Chương 14
“You remember me?”
Gabriel said nothing.
Vincent appeared from the opposite side carrying Lily against his chest.
Ethan followed beside him with one hand gripping Vincent’s jacket.
Sophia ran.
Lily twisted free before Vincent fully lowered her.
“Mommy.”
Sophia dropped to her knees and gathered her daughter so tightly Lily squeaked.
“I can’t breathe.”
Sophia loosened her arms immediately.
“Sorry.”
Lily touched her mother’s cheek.
“You crying?”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I know.”
Ethan stood several feet away.
Dominic crossed to him.
For one second, father and son simply looked at each other.
Then Ethan stepped forward and pressed his forehead against Dominic’s chest.
Dominic put both arms around him.
“You okay?”
Ethan nodded against his jacket.
“Lily kicked a man.”
Lily looked over proudly.
“He was bad.”
Vincent said, “She kicked him in the shin.”
Sophia closed her eyes.
“Of course she did.”
Ethan pulled back.
“Dad, Uncle Gabriel said nobody was going to hurt us.”
Dominic’s eyes shifted toward Gabriel.
“You knew who he was?”
“He told us.”
“When?”
“In the room.”
Gabriel looked away.
Ethan continued.
“He said he was sorry about the gas.”
Dominic’s mouth hardened.
Ethan seemed to understand he had wandered into adult territory and stopped talking.
Vincent pointed down the tunnel.
“We need to move.”
Gunfire sounded faintly above them.
Dominic handed the hard drive to Vincent.
“If I don’t come out, this goes to Assistant U.S. Attorney Lena Cho.”
Vincent stared at him.
“You trust her?”
“I trust that she hates me enough to enjoy proving half my family belongs in prison.”
Julian said, “That is not the endorsement you think it is.”
Dominic ignored him.
“Everything gets copied before anyone touches the original.”
Gabriel stepped forward.
“You cannot take that to federal prosecutors.”
Dominic turned.
“Watch me.”
“You have no idea what’s on it.”
“That is precisely why I’m not giving it to you.”
Gabriel’s face tightened.
“Those files can destroy people who had nothing to do with Daniel.”
“Then they deserve the chance to prove that.”
“You still think institutions separate the guilty neatly from everyone standing nearby?”
“No.”
Dominic looked at Ethan.
“I think hiding things has gone badly enough for one family.”
Gabriel stared at him for a long moment.
Then he lowered his eyes.
Something in the argument seemed to leave him.
Vincent moved the children into the tunnel with Julian and Sophia.
Dominic stayed behind.
Sophia noticed after three steps.
She turned.
“Come on.”
Dominic looked toward the building.
“Gabriel has to make one choice.”
She stared at him.
Gabriel did too.
Dominic held out the gold watch.
“You wanted this.”
Gabriel’s eyes fixed on it.
“Why?”
Dominic asked.
Gabriel did not answer.
“Not the warehouses.”
Silence.
“Not inheritance.”
Gabriel’s mouth tightened.
Dominic stepped closer.
“Why did you give it to Ethan?”
Gabriel looked past him toward the tunnel where the boy stood watching.
“He had Daniel’s eyes.”
Dominic went still.
Gabriel laughed quietly, ashamed of himself.
“That was the problem.”
“What problem?”
“I spent half my life hating your father.”
Gabriel looked at the watch.
“Then I saw Ethan outside that school, and for one terrible second I saw Daniel at eight years old.”
His voice weakened.
“Before any of us became what we became.”
Dominic said nothing.
Gabriel continued.
“I wanted the boy to have something from before.”
“Before what?”
“Before money became the only language in the family.”
The answer was too ordinary for the amount of damage surrounding it.
That made Dominic believe part of it.
“And tonight?”
Gabriel looked toward the ceiling.
“I learned two weeks ago that the trust documents were being activated.”
“By who?”
“I didn’t know.”
“So you poisoned the cake?”
Gabriel flinched.
“I contaminated the frosting to force the celebration to stop.”
Dominic stared at him.
“You used enough allergen to kill him.”
“I was told the concentration was low.”
“By who?”
Gabriel’s silence answered more than words.
Dominic understood.
“You trusted someone.”
Gabriel looked toward the gunfire above.
“Yes.”
“And they used you.”
“Yes.”
Sophia returned to the hatch.
Her daughter was now holding Julian’s hand farther down the tunnel.
“You still kidnapped them.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
She stepped closer.
“You keep finding a reason one step behind every terrible decision.”
Gabriel absorbed it.
Sophia continued.
“Michael did that too.”
His face changed.
“That’s why I’m not impressed by remorse after the damage.”
Gabriel lowered his head.
Dominic held the watch out again.
“Take it.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“What?”
“Take it.”
Gabriel reached slowly.
Dominic closed his fingers around it before he could.
“But you walk out of this tunnel with us.”
Gabriel stared.
“You think I’m going to prison.”
“Yes.”
“You expect me to agree?”
“No.”
Dominic opened his hand again.
“I expect you to decide whether the watch matters more than running.”
For several seconds, only the tunnel fan hummed.
Then Gabriel took the watch.
He looked at it once.
After that, he stepped into the tunnel.
They emerged at the pump station four minutes later.
Police sirens were already approaching from the highway.
Vincent had called local authorities and the federal contact from a satellite phone in the second vehicle.
Julian looked at Dominic.
“You actually called the government.”
“I called one prosecutor.”
“That’s how it starts.”
Three black SUVs left the industrial road before the first patrol cars arrived.
Vincent’s men had photographed the plates.
One matched a security company registered to a former employee of Peter Vale.
