Chapter 6 - The Woman Who Returned the Ring
Dominic stared at Vanessa's photograph for almost a minute.
The woman who had slept beside him.
The woman who had chosen flowers for their wedding.
The woman who had cried beside his hospital bed.
The woman who had returned his ring seventeen days later.
"Where is she?"
Anthony answered.
"Manhattan."
"Bring her."
Raymond shook his head.
"Let law enforcement handle it."
Dominic looked at him.
"I want to hear her say it."
Vanessa arrived that evening accompanied by attorneys.
She still looked immaculate.
Cream coat.
Diamond earrings.
Perfect blonde hair.
Then she saw Sarah.
Something changed.
"So it's true."
Dominic frowned.
"What's true?"
"You replaced me with the maid."
Sarah stiffened.
Dominic's voice was cold.
"Sarah has more integrity cleaning one room than you've shown in your entire life."
Vanessa's face tightened.
Dominic rolled closer.
"Why?"
She pretended not to understand.
"The ambush."
Silence.
"Charles told us."
That was a lie.
But Vanessa didn't know it.
Her expression revealed everything.
Dominic felt strangely calm.
"You knew."
Vanessa looked away.
"You were destroying yourself."
"So you hired men to shoot me?"
"It wasn't supposed to happen like that."
"Apparently everyone says that when they're caught."
She looked at his wheelchair.
"Charles said you'd recover."
Dominic stared at her.
"You knew they were going to shoot me."
Tears appeared.
"I thought you'd be injured."
"You thought I'd become dependent."
Vanessa said nothing.
Then Dominic understood.
"You planned to marry me afterward."
Her silence confirmed it.
She and Vescari intended to weaken Dominic, isolate him, and gradually take control of Moretti Capital.
Vanessa would become his wife.
Vescari would control the companies.
Michael would control security.
Dominic would remain the symbolic Don.
Alive.
Powerless.
Useful.
But the medical complication had caused more damage than planned.
Vanessa had panicked.
She left.
Dominic looked at her.
"You didn't leave because I couldn't walk."
Vanessa cried.
"I was afraid."
"No."
His voice remained quiet.
"You left because your plan worked too well."
She had no response.
Authorities arrested Vanessa that night.
Dominic watched from the window as she was taken away.
Sarah stood behind him.
"Does it feel better?"
"No."
"I didn't think it would."
Dominic looked at his hands.
"I spent three months believing people abandoned me because I became weak."
Sarah leaned against the desk.
"Some did."
He looked at her.
"But the important ones didn't."
Dominic glanced toward the hallway.
Lily was sleeping on a sofa with Captain.
Raymond sat beside her reading documents.
Anthony drank coffee nearby.
Dominic smiled faintly.
"No."
Sarah walked closer.
"They didn't."
The following morning Dominic agreed to see a new spinal specialist.
It was Sarah's idea.
"You have the original hospital scans now."
"The doctors already told me."
"Doctors who were working with corrupted information."
"Sarah—"
"You're afraid."
Dominic looked offended.
"I've been shot."
"And?"
"I don't get afraid."
Sarah crossed her arms.
"You're terrified."
Dominic stared at her.
Nobody spoke to him this way.
Except Lily.
And apparently her mother.
"What exactly am I terrified of?"
"Hope."
That silenced him.
Sarah crouched beside the wheelchair.
"If they tell you there's no chance, you lose nothing."
"And if they say there is?"
"Then you have to try."
Dominic looked away.
Trying meant failing.
Trying meant falling.
Trying meant confronting everything he'd buried beneath anger.
Sarah touched his hand.
"Go."
He did.
The specialist studied his scans for almost two hours.
Then he entered.
"Mr. Moretti."
Dominic prepared himself.
"The damage is significant."
"I know."
"But I don't agree with the original prognosis."
Dominic stopped breathing.
"What?"
"There are intact pathways."
Sarah grabbed Dominic's hand.
The doctor continued.
"I cannot promise you'll walk normally again."
"Could I walk at all?"
"Possibly."
Dominic stared.
"With surgery, intensive rehabilitation and considerable luck."
"How much luck?"
The doctor smiled.
"More than I'd like."
Dominic looked toward Sarah.
She was crying.
"Why are you crying?"
"Because somebody has to."
Dominic laughed.
It was the first real laugh he'd made in months.
Surgery was scheduled.
The night before, Dominic couldn't sleep.
At midnight Lily entered his room carrying Captain.
"Mom says you're scared."
"Your mother talks too much."
Lily climbed onto the bed.
"Captain gets scared."
"Does he?"
"Yes."
"What does Captain do?"
"I hold him."
Dominic looked at her.
"That's convenient for Captain."
Lily placed the rabbit beside him.
"You can borrow him."
Dominic swallowed.
"Thanks."
She kissed Dominic's cheek.
"Goodnight, Mr. Dom."
"Lily?"
She turned.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
"For Captain?"
"For coming into my study."
Lily smiled.
"You're welcome."
The surgery lasted six hours.
When Dominic woke, Sarah was beside him.
Raymond stood near the window.
Anthony was asleep in a chair.
Dominic looked at Sarah.
"Did it work?"
"We don't know yet."
Days passed.
Then rehabilitation began.
Pain replaced numbness.
Dominic hated every minute.
But pain meant something.
His nerves were responding.
Two weeks later, while a therapist supported him between parallel bars, Dominic moved his right foot.
One inch.
Sarah gasped.
Dominic looked down.
"Again," he whispered.
He tried.
Nothing.
"Again."
The therapist warned him.
Dominic ignored him.
"Again."
His foot moved.
Half an inch.
Dominic closed his eyes.
For the first time since the ambush, tears escaped.
He didn't hide them.
Sarah hugged him.
Across the room Raymond turned away, wiping his eyes.
Weeks became months.
Dominic learned to stand with braces.
Then take a step.
Then another.
Every victory was humiliatingly small and impossibly enormous.
Lily attended rehabilitation whenever allowed.
She called the parallel bars "Mr. Dom's road."
One afternoon Dominic managed six steps.
He collapsed back into his wheelchair exhausted.
Lily applauded.
"You're walking!"
"That barely qualifies."
"You moved."
Dominic smiled.
She was right.
He had moved.
But that evening Anthony arrived with news.
"There's one problem."
Dominic looked up.
"What?"
"Vescari wasn't the highest person involved."
Dominic's smile vanished.
Anthony placed Evan's recovered drive on the table.
"We decrypted the final folder."
Inside was a list of names.
Judges.
Executives.
Police officers.
Politicians.
And one name Dominic never expected.
Raymond Moretti.
Beside it was a payment.
Ten million dollars.
Dominic looked toward his uncle.
Raymond stared at the screen.
Then whispered:
"I can explain."
Dominic's heart sank.
May you like
Because after everything, the final secret still belonged to the man who had raised him.
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