Chapter 6 - The Last Lie Between Them
Dominic did not confront Elena inside the warehouse.
He waited until they returned home.
Dawn was beginning to soften the sky when they entered the damaged drawing room.
Nobody had cleaned it.
Books remained scattered.
Broken porcelain still covered the marble.
The leather chair where Elena had sat after defeating Vivien remained exactly where it had been.
Dominic placed the photograph on the table.
"Explain."
Elena stared at it.
"Arthur found me two years ago."
Dominic said nothing.
"He didn't know who I was at first."
"When did he learn?"
"Three months before I met you."
Dominic's jaw tightened.
"And?"
"He approached me."
"What did he want?"
"You."
The answer hurt.
Dominic looked away.
Elena continued.
"He knew you were cutting business ties with him. He wanted information."
"So he sent you into my life."
"No."
"You just said—"
"He asked me to."
Dominic turned back.
"I refused."
"Then why is there a photograph?"
"Because I pretended to reconsider."
"Why?"
"Because I finally knew who destroyed my family."
Dominic understood.
"You were using Arthur."
"Yes."
"And then you met me."
"Yes."
"Accidentally?"
Elena nodded.
Dominic laughed bitterly.
"That's convenient."
"I was restoring a painting. You walked into my studio."
"You knew who I was."
"Immediately."
"And you said nothing."
"What was I supposed to say? Hello, I'm Elena Moretti, your father's former enemy's daughter, and Arthur Castellano recently tried to recruit me?"
"That would've been a start."
Despite everything, Elena almost laughed.
She didn't.
"I was afraid."
"Of me?"
"Of losing the first normal thing I'd had in sixteen years."
Dominic looked around the ruined mansion.
"Normal?"
"Relatively."
Silence settled between them.
Then Elena reached into her bag.
She removed a small digital recorder.
"What is that?"
"The reason Arthur never trusted me."
She pressed play.
Arthur's voice filled the room.
A recording from two years earlier.
He was offering Elena money.
Protection.
A new identity.
All she had to do was get close to Dominic Gallo.
Then Elena's recorded voice answered.
"No."
Arthur threatened her.
Elena laughed at him.
The recording continued.
She told Arthur she knew what he had done to Salvatore.
She promised that someday she would prove it.
Dominic listened to everything.
When it ended, Elena placed the recorder down.
"I kept it because I thought someday I might need evidence."
"Why didn't you give it to me?"
"Because I didn't trust you."
The words were painful.
But fair.
"When did you start trusting me?"
Elena's eyes filled with tears for the first time that night.
"The night you came home at three in the morning and spent twenty minutes moving a spider out of the bathroom because I didn't want you to kill it."
Dominic blinked.
Of all their memories, he had not expected that one.
"You run an organization people are terrified to name," Elena said. "And you stood there arguing with a spider."
Dominic almost smiled.
"It was an aggressive spider."
A tiny laugh escaped her.
Then disappeared.
"I saw the man beneath everything else."
Dominic approached.
"And which man is that?"
"The one your mother hoped you'd become."
That struck deeper than anything else.
Dominic looked toward the window.
"What happens now?"
Elena understood he wasn't asking about Arthur.
"That's your decision."
"No."
He looked at her.
"I'm done making every decision alone."
She studied him.
"Then we leave."
Dominic raised an eyebrow.
"Leave?"
"This."
She gestured around them.
"The organization. The wars. The debts our fathers created."
"You think people just let someone like me retire?"
"No."
Elena stepped closer.
"I think Dominic Gallo doesn't ask permission."
For the first time in twenty-four hours, he smiled.
The next six months were the most dangerous of Dominic's life.
Not because he fought a war.
Because he dismantled one.
The archive exposed Arthur's network.
Judges resigned.
Officials were indicted.
Businesses were seized.
Arthur Castellano faced federal racketeering charges alongside conspiracy and corruption counts that ensured he would likely spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Vivien cooperated.
Her testimony became devastating.
Marco did too.
Dominic made a different arrangement.
He surrendered financial records connected to operations he controlled and accepted responsibility for crimes prosecutors could prove.
His lawyers negotiated aggressively.
His cooperation against Arthur's larger network mattered.
So did the fact that Dominic voluntarily dismantled several illegal businesses before federal authorities reached them.
There was a price.
There always was.
He lost money.
Influence.
Properties.
Some men called him weak.
Others called him a traitor.
Dominic did not care.
For the first time since his twenties, he slept without a gun beneath his pillow.
Marco disappeared for several months.
Then sent a postcard from Sicily.
No message.
Only a photograph of the sea.
Beatrice retired.
Dominic gave her enough money to ensure she could spend the rest of her life refusing to answer telephones.
Frankie recovered.
He complained more about being knocked unconscious than about the injury itself.
The mansion was repaired.
But Dominic sold it.
Too many ghosts.
On the final morning there, Elena stood in the empty drawing room.
The leather wingback chair remained.
Dominic entered.
"Moving company forgot that?"
"No."
Elena smiled.
"I'm keeping it."
"Why?"
"It's comfortable."
Dominic laughed.
"That's the chair you sat in while Vivien was terrified on the floor."
"Still comfortable."
He walked toward her.
"Remind me never to make you angry."
"You make me angry constantly."
"Concerning."
She wrapped her arms around his neck.
Dominic became serious.
"There's something else."
"What?"
He reached into his pocket.
Elena stared.
"Dominic."
He lowered himself onto one knee.
She covered her mouth.
He held a simple ring.
Not enormous.
Not theatrical.
His mother's.
"I spent most of my life thinking protecting someone meant surrounding them with walls."
Elena's eyes filled.
"You taught me that's not protection."
He took her hand.
"Protection is giving someone the truth and trusting them to stay."
A tear slipped down her cheek.
"So, Elena Moretti..."
He smiled.
"Would you consider making my retirement significantly more complicated?"
She laughed through tears.
"That's your proposal?"
"I didn't rehearse."
"Clearly."
"Is that a yes?"
She kissed him.
"Yes."
Dominic slipped the ring onto her finger.
For a moment, everything seemed finished.
Then someone knocked at the front door.
Dominic frowned.
"The house is supposed to be empty."
Elena's instincts returned instantly.
She moved beside him.
Dominic opened the door.
No one stood outside.
Only a package.
No return address.
Dominic carried it inside.
Elena opened it carefully.
Inside was the garden painting.
The original one from her childhood.
They thought federal authorities still had it.
Beneath the canvas was an envelope.
Elena opened it.
One sheet of paper.
Written in Beatrice's unmistakable handwriting.
There is one thing your mothers never told either of you.
Elena looked at Dominic.
He read over her shoulder.
At the bottom was an address.
And beneath it:
Go together.
Dominic sighed.
"I thought we were retired."
Elena picked up her coat.
"We haven't even started."
May you like
And somewhere hundreds of miles away, in a quiet house overlooking the Atlantic, an elderly woman sat beside a window waiting for the children of Isabella Gallo and Lucia Moretti to finally learn why their mothers had fought so hard to keep them alive.
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