
Tony had arranged instructions before his arrest.
If he disappeared, each phase triggered automatically.
Fake account.
Fire.
Framing Marino.
The final instruction was scheduled for noon.
“What?” Riley asked.
Lena went pale.
“Release everything.”
“What everything?”
“Arthur’s ledger scans. Castelli accounts. City corruption. Names of witnesses.”
Dominic understood.
Tony had built a dead-man switch.
If exposed publicly without context, innocent people could be targeted.
Witnesses killed.
Families ruined.
Riley looked at Arthur’s ledger.
“My father never wanted everything public.”
“No,” Dominic said.
“He wanted the right information used at the right time.”
Lena checked the clock.
Ten twenty.
Ninety-nine minutes.
“Can we stop it?”
“Maybe.”
The server required a physical security key.
Hale possessed one.
The second belonged to Tony.
Hale’s key was in federal custody.
Tony’s was missing.
Dominic knew where Tony kept personal valuables.
A private locker beneath the Castelli social club.
The building now belonged to one of the rebel captains.
They drove immediately.
Inside the club, twenty armed men waited.
Their leader, Captain Russo—not related to Vincent—stood in the center.
“You’re not welcome.”
Dominic looked around.
Once, he would have enjoyed this.
The tension.
The fear.
The performance.
Now it seemed exhausting.
“I need Tony’s locker.”
Russo smiled.
“And why would I help?”
Riley stepped beside Dominic.
“Because your home address is in the files scheduled for release.”
Russo’s smile vanished.
“Your wife’s name too.”
Silence.
“Your daughter’s school.”
Russo looked at Dominic.
“You brought this on us.”
Dominic answered.
“Yes.”
The honesty disarmed him.
Dominic continued.
“I should have stopped Tony sooner.”
Russo stared.
“I should have questioned my father sooner. I should have stopped believing fear was the same thing as leadership.”
The men in the room listened.
Dominic looked around.
“You don’t owe me loyalty.”
Paulie watched.
“But you owe your families something better than this.”
Russo slowly lowered his weapon.
“Locker is downstairs.”
They found the key with eighteen minutes remaining.
Lena disabled the release with forty-six seconds left.
Nobody celebrated.
Riley sat on the basement steps.
Dominic joined her.
“My shop burned.”
“Yes.”
“My apartment burned.”
“Yes.”
“I hate Tony.”
“I know.”
She looked at him.
“Are we allowed to hate people and still not become them?”
Dominic thought about Salvatore.
Arthur.
Elena.
Tony.
“Yes.”
Riley leaned against his shoulder.
“Good.”
Dominic rested his cheek against her hair.
Upstairs, Paulie called them.
Federal investigators had received another confession.
Tony Valente had asked to speak with Riley.
Alone.
Dominic immediately said no.
Riley stood.
“I’m going.”
“Of course you are.”
She looked at him.
“You trust me?”
Dominic hated the question.
Because he knew the answer.
“Yes.”
And the next morning, Riley Hayes walked into a federal interview room to face the man who had burned her home.
What Tony told her would end the war.
May you like
But first, it would force her to decide whether revenge mattered more than the future Arthur Hayes had tried to build.
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