Chapter 10 - THE LEGACY DOMINIC INHERITED
Dominic did not speak for almost an hour.
I understood.
Finding out your father built part of the machine currently destroying your brother probably complicates grief.
Michael Rossi had invested in Moretti when Moretti was a young accountant.
The original business:
Private lending.
Property acquisition.
Debt collection.
All technically separated from the Rossi organization.
Then expansion.
Gambling.
Warehouses.
Predatory loans.
Michael died.
Moretti kept building.
Victor later unknowingly reinvested in something his father had started.
Family legacy disguised as opportunity.
Dominic stared at the old signature.
“He told me never to borrow.”
Victor laughed bitterly.
“Apparently because he preferred lending.”
Then Dominic did something unexpected.
He opened his own financial archives.
Everything connected to his father.
Not to hide.
To review.
“If this is in my companies, I want it found.”
Victor looked up.
“That could destroy you.”
“Then it shouldn’t exist.”
I watched him.
This was not the man from the alley who broke someone with his hands and straightened his cuffs.
Still dangerous.
Different.
Independent forensic accountants were brought in.
Not me.
Important.
I had too much personal involvement.
I returned to Laura.
For the first time in weeks, the restaurant felt almost normal.
Then I noticed Sam sitting at a corner table doing homework.
Dominic had arranged tutoring.
I had not asked.
Normally that would anger me.
Then Sam looked up.
“I asked him.”
Good.
Choices.
Progress.
The audit found multiple legacy entities connected to Michael Rossi.
Some legitimate.
Some not.
Dominic’s modern businesses had absorbed pieces without understanding origins.
He began separating them.
Selling.
Closing.
Turning records over through counsel where necessary.
Men around him hated it.
One captain called him weak.
Dominic fired him.
Not shot.
Fired.
I considered that growth.
Then Moretti offered cooperation.
He had no loyalty left.
He gave investigators the nurse’s name.
Payment records.
Victor’s involvement.
Varga connections.
Everything.
But he wanted one thing in exchange from Dominic.
Protection for his wife.
Dominic agreed only through legal channels.
No private promise.
More growth.
Then Lucian Varga made his move.
He publicly declared Thomas Bennett’s debt satisfied.
Almost funny.
Four months late.
Then sent me a handwritten note:
Your father was difficult. You inherited that.
I threw it away.
Dominic retrieved it from the trash.
“Evidence.”
“Annoying.”
“Yes.”
Then Varga disappeared from Seattle.
No arrest.
No dramatic death.
Just pressure.
Investigations.
Business losses.
He retreated.
Maybe temporarily.
Maybe forever.
I stopped caring.
Then the nurse who treated my father agreed to testify.
She said Thomas had woken briefly before dying.
He said one sentence.
She remembered because it made no sense.
Tell Chloe I finally won one.
I cried for hours.
My father had lost almost everything to gambling.
But at the end, he had protected the page.
Protected Sam.
Protected me.
One win.
Then Dominic found me in Laura’s empty dining room.
He sat across from me.
No command.
No whiskey.
Just:
“The forty thousand is gone.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“Your debt.”
“You paid Varga.”
“It was fraudulent.”
“You still paid him.”
“My mistake.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“We had a deal.”
“You worked three months.”
“Not forty thousand worth.”
“That is not your problem.”
There it was.
I hated it.
“Do not turn freedom into another gift I owe you for.”
Dominic stared.
Then slowly nodded.
“What do you want?”
Finally.
May you like
I answered:
“A real employment contract.”
