Chapter 3 - THE BOX
I should have walked out.
Called the police.
Taken my mother and disappeared.
That would have been the smart thing.
But when someone tells you your father was murdered, smart choices become harder.
Dominic led me into a private office lined with dark wood, old books, and windows overlooking the lake.
Marco stayed near the door.
Vanessa tried to follow.
Dominic blocked her.
“Not you.”
Her face twisted.
“I am your fiancée.”
“Then act like someone I can trust.”
She stared at him.
“You’ll regret humiliating me.”
I almost laughed at the irony.
Dominic shut the door in her face.
Then he turned to me.
“My uncle Salvatore ran most of the Moretti businesses when my father got sick.”
“Businesses?”
“Some legal.”
“And the others?”
He didn’t answer.
I folded my arms.
“That’s what I thought.”
He opened a wall safe.
Inside were files, cash, two passports, and a handgun.
I looked at the gun.
Dominic noticed.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“That’s probably what your uncle told my father.”
His expression tightened.
Fair hit.
He removed an old photograph.
Three men stood beside a warehouse.
One was Dominic, much younger.
One was Dad.
The third was a heavyset man with silver hair.
“My uncle Salvatore,” Dominic said.
I grabbed the picture.
Dad looked tired but alive.
The date printed in the corner was twelve days before his death.
“What was he doing with you?”
“Trying to help me.”
I looked up.
“Why?”
“Because I was trying to remove my uncle.”
“From what?”
Dominic leaned against the desk.
“My father built an empire. Salvatore turned it into something uglier.”
“Drug trafficking?”
“No.”
“Guns?”
“Sometimes.”
I felt sick.
“People?”
Dominic’s silence changed.
“No.”
At least that answer came fast.
“He laundered money through construction projects. Bribed inspectors. Paid police. Rigged contracts. If someone got in the way, he removed them.”
“Like my father.”
Dominic looked down.
“Yes.”
I hated how calmly he said it.
I threw the photograph onto his desk.
“And you let my mother believe it was an accident.”
“I was twenty-nine and trying to survive my own family.”
“That doesn’t excuse it.”
“No.”
That stopped me.
He didn’t defend himself.
“I should have told you,” he said. “I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because the evidence disappeared. Salvatore believed Daniel had given it to me. He nearly killed me trying to find it.”
Dominic touched a scar near his ribs.
“I assumed your father destroyed it before they reached him.”
I touched the key.
“And now?”
“Now I think he hid it.”
“Where?”
Dominic pulled out a folder.
Inside was a copy of Dad’s employment record.
One handwritten line had been circled.
Unit 317.
Cicero Storage.
My chest tightened.
“That facility closed years ago.”
“No,” Marco said from the door. “It changed names.”
I looked at him.
“How fast can we get there?”
Dominic stood.
“You’re not going.”
I laughed.
“You just told me my dead father hid evidence in a storage unit, and you think I’m staying here?”
“If Salvatore knows you have the key—”
“He doesn’t.”
A loud crash came from outside the office.
Then Vanessa screamed.
Marco drew his gun.
Dominic opened the door.
The hallway was empty.
A shattered vase lay on the floor.
Vanessa was gone.
On the wall mirror, written in red lipstick, were five words.
SHE HAS WHAT WE NEED.
Dominic swore.
My phone rang.
Mom.
I answered instantly.
“Mom?”
Static.
Then a man’s voice.
“Avery Carter?”
My blood turned cold.
“Who is this?”
May you like
The man chuckled.
“Your mother says hello.”
