Chapter 1 - THE PHOTOGRAPH THAT BROKE TWENTY YEARS OF TRUST
Dominic stared at the photograph for so long that his security chief finally stopped talking.
Serena stood outside a private office on Wabash Avenue.
Marco Bellini stood beside her.
His hand rested at the small of her back.
The timestamp was 3:18 p.m.
The same afternoon Serena had told Dominic she was visiting her mother in Lake Forest.
Dominic set the photograph on the desk.
“Who owns the office?”
“Shell company,” his security chief, Luca DeSantis, answered. “Registered through Delaware. But the lease was paid by Bellini Holdings.”
Marco.
Dominic walked toward the windows.
Chicago glittered below him.
For twenty years, Marco had been there.
At his father’s funeral.
At business meetings.
At birthdays Dominic no longer celebrated.
When Dominic was nineteen and had to take control of the Vitali organization overnight, Marco had stood beside him and said, You’re not alone.
Now Dominic wondered whether that had ever been true.
“Where is Marco?”
“At the club.”
“Does he know we’re investigating?”
“No.”
“Keep it that way.”
Luca nodded.
Then handed Dominic another envelope.
“This came from the piano.”
Dominic frowned.
“We opened everything.”
“No. Rose’s notebook had a drawing we missed.”
A five-year-old had drawn the piano with a little red X beneath the pedals.
Dominic went still.
They returned to Vitali House after midnight.
Emily and Rose were still in temporary accommodation across town.
Dominic hated that the house felt wrong without the little girl’s voice echoing through it.
He crouched beneath his mother’s piano.
Nothing.
Then he touched the left pedal.
It moved sideways.
A hidden panel opened.
Inside sat a small brass key.
And a photograph of Dominic’s father, Antonio Vitali.
Behind him stood Marco Bellini’s father, Enzo.
On the back, Antonio had written:
If anything happens to me, do not trust the Bellinis.
Dominic’s chest tightened.
Then he noticed a second line.
Smaller.
Fainter.
The proof is where Maria played her last song.
Maria.
Dominic’s mother.
The piano had belonged to her.
She had died when Dominic was twelve.
He reached deeper into the compartment.
His fingers touched paper.
One folded page.
A bank transfer.
Twenty years old.
$850,000.
From Antonio Vitali.
To Enzo Bellini.
Payment date:
Two days before Antonio was murdered.
Dominic whispered:
“What did my father buy?”
Luca looked at him.
Then at the memo line.
Three words.
FOR DOMINIC’S SAFETY.
May you like
And suddenly the payment did not look like bribery.
It looked like a ransom.
