Chapter 5 - I SET A TRAP FOR MY OWN SECURITY CHIEF
I did not confront Dominic.
That surprised everyone who knew me.
Three years earlier, I would have.
Gun on the table.
Door locked.
Questions until someone broke.
But Lily had changed the equation.
If Dominic was involved, he was not alone.
I needed the entire structure.
So I lied.
At breakfast, I announced:
“We found nothing in Elena’s car.”
Dominic barely reacted.
“All this for nothing?”
“Apparently.”
I tore the threatening drawing in half.
Not the original.
A copy.
The real one was already with a forensic lab.
“I’m done looking.”
Allie stared at me.
I gave her no warning.
Her anger looked real.
Good.
“Done?”
“Yes.”
“Someone threatened my daughter.”
“We’ll handle security.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
She stood so abruptly her chair moved.
“Men like you are unbelievable.”
Then she took Lily upstairs.
Dominic watched.
“You sure about this?”
“Yes.”
He smiled faintly.
The first mistake.
That evening, I told him Allie had demanded leave and planned to take Lily to Indiana.
Second lie.
“Probably safer,” he said.
Exactly what I wanted.
At 11:20 p.m., a car left the estate carrying two security officers dressed as Allie and Lily.
Dominic entered the surveillance room ten minutes later.
He disabled camera six for forty-three seconds.
We were recording him from camera seven.
Then he made a call.
“Target moved.”
Target.
My hands went cold.
“Heading?”
Pause.
“South gate. White sedan.”
Another pause.
“Yes. The child too.”
I nearly went through the door.
Matteo Rossi, my second security officer, grabbed my arm.
“Wait.”
Nobody touched me.
Tonight I allowed it.
We traced the call.
Burner phone.
Signal bounced to a motel twelve miles away.
Police contacts moved quietly.
One man inside.
When they entered, the room was empty.
Still warm.
On the table:
Photographs of Allie.
Lily.
Me.
Elena.
And Evan Carter.
Recent Evan.
Alive.
He had been photographed outside the estate six days earlier.
Allie stared at the image.
Her knees weakened.
I caught her before she fell.
For one second she remained against my chest.
Then stepped away quickly.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t.”
She looked at the photograph again.
“He’s alive.”
“Yes.”
“Why wouldn’t he come to me?”
We found the answer on the back.
A handwritten message:
HE THINKS YOU’RE SAFER BELIEVING HE’S DEAD.
Allie laughed through tears.
“Another man protecting me by disappearing.”
I said nothing.
Because it sounded uncomfortably familiar.
Then Matteo opened another file.
Photos of Elena meeting Evan.
Dates.
Locations.
They had been investigating someone inside the Moretti organization.
Dominic.
But beneath Dominic’s photograph appeared another name.
SALVATORE MORETTI.
My uncle.
The man who raised me after my father died.
The man currently controlling half our Chicago operations.
And according to Elena’s notes:
May you like
Dominic wasn’t giving Salvatore orders.
Salvatore was giving them to Dominic.
