Chapter 7 - The Night Dominic Finally Told the Truth
Dominic waited until Leo secured the library.
No phones.
No staff.
No security.
Only the three of us.
Then he began.
“My father was Carlo Rossi.”
I knew the name.
Nearly everyone in the city did.
Carlo had built hotels, warehouses, construction companies and transportation firms.
His public image had been philanthropic.
Behind closed doors, rumors followed him everywhere.
Dominic looked toward the fire.
“When I was a child, I thought my father owned half the city.”
“Did he?” I asked.
“Enough of it.”
Leo remained quiet.
“My mother hated the criminal side of the organization,” Dominic continued. “She tolerated it because leaving was dangerous.”
“Why didn't she go to police?”
“She tried.”
I frowned.
“What happened?”
“The detective she contacted told my father.”
The bribed detective.
Dominic’s face hardened.
“After that, she stopped believing anyone could help.”
“How old were you?”
“Twenty when she began collecting records.”
“What kind?”
“Payments. Names. Politicians. Officers. Judges. Anyone my father had compromised.”
Leo looked uncomfortable.
“You knew?”
“No,” he said. “Not then.”
Dominic continued.
“She planned to use the evidence as leverage. Not necessarily to destroy him. She wanted enough protection to leave.”
“With you?”
“Yes.”
He looked down.
“But I was twenty-one. Angry. Stupid.”
“What happened?”
“I told her I wasn't leaving.”
“Why?”
“I wanted my father's respect.”
There was disgust in his voice.
“I thought power meant freedom.”
He laughed softly.
“It took me years to realize power can be another prison.”
“What happened that night?”
Dominic's expression became distant.
“My mother called me at 11:40.”
He remembered the exact time.
“She said she had found something that changed everything.”
“What?”
“She wouldn't tell me on the phone.”
“She wanted you to meet her.”
“At a hotel downtown.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
The single word carried twelve years of guilt.
“My father ordered me to attend a meeting. I chose him.”
An hour later, Elena Rossi’s car went through a guardrail on a mountain road.
She died before paramedics arrived.
Dominic closed his eyes.
“The police said she lost control in the rain.”
“Did you believe that?”
“Never.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother hated driving in storms.”
He looked at me.
“She would have stayed at the hotel until morning.”
Leo spoke quietly.
“Unless someone forced her to leave.”
Dominic nodded.
“For years I searched.”
“And found nothing.”
“Until now.”
I looked at the brass key.
“Any idea what it unlocks?”
“One.”
Dominic stood.
I started to protest.
He held up a hand.
“I'm walking twenty feet, Nurse Hayes.”
I let him.
Across the hall, inside Elena’s preserved room, he went to the piano.
Not the desk.
He crouched slowly.
I watched him feel underneath the wooden frame.
Then I heard a click.
A narrow panel opened.
Inside was a metal compartment.
With a tiny keyhole.
Dominic and I looked at each other.
He inserted the brass key.
Turned it.
The lock opened.
Inside lay a flash drive.
A folded letter.
And an old cassette tape.
Dominic’s hands trembled.
I had never seen them tremble before.
He unfolded the letter.
The writing was elegant.
He read silently.
His face changed.
“What does it say?” Leo asked.
Dominic handed it to me.
I hesitated.
“Read it.”
I did.
My darling Dominic,
If you have found this, then either I finally escaped your father or I failed.
Dominic turned away.
I continued.
I know you believe becoming like him will make him love you. It won't. Carlo does not understand love without possession. Please don't spend your life proving yourself to a man who has mistaken fear for respect.
I swallowed.
The files on this drive are not only about your father. There is someone else. Someone he trusted. Someone I once trusted too. If anything happens to me, do not give this evidence to anyone inside the family.
Below that was a name.
I stopped.
Dominic turned.
“Read it.”
I looked at Leo.
Then at Dominic.
“Vincent Moretti.”
Silence.
Dominic took the letter.
His eyes moved over the words.
Again.
Again.
Leo sat down heavily.
“I recruited Vincent.”
Dominic looked at him.
“When?”
“Sixteen years ago.”
“You brought him into the house.”
“Yes.”
Leo looked sick.
“I’m sorry.”
Dominic didn't respond.
We plugged the flash drive into an old laptop that had never been connected to the mansion network.
Folders appeared.
Bank transfers.
Photographs.
Recorded conversations.
Scanned documents.
Most were about Carlo.
But another folder was labeled:
V.M.
Inside were payments made by Vincent.
Not to criminals.
To Carlo’s rivals.
Vincent had been selling information for years.
Then we found the final recording.
Elena’s voice.
Quiet.
Nervous.
“I discovered Vincent is moving money through offshore accounts. Carlo doesn't know. Vincent is building something for himself.”
A male voice answered.
Mercer.
The real Dr. Mercer.
“You need to leave.”
“I know.”
“I can help you.”
“No. If Carlo learns you helped me, you're dead.”
Dominic stopped the recording.
“Mercer knew.”
I nodded.
“That explains the secret meeting.”
Leo leaned closer.
“Anthony discovered the files?”
“Maybe,” I said.
Dominic resumed the recording.
Elena spoke again.
“There is another account. Vincent is using my maiden name.”
Caruso.
The Nevada company.
“He started this twelve years ago,” I whispered.
Dominic nodded.
The recording continued.
Then Elena said something none of us expected.
“If something happens to me, Dominic must know one thing.”
A pause.
“His father ordered terrible things. But Carlo is not the man I'm afraid of tonight.”
Dominic leaned toward the speakers.
“Who?”
Elena's recorded voice answered.
“Vincent.”
The audio ended.
No more.
Dominic sat completely motionless.
Twelve years of uncertainty had just narrowed to one man.
I touched his arm.
He didn't pull away.
“Dominic.”
He looked at me.
His eyes were wet, though he refused to let the tears fall.
“She knew.”
“Yes.”
“And I didn't answer the phone.”
“You were twenty-one.”
“I chose my father.”
“You didn't know what would happen.”
“I should have.”
“You couldn't.”
His jaw tightened.
“You don't understand.”
“I understand guilt.”
That stopped him.
My own past had lived quietly beneath everything since I arrived.
The emergency-room job.
The budget cuts.
Daniel.
There was more I had never told Dominic.
But this wasn't the moment.
Leo's phone buzzed.
He read the message.
His face drained.
“What?”
He looked at Dominic.
“Anthony has been found.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“A motel outside the city.”
Dominic rose.
“Bring him here.”
Leo didn't move.
“There's something else.”
“What?”
“Anthony asked for Nora.”
I stared.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Leo read the rest.
“He says he won't tell anyone what happened unless Nora Hayes is present.”
Dominic's expression became instantly suspicious.
“How does Anthony even know her name?”
No one answered.
Then Leo's phone buzzed again.
A second message.
This one included a photograph.
Anthony sitting on a motel bed.
Terrified.
Holding a newspaper.
Written across the front page in black marker were seven words:
THE NURSE ALREADY KNOWS WHO I AM.
And beneath them was a date.
Eight years earlier.
May you like
The year my mother died.
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