Chapter 4 - The Child Dominic Never Knew Existed
Dominic stared at the photograph for so long that nobody dared speak.
Isabella was alive.
At least she had been eighteen months ago.
And the child in her arms could only mean one thing.
Dominic had a child somewhere in the world.
A child he had never known existed.
His hand moved toward the silver pendant around his neck.
I realized I was watching a powerful man experience two impossible emotions at once.
Hope.
And rage.
“Find them.”
Mateo nodded immediately.
“We’ll trace the image.”
“Now.”
“Already starting.”
Dominic looked at the picture again.
“Why would Victor hide this?”
I knew the answer before anyone said it.
“To control you.”
Dominic looked toward me.
I continued.
“If he made you believe Isabella was dead and kept you deaf, he could control what information reached you.”
Mateo nodded.
“Your communications, meetings, everything.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“For three years, Victor decided what I was allowed to know.”
The realization was horrifying.
A deaf man could still run an empire.
But if the people interpreting the world around him were corrupted, isolation became a weapon.
Dominic turned toward the security system.
“Victor didn’t do this alone.”
“No,” Mateo agreed.
“Everyone on that list gets investigated.”
Marcus climbed onto a chair.
“Can we go home?”
The innocence of the question silenced the room.
Dominic looked at him.
“Soon.”
“You said that before.”
I almost smiled.
Dominic did.
Marcus pointed to the photograph.
“Is that the lady you love?”
Dominic’s smile vanished.
“Yes.”
“She has a baby.”
“Yes.”
“Is it yours?”
I closed my eyes.
There are questions adults spend hours avoiding that children ask in five words.
Dominic crouched beside him.
“I think so.”
Marcus considered this deeply.
“You should go get him.”
Dominic swallowed.
“That’s the plan.”
Marcus nodded, satisfied.
Then he offered Dominic a blue crayon.
“For the baby.”
Dominic accepted it.
I had never seen a stranger sight.
A tattooed crime boss standing in a fortified security room holding a blue crayon like it was something sacred.
Two hours passed.
Victor remained somewhere inside the estate.
Our technicians traced data.
Then Mateo got the first breakthrough.
“The photo wasn’t taken overseas.”
Dominic stood immediately.
“Where?”
“New Hampshire.”
I blinked.
“That’s six hours away.”
“Small town called Bellmere.”
Dominic stared.
“Isabella has been six hours away?”
Mateo nodded.
The betrayal in Dominic’s face was almost worse than anger.
He could have driven there any day during the last three years.
If anyone had told him.
“Get vehicles ready.”
Mateo hesitated.
“Victor’s still here.”
“Then leave enough men to find him.”
“Boss, if this is bait—”
“It probably is.”
Dominic’s calm was frightening.
“But if Isabella is there, I’m going.”
I surprised myself.
“We’re coming.”
He looked at me.
“No.”
“Victor has information about Marcus and me.”
“That’s exactly why you stay.”
“In the same mansion where he’s hiding?”
Dominic considered that.
I folded my arms.
“He knows where I live. He knows my son’s father. He arranged my job. Whatever this is, Marcus and I are already part of it.”
Dominic hated the logic.
But he couldn’t deny it.
Finally, he nodded.
“You stay with Mateo.”
“Fine.”
“And if I tell you to run—”
“I run.”
“Good.”
Marcus raised his hand.
“What do I do?”
Dominic looked at him seriously.
“You listen to your mother.”
Marcus sighed.
“I always do.”
I stared at him.
Dominic actually laughed.
The sound startled him.
He touched his throat.
Three years of never hearing his own laughter.
For one brief second, the darkness in the room lifted.
Then a radio came alive.
A guard shouted.
“Movement in the east tunnel!”
Dominic grabbed his weapon.
“Victor?”
“Unknown.”
The mansion erupted again.
Dominic moved toward the door.
Mateo stopped him.
“Vehicles first.”
Dominic knew he was right.
We were escorted through an underground garage.
Three black SUVs waited.
Marcus stared.
“Cool cars.”
Dominic opened a rear door.
“You like cars?”
“Fast ones.”
“These are fast.”
That was how my son became friends with a mafia boss.
Not because he restored his hearing.
Because Dominic owned fast cars.
We left the estate at two-thirty in the morning.
Rain covered the highway.
Marcus slept against me.
Dominic sat across from us.
He watched the city disappear through the tinted window.
“Does sound still hurt?” I asked.
“Some of it.”
“What’s the worst?”
He thought.
“Rain.”
I was surprised.
“You don’t like it?”