That was enough for subpoenas.
Not enough for certainty.
Dominic accepted the distinction.
By dawn, Gabriel Moretti was in federal custody under guard at a hospital after being treated for a graze wound he had apparently received during the warehouse escape.
He did not ask for Dominic.
He asked for Sophia.
She refused to go.
“I don’t owe him closure.”
Dominic nodded.
“Good.”
She looked at him.
“You agree too quickly.”
“I’m learning.”
Three days later, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lena Cho sat in Dominic’s library with two federal agents and looked at the copied files from Michael’s drive.
Her expression did not change much.
That worried Julian more than shouting would have.
She found records tying Daniel Moretti, Peter Vale, and several business intermediaries to surveillance, bribery, fraudulent property transfers, and payments connected to intimidation.
The file marked E.M. contained draft trust documents that would have shifted voting control of three companies to Ethan through trustees if Dominic died before Ethan turned eighteen.
One trustee was Peter Vale.
The second was a man Dominic had trusted with legal work for twelve years.
The third was Gabriel.
Gabriel had never signed.
That fact mattered.
It did not erase anything.
The investigation widened slowly rather than explosively.
Search warrants took time.
Lawyers objected.
Records contradicted each other.
Two former employees refused interviews.
One suddenly remembered nothing.
Another remembered too much.
The man who had supplied Gabriel with the allergen concentrate was arrested six weeks later after investigators traced payments through a consulting company.
He had expected Gabriel to take the blame if Ethan died.
Gabriel admitted kidnapping the children, illegal surveillance, and participating in the attempted theft of records.
He denied intending murder.
Prosecutors believed some of that and distrusted the rest.
Dominic found that appropriate.
Sophia learned more about Michael than she had wanted.
He had accepted cash to install covert access systems.
He had copied financial records after realizing what they were being used for.
He had planned to go to federal authorities.
He had also lied to her repeatedly.
Both truths survived.
That was the hardest part.
One evening in October, she sat at the Moretti kitchen table reading Michael’s letter again while Lily colored beside her.
Dominic entered carrying two mugs.
“I didn’t ask for coffee.”
“I made too much.”
“You always make too much.”
“I have poor spatial judgment.”
She looked at him.
“That may be the least believable thing you’ve ever said.”
He sat across from her.
Lily held up a drawing.
It showed four stick figures.
One had very large arms.
“Who is that?”
Dominic asked.
“You.”
“Why are my arms enormous?”
“So you can carry Ethan.”
Dominic looked at Sophia.
She smiled into her mug.
Ethan appeared in the doorway.
“Lily, you promised not to draw me short.”
“You are short.”
“I’m eight.”
“That’s short.”
He looked at Dominic.
“Tell her.”
Dominic considered.
“She has a strong factual position.”
Ethan groaned.
Sophia laughed.
The sound still surprised her sometimes.
The estate had changed after the birthday.
Two staff members resigned because they no longer felt safe.
Dominic did not blame them.
Security procedures became stricter in some ways and less secretive in others.
Sophia insisted every employee know emergency routes.
Vincent complained for a week and then admitted she was right.
Julian began checking his access card so obsessively that Ethan started hiding harmless stickers on it.
Dominic removed the old portrait of his father from the formal hall.
He did not burn it.
He did not smash it.
He stored it.
Sophia respected that more.
In November, the federal prosecutor returned Daniel Moretti’s watch after photographing and documenting it.
Gabriel had surrendered it as evidence.
Dominic brought it home in a clear property bag.
Ethan looked at it on the kitchen counter.
“Is it mine?”
Dominic said, “It can be.”
Ethan thought for a moment.
“I don’t want it.”
Dominic nodded.
“Okay.”
“Are you mad?”
“No.”
“What happens to it?”
“I don’t know.”
Lily climbed onto a chair.
“It tiny.”
“Yes.”
“Can Bunny wear it?”
Sophia nearly choked on her tea.
Dominic stared at the watch.
Then at Lily’s stuffed rabbit.
“No.”
Lily frowned.
“Why?”
“Because it is evidence.”
Sophia covered her mouth.
“It isn’t anymore.”
Dominic looked betrayed.
Ethan laughed.
Lily reached for the watch.
Dominic picked it up first.
For a moment, his fingers closed around three generations of Moretti history.
Then he opened a drawer and placed it inside beside spare batteries, takeout menus, two dead pens, and a roll of tape.
Sophia watched him.
“That’s where you’re keeping it?”
“For now.”
“Very ceremonial.”
“I’m trying something new.”
“What?”
“Not letting objects run my life.”
She nodded toward his hand.
“You’re still wearing your grandfather’s ring.”
Dominic looked down.
Then he smiled faintly.
“I said trying.”
Ethan pulled a fresh cake from a bakery box on the counter.
It was small, chocolate, and completely ordinary.
Dr. Harris had personally checked the ingredients because nobody in the house had yet reached the point where trust meant stupidity.
Ethan cut the first slice himself.
Lily watched him with grave concentration.
He lifted the fork.
She raised one tiny hand.
Everyone froze.
Ethan stared at her.
Dominic stopped breathing.
Sophia whispered, “Lily?”
The child pointed at the plate.
“You forgot sprinkles.”
For one second, nobody moved.
Then Ethan began laughing.
Julian laughed from the doorway.
Sophia bent over the counter.
Even Dominic had to sit down.
Lily looked around, offended by adults once again failing to understand what was obvious.
Ethan reached for the sprinkles.
May you like
This time, when he lifted the first bite to his mouth, Dominic watched carefully.
Then he let his son eat.
