Chapter 8 - WHAT HAPPENED TO SOFIA MORETTI
Dominic remembered his mother’s funeral.
Closed casket.
Twelve years old.
His father standing like stone.
Everyone saying Sofia’s heart had failed.
Rose told a different story.
Sofia discovered that Salvatore’s brother Vincent and Carlo Bellini were secretly siphoning assets from DeLuca companies.
She threatened to expose them.
Three weeks later, her car left the road outside Stamford.
Dominic’s hands tightened.
“A car accident.”
Rose nodded.
“Just like Elena.”
Grace felt cold.
Same method.
Different generation.
Rose had been nineteen.
Sofia mailed copies of financial documents to Samuel DeLuca the week before she died.
Samuel panicked.
He moved his family to Ohio and changed industries.
He never pursued the inheritance.
“He thought staying invisible would keep us alive,” Rose said.
Dominic looked toward Grace.
The pattern again.
People disappearing.
Children growing up without truth.
Fear passed down like property.
“Did my father know?” Dominic asked.
Rose shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Marco did.
He had found a sealed letter in Salvatore’s archive that afternoon.
Written fifteen years after Sofia’s death.
Vincent—
I know what you did to Sofia.
You live only because Dominic and Lucia have already lost one parent.
If you touch them, I will forget you are my brother.
Dominic read it once.
Then tore nothing.
Threw nothing.
He simply sat.
His father had known.
And kept Vincent alive.
Not from mercy.
From fear of destroying the family further.
That choice allowed Vincent to continue working with Carlo.
Grace sat beside Dominic.
“I’m sorry.”
He laughed bitterly.
“Everyone I thought protected this family seems to have protected the secret instead.”
Grace understood.
Her own mother had done the same thing in smaller ways.
Rose looked at Dominic.
“Salvatore later tried to fix it.”
“How?”
“He transferred DeLuca assets into a trust.”
“For whom?”
“Descendants of Sofia and Samuel.”
Dominic stared.
“That means Lucia, me, Rose…”
“And Grace and Nathan,” Marco said.
Rose nodded.
“The trust disappeared after Salvatore died.”
Marco’s expression changed.
“I know where.”
Carlo Bellini had served as outside counsel for several Moretti trusts.
He could not legally own the assets.
But he could bury them.
The estimated value today exceeded $38 million.
Grace laughed from pure disbelief.
Her mother had delayed chemotherapy appointments because they could not afford copays while millions legally connected to her family sat hidden behind shell companies.
Nathan said exactly what everyone was thinking.
“I would have preferred finding this out before they repossessed my car.”
Rose started crying.
Grace hugged her.
Dominic turned toward Marco.
“Freeze nothing ourselves.”
Marco understood.
“Federal warrant.”
“Yes.”
They handed the evidence to an organized-crime and financial-crimes task force.
For once, Dominic Moretti opened doors investigators had spent years trying to force.
Then Grace’s phone rang.
St. Catherine’s.
She answered.
Her face changed.
“What happened?”
A nurse spoke rapidly.
Grace looked at Dominic.
“It’s Leo.”
Dominic was already standing.
“What?”
“Someone tried to enter pediatrics using a transfer order.”
Lucia called from the secure floor.
She had stopped the man because Leo refused to leave without Dominic.
Security detained him.
The paperwork was fake.
The name on the transfer order:
Dr. Adrian Bellini.
Vanessa’s older brother.
And when agents searched Adrian’s vehicle, they found two passports.
One for himself.
One for a six-year-old boy under another name.
May you like
The Bellinis were no longer trying to frighten Dominic.
They were trying to steal his son.
