Chương 17
Dominic did not go home.
At three in the morning, he walked into a federal office with Elena Price and surrendered Bianca’s remaining files.
He was not arrested that night.
He was told not to leave Illinois.
Lena learned this from Detective Chen at the warehouse while technicians carried evidence boxes past them.
“What happens to him?” Lena asked.
“That depends on what he gives them, what they can prove, and what he did.”
“He did plenty.”
“Yes.”
“Lily might lose him.”
“For a while.”
“That sounds easy when you say it.”
Chen looked toward the broken office window.
“No,” she said. “It sounds procedural. That’s different.”
Lena returned to the Rosetti house just before dawn.
Daniel opened the door.
“Is he coming?” Lily called from the stairs.
She wore her gray pajamas and held the teddy bear beneath one arm.
Lena looked at Daniel.
He gave the smallest shake of his head.
Lily came down three steps.
“Where’s Daddy?”
Lena removed her wet shoes.
“He had to speak to people about what happened.”
“Police people?”
“Yes.”
“Is he in trouble?”
Lena sat on the bottom step.
“Yes.”
Lily’s face tightened.
“Is he coming back?”
“I don’t know when.”
“You said adults say that when they mean yes.”
“Sometimes.”
“And sometimes?”
Lena looked at the wolf bracelet.
“Sometimes they really don’t know.”
Lily sat beside her.
For several minutes they listened to the house continue around them. Someone in the kitchen opened a drawer. A security radio murmured near the front hall. Rainwater moved through the gutters outside.
Lily rested her head against Lena’s shoulder.
“Did he get mad?”
“Yes.”
“At Uncle Vin?”
“Yes.”
“Did he hurt him?”
“No.”
Lily was quiet.
“Good,” she said finally. “Mom didn’t like when he hurt people.”
Lena put an arm around her.
“He listened to her this time.”
Dominic returned after sunset.
He had changed his shirt but not his suit. The cut on his lip had reopened slightly. He looked like a man who had spent the day answering questions with consequences attached.
Lily ran to him.
He crouched, and she collided with his chest.
“You came back.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going away?”
Dominic looked at Lena over his daughter’s head.
“Possibly,” he said.
Lily pulled away. “Where?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Prison?”
The room went still.
Dominic sat on the floor.
“Maybe.”
Lily’s face crumpled, but she did not cry. She stared at him with the same terrified silver-blue eyes Lena had seen in the alley.
“You said you protect me.”
“I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Dominic swallowed.
“No,” he said. “Not the way I should have.”
Lily struck his chest with one small fist.
He let her.
“You’re bad.”
“I have done bad things.”
“Then stop.”
The simplicity of it left him without language.
“I’m trying.”
“That’s what you write to Mom.”
His eyes closed.
Lena remembered the florist receipt and understood that Lily had read the cards or chosen the message or heard it repeated enough times to claim it.
Dominic opened his eyes.
“I should have tried while she was here.”
“Yes,” Lily said.
He nodded.
“Yes.”
She climbed into his lap, angry and frightened, and he held her without asking forgiveness.
Lena turned away to give them privacy.
Dominic’s cooperation became public two days later.
The headlines called him an informant, a traitor, a reforming crime boss, and a strategist saving himself. Commentators who had never met him explained his motives with perfect certainty.
The federal investigation expanded. Several Rosetti companies entered court supervision. Accounts were frozen. Contracts were canceled. Employees who had nothing to do with the kidnapping lost work, exactly as Vincent had warned.
Other employees came forward with evidence, exactly as Bianca had hoped.
The world refused to become morally tidy.
Maribel was charged but released pending trial. Her sister blamed Lena in a television interview. Later, through an attorney, Maribel wrote Lena a letter thanking her for remembering the valet ticket.
Frank Bellweather was investigated for accepting money to falsify statements about Lena. He sent three apologetic messages. The first blamed stress. The second blamed gambling addiction. The third said he had always considered Lena family.
She deleted all three.
Mrs. Patel’s laundromat window was repaired with money from a victims’ assistance fund, not Dominic.
“That is better,” Mrs. Patel said. “His money comes with men in hallways.”
Lena’s landlord still refused to renew her lease.
Dominic offered an apartment in a building owned by one of his legal companies. She refused.
He offered to buy the building.
She asked him whether he had learned anything.
He withdrew the offer.
For six weeks, Lena continued working with Lily under a revised contract reviewed by an attorney Chen recommended. She was paid through a trust overseen by the court, not directly by Dominic.
Dominic attended meetings with prosecutors, lawyers, corporate monitors, and people who spoke about decades of his life as counts, exhibits, and exposure.
Some nights he came home.
Some nights he did not.
He and Lena stopped arguing in the kitchen for almost a week, which felt less peaceful than either expected.
One afternoon, she found him trying to repair a drawer in the schoolroom. It had come off its track and tilted each time Lily opened it.
“You have people for that,” Lena said.
“They’re busy.”
“With the collapse of your empire?”
“With lunch.”
He held the drawer at an angle and frowned.
“You’re making it worse.”
“I’m aware.”
She took the screwdriver from him.
“You removed the wrong screw.”
“They look identical.”
“One has been stripped.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“That explains much of your life.”
He sat on the floor while she reset the track.
After a minute, he said, “My attorneys expect a plea agreement.”
Lena kept working.
“How long?”
“They don’t know.”
“What do they think?”
“Between four and eight years, depending on the charges resolved and the value of my cooperation.”
Her hand stopped.
“Lily knows?”
May you like
“Not the number.”
“You need to tell her.”
