Chapter 11 - THE CITY WENT DARK
Emergency lights flickered red.
“Ethan!” Dominic shouted.
“I’m here!”
I grabbed him.
Marco ran toward the hallway.
“Stay inside!”
Smoke began rolling beneath the door.
Dominic tried to stand from the wheelchair.
I pushed him back.
“You were shot yesterday.”
“My lawyer just escaped.”
“And if you tear your stitches open, he wins twice.”
He glared at me.
“You enjoy telling me what to do.”
“Somebody has to.”
Marco came back.
“Transformer explosion in the service corridor.”
“Accident?”
“No chance.”
“Peter?”
“Gone.”
Dominic swore.
The bank locked down.
Police arrived.
But Peter had planned the exit.
A maintenance uniform was found two blocks away.
So was a motorcycle.
He disappeared into Manhattan.
The drives were safe.
That mattered.
But Peter was still out there.
And he knew where we lived.
Dominic refused to return to the mansion.
Instead, we moved into a secure apartment owned through one of his companies.
Smaller.
Less staff.
Harder to access.
Lily loved it.
“This house is tiny.”
“It has six bedrooms,” I told her.
“Tiny.”
Rich people had ruined her standards.
Three days passed.
Federal investigators copied the drives.
Dominic gave statements.
Lawyers came and went.
News channels began reporting that Moretti companies were cooperating with a corruption investigation involving crimes from decades earlier.
Stock prices dropped.
Reporters camped outside every known Moretti property.
Then the headlines changed.
MAFIA BILLIONAIRE’S EMPIRE UNDER INVESTIGATION.
DOMINIC MORETTI HID FAMILY CRIMES?
MORETTI FORTUNE BUILT ON CORRUPTION?
Dominic read every article.
I finally took his phone.
“Enough.”
He looked at me.
“Give that back.”
“No.”
“Anna.”
“You have stitches, no sleep, and a son who keeps checking whether you’re breathing.”
He glanced toward Ethan’s room.
That landed.
“You can be angry tomorrow.”
“I’m angry now.”
“Fine. Be angry without Twitter.”
He almost smiled.
Then he became serious.
“You could leave.”
“What?”
“You and Lily.”
“Why?”
“You’re safe now.”
“Peter is still missing.”
“He wants me.”
“He used my family already.”
“I can arrange protection somewhere else.”
I stared at him.
“You’re trying to get rid of us.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
His jaw tightened.
“I am trying to keep you alive.”
“By sending us away?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not protection. That’s panic.”
His eyes flashed.
“You don’t know what it’s like to watch everyone around you become a target.”
“No?”
I stepped closer.
“My brother was kidnapped. My daughter was kidnapped. I held your son while he cried because he thought you were dying.”
My voice softened.
“Don’t tell me I don’t know.”
Dominic looked down.
“I can’t lose anybody else.”
There it was.
Not anger.
Fear.
I sat beside him.
“You don’t get to decide for everyone because you’re afraid.”
“That sounds irresponsible.”
“It’s real life.”
He looked at me.
“What do you want?”
The question surprised me.
Nobody like Dominic Moretti asked that often.
“I want Peter caught.”
“That’s happening.”
“I want my brother found.”
His face changed.
Daniel.
In all the chaos, no one had found him.
“And after that?” Dominic asked.
I looked toward Lily’s room.
“I want my daughter to sleep without guards outside her door.”
He nodded.
“And you?”
I laughed softly.
“I haven’t had time to figure that out.”
His hand moved across the couch.
Not touching mine.
Close.
Too close.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
We both stared.
Dominic answered.
“Peter.”
A familiar voice came through.
“Good guess.”
Dominic switched to speaker.
“What do you want?”
Peter sounded calm.
“Nothing from you.”
A pause.
“I want Anna.”
My blood went cold.
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“No.”
Peter laughed.
“She has something Elena left her.”
“I found the key.”
“Not the key.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
Peter spoke directly to me.
“Anna, Elena gave you something before she died.”
I thought back.
A rabbit.
A necklace?
No.
Then I remembered.
An envelope.
A sealed envelope Elena made me promise never to open unless she failed to come home one night.
I had forgotten it because she did come home that night.
Two weeks later, she died in a car accident.
The envelope was still in my mother’s old storage trunk.
In Ohio.
At my brother Daniel’s house.
Peter laughed softly.
May you like
“You remember now.”
Then the line went dead.