“I forgot how loud it was.”
A small smile touched his mouth.
“I used to love storms.”
“You will again.”
He looked at me.
“You sound certain.”
“I have a three-year-old. I’ve learned people adjust to noise.”
Dominic glanced at Marcus.
“That I believe.”
The smile faded.
“Elena.”
“Yes?”
“About his father.”
I stiffened.
“I don’t know anything else.”
“I believe you.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
“Victor lies differently when he knows someone is part of the plan.”
“How?”
“He’s respectful.”
I remembered four years of Victor treating me like dirt.
“That’s comforting.”
Dominic almost smiled.
“I think you were selected without being told why.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer frightened me.
Around dawn, Mateo received a call.
“Boss.”
Dominic looked up.
“We traced Isabella.”
My heart jumped.
“Where?”
“Bellmere. Property registered under the name Isabel Gray.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
Isabel.
Isabella.
Gray.
Cray.
Close enough to be remembered.
Different enough to disappear.
“Is she there now?”
“We don’t know.”
“We will.”
When sunrise broke, we crossed into New Hampshire.
Bellmere was a quiet town surrounded by mountains and pine forest.
Nothing about it looked connected to Dominic Cray’s world.
The address led us to a farmhouse near a lake.
Dominic stared through the windshield.
A child’s bicycle rested near the porch.
He stopped breathing.
Mateo scanned the property.
“No movement outside.”
Dominic opened the door.
I caught his arm.
“Wait.”
He looked at my hand.
I released him.
“Sorry.”
“What?”
“If Victor knows we found this place, rushing inside is exactly what he expects.”
Dominic nodded reluctantly.
Mateo sent two men around the property.
Minutes later, they returned.
“Clear exterior.”
Dominic approached the house.
I stayed behind with Marcus and Mateo.
Then the front door opened.
A woman stepped onto the porch.
Dark hair.
Thin.
Pale.
Older than the photograph.
Dominic stopped.
Isabella.
She stared at him.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
Neither moved.
Three years of grief existed between them.
Dominic whispered her name.
“Isabella.”
She began crying.
“You can hear me?”
His face crumpled.
“Yes.”
She ran toward him.
Dominic caught her.
For the first time since I met him, Dominic Cray stopped being dangerous.
He became simply a man holding the woman he thought was dead.
Marcus watched.
“Mommy, he found her.”
“Yes.”
Then another figure appeared in the doorway.
A small boy.
About three years old.
Dark curls.
Dominic’s eyes.
The child stared at the strangers.
Isabella turned.
“Luca.”
Dominic slowly released her.
He looked at the boy.
Isabella took Dominic’s hand.
“Dominic…”
Her voice shook.
“This is your son.”
Dominic’s knees nearly gave out.
He crouched several feet from Luca.
The boy stayed close to the doorway.
Dominic smiled uncertainly.
“Hi.”
Luca looked at Isabella.
“Who is he?”
Isabella was crying harder now.
“He’s your father.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
Marcus whispered beside me.
“He got his baby.”
I wiped tears from my cheek.
“Yes.”
For ten minutes, it seemed perhaps there could be a miracle after all.
Then Mateo’s phone buzzed.
He checked the screen.
His expression changed.
“Dominic.”
Dominic looked over.
“What?”
Mateo turned the phone.
A live security alert from the mansion.
The abandoned tunnel had been opened.
Victor had escaped.
Dominic’s face hardened.
Then Isabella whispered something.
“There’s something you need to know.”
Dominic looked at her.
She glanced toward Luca.
“Victor didn’t only hide us from you.”
Her voice dropped.
“He was hiding us from the man he works for.”
Dominic froze.
“Who?”
Isabella swallowed.
“You think Victor betrayed you.”
“He did.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Victor was following orders.”
Dominic stared.
“Whose orders?”
Isabella’s eyes filled with fear.
“The same man who paid Adrian to get close to Elena.”
Every person near me went still.
I stepped forward.
“You know about Adrian?”
Isabella looked directly at me.
“Yes.”
“Then tell me who he really was.”
She hesitated.
Before she could answer, a bullet shattered the farmhouse window.
Dominic threw Isabella to the ground.
Mateo grabbed Marcus and me.
More gunfire erupted from the trees.
Dominic dragged Luca behind the stone porch.
Men were attacking from the forest.
Victor had found us.
Or someone worse had.
And as bullets tore through the farmhouse, Isabella screamed the name of the man behind everything.
May you like
A name Dominic had not heard in fifteen years.
“Your brother, Gabriel!”
