Chapter 12 - THE ACCIDENT THAT CHOSE THE WRONG MAN
Daniel was not supposed to die.
Dominic was.
Maria’s letter explained a contingency plan Antonio discovered years earlier.
Enzo’s surviving network had maintained a standing assassination structure against Dominic.
One method:
Vehicle interception.
Highway.
Heavy truck.
Minimal witnesses.
The same method that killed Daniel.
Dominic stared at the accident report.
Daniel had borrowed a black SUV that day.
Registered to a Vitali subsidiary.
Why?
Marco answered.
“Daniel was meeting me.”
“He drove one of your cars?”
“Yes.”
The attackers believed Dominic was inside.
They hit the wrong vehicle.
Emily sat silently.
Her husband died because he was mistaken for Dominic.
Dominic looked sick.
“This is my fault.”
Emily’s head snapped up.
“No.”
“If he hadn’t been—”
“No.”
She stood.
“Do not take responsibility for a murder you did not order.”
He looked at her.
“I have spent a year wondering why he died.”
Her voice broke.
“If I let grief assign blame wherever it lands, I’ll destroy everyone left.”
Dominic said nothing.
She continued.
“Find who did it.”
That they could do.
The truck company had dissolved.
Driver dead.
But payment records survived.
The transfer came from a consulting firm owned by:
Victor Salvi.
Enzo Bellini’s former lieutenant.
The name Marco had tried to say before being shot.
Victor was seventy now.
Retired publicly.
Living in Florida.
Not retired privately.
He was funding Sofia.
Dominic understood.
Sofia was not the mastermind.
She was another weapon shaped by an older man.
That did not excuse her.
But it explained the pattern.
Victor wanted all surviving Bellini assets consolidated.
Dominic.
Marco.
Rose.
All bloodline branches under his influence or gone.
The FBI raided Victor’s property.
Empty.
But one file remained.
A photograph of Rose.
Taken three days earlier.
Then another.
Emily outside Vitali House.
And one of Dominic.
Each marked.
ROSE — TRUST.
EMILY — GUARDIAN OBSTACLE.
DOMINIC — BLOODLINE CONTROL.
Then the final page.
Friday.
9:30 p.m.
Warehouse 17.
Again.
They had missed something there.
Dominic returned with Luca and federal agents.
Beneath the vault was another room.
A medical chair.
Blood collection equipment.
Legal documents.
Rose’s name.
Emily stopped breathing when she saw the photographs.
“They planned to bring her here.”
Dominic nodded.
Then an agent opened a locked cabinet.
Inside were DNA kits.
One labeled:
ROSE BENNETT.
Another:
DOMINIC VITALI.
And one more.
SERENA WHITAKER.
They had been planning to prove biological lines.
Why?
The attorney read the trust clause.
Then went pale.
“What?”
He looked at Dominic.
“The Bellini trust does not pass to the youngest descendant.”
“What does it pass to?”
“The descendant genetically closest to Enzo.”
Dominic frowned.
“That would be Marco.”
The attorney shook his head.
“No.”
He held up the preliminary test.
Serena—Sofia—was not Matteo Vitali’s biological daughter.
Her biological father was Enzo Bellini.
Dominic stared.
Sofia was not merely his cousin by upbringing.
May you like
She was his half sister.
And she had been fighting him for an inheritance that legally belonged to neither of them alone.
