Chapter 7 - THE SIN DOMINIC INHERITED
Dominic Russo did not defend his father.
That was when I began to believe he truly had not known.
Enzo’s letter was blunt.
He thanked Mary for the original translation.
He admitted Charles Vale had manipulated the English version.
Then he wrote that correcting the record would destroy Russo Maritime’s expansion, expose debts, and place several major contracts at risk.
So he made a choice.
He buried the truth.
My mother looked at Dominic.
“Your father wasn’t cheated.”
“No.”
“He became part of it.”
Dominic nodded.
The admission seemed to cost him something.
I wanted to hate him for the empire he represented.
But he looked less like a mafia boss in that moment than a son discovering the foundation beneath his entire life was rotten.
Then Mom pointed toward the second page.
“There’s more.”
Enzo had mentioned a ledger.
Not corporate accounting.
A private record Charles Vale supposedly kept documenting payments connected to the altered treaty.
Judges.
Consultants.
Bank officers.
Foreign intermediaries.
Anyone paid to keep the ownership question buried.
Dominic read faster.
At the bottom was a name.
MATTEO RUSSO.
His younger brother.
I had heard of Matteo.
Eight years earlier, newspapers reported that he had died in a warehouse fire in Newark.
Dominic stared at the name.
“My brother knew?”
Mom nodded.
“He came to see me.”
“When?”
“Two months before he died.”
Dominic looked as if someone had struck him.
“You met Matteo?”
“He asked the same questions you’re asking now.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Everything.”
Dominic stepped away.
For the first time, I saw his composure crack.
“He died because of this.”
“I don’t know.”
But Mom’s eyes said she had wondered the same thing for years.
Then she went to her dresser and removed a tiny brass key from an old jewelry box.
“Matteo gave me this.”
Dominic took it.
A number was stamped into the metal.
“He said if anything happened to him, someone from the Russo family would eventually come looking.”
Dominic’s voice was barely audible.
“What does it open?”
Mom shook her head.
“He never told me.”
I turned the key over.
On the other side were three letters.
G.N.T.
Dominic recognized them immediately.
“Grand National Terminal.”
“What is that?”
He looked at me.
“An old private storage vault beneath our first Manhattan shipping office.”
May you like
Then his expression hardened.
“My father sealed that building after Matteo died.”
