Chapter 11 - THE FOURTH FLOOR
Grace ran.
Dominic could barely keep pace.
Security locked down the oncology wing before they reached the elevator.
Rose was safe.
Carlo was not with her.
That made it worse.
He wanted something else.
Hospital cameras tracked him from the lobby to an administrative corridor.
Then he disappeared near the records department.
Grace stopped.
“Medical files.”
Dominic understood.
The DeLuca inheritance records had been tied to Rose’s medical-benefit application.
Carlo wanted whatever documentation connected her legally to Samuel DeLuca.
“He’s destroying proof,” Grace said.
“Too late.”
Federal agents already had certified copies.
Carlo apparently didn’t know.
They found him in an archive office feeding papers into a shredder.
He wasn’t alone.
Anthony Rizzo’s son David stood beside him.
The fake lawyer.
Security officers blocked both exits.
Dominic stayed in the hall.
He did not enter.
Grace noticed.
The old version of Dominic might have wanted the confrontation.
This one understood evidence mattered more than satisfaction.
Carlo shouted when federal agents arrived.
He called Dominic a traitor.
A weak man.
A disgrace to Salvatore.
Dominic listened without reacting.
Then Carlo saw Grace.
His face twisted.
“All this because of a nurse.”
Grace stepped forward before anyone stopped her.
“No.”
She looked at him.
“All this because you thought ordinary people didn’t matter.”
Carlo laughed.
“Your family would still be nobody if Dominic hadn’t—”
Grace cut him off.
“My mother survived without your money.”
“Nathan survived your truck.”
“Elena left proof.”
“Leo lived.”
“And Dominic stopped being afraid of what people like you call weakness.”
Carlo’s smile vanished.
Agents led him away.
No gunfire.
No body on marble floors.
Just handcuffs.
Dominic watched until the elevator closed.
Then Grace looked at him.
“You okay?”
“No.”
Another honest answer.
“Good.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“You’re allowed not to be.”
That night, Grace sat beside Leo while he drew pictures in Dominic’s library.
One showed three people.
Leo.
Dominic.
A woman with brown hair.
Grace stared.
“Who’s that?”
“You.”
She swallowed.
“Where’s your mom?”
Leo pointed upward.
A yellow star above them.
Grace’s eyes filled.
“You don’t have to put me in pictures.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
Leo shrugged.
“You stay when stuff gets bad.”
Children made complicated things brutally simple.
Dominic stood silently in the doorway.
Later, after Leo slept, he handed Grace Elena’s final sealed letter.
“You should read it.”
“It’s addressed to you.”
“She talks about you.”
Grace hesitated.
Then opened it.
Elena wrote:
If Grace Bennett is ever standing beside you when you read this, do not turn her into another person you think you own because you are afraid to lose her.
Grace stopped.
Dominic actually looked embarrassed.
“She knew you well.”
“Apparently.”
Grace continued.
Let people choose you, Dominic.
It will hurt more.
It will also mean more.
Grace slowly folded the letter.
Neither spoke.
Then Dominic said:
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“Yes, you do.”
“How?”
“Ask.”
He looked at her.
“Will you have dinner with me when this is over?”
Grace smiled.
“Yes.”
Then Marco entered.
Again.
Dominic closed his eyes.
“I may kill him.”
Grace laughed.
Marco ignored both.
“DNA results came back on something we recovered from Bellini estate.”
Dominic frowned.
“What?”
“A lock of hair from Elena’s journal.”
“And?”
Marco’s face was strange.
“It wasn’t Elena’s.”
Grace’s smile disappeared.
“Whose?”
Marco looked toward the sleeping child upstairs.
“Leo’s.”
Dominic stared.
“That makes sense.”
“No.”
Marco swallowed.
“We compared it to your confirmed paternity sample.”
The room went silent.
“You are Leo’s father.”
Dominic waited.
“But the maternal comparison from Elena’s medical file does not match.”
Grace’s stomach dropped.
May you like
Leo was Dominic’s son.
But Elena Russo was not his biological mother.
