Chapter 14 - Home, But Not Safe
Dominic called Luca before anyone finished reading the message.
"Get the girls out now."
Luca's answer came instantly.
"Already moving."
"How did they get a photograph?"
"I don't know."
"Find out."
"Dominic, listen to me."
"What?"
"The image is from the old townhouse nursery."
Dominic frowned.
"They're not there."
"Exactly."
Hannah exhaled.
"So the photograph isn't current."
Luca continued over the phone.
"Metadata is stripped, but Emma is wearing the yellow pajamas she outgrew months ago."
Dominic closed his eyes.
"Matteo wants us panicked."
Elena stood beside him.
"Then don't give him what he wants."
Dominic looked at her.
For the first time, they sounded like partners again.
Luca moved the triplets to a property Dominic had never used for family business, a modest brownstone owned under Rosa's maiden name.
It had no staff beyond Rosa, two nurses, and four guards selected personally by Luca.
Dominic refused to tell Adrian Cole or any other adviser the address.
By midnight, Hannah and Elena arrived separately.
Dominic came ten minutes later by another route.
Elena stood outside the nursery door and stopped.
Her hand shook on the knob.
Hannah touched her shoulder.
"You don't have to be afraid of this part."
"I'm not afraid of them."
"What are you afraid of?"
Elena swallowed.
"That they won't know me."
Hannah's heart hurt for her.
"They knew me."
Elena looked at her.
"Because you look like me."
"Exactly."
A tiny voice came from inside.
"Hanna?"
Elena's face crumpled.
Hannah opened the door.
Lily was standing in her crib.
Grace sat rubbing her eyes.
Emma held the stuffed rabbit.
All three looked first at Hannah.
Then at Elena.
No one moved.
Elena took one step into the room.
"Hi, babies."
Grace's eyes widened.
Emma dropped the rabbit.
Lily made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob.
Then all three girls began shouting the same word.
"Mama!"
Elena dropped to her knees.
The girls climbed and tumbled toward her in pajamas and bare feet.
Rosa began crying in the doorway.
Dominic stood behind Hannah with one hand over his mouth.
Elena gathered all three children against her body.
"I'm here."
She kissed their hair, their foreheads, their cheeks.
"I'm here."
Emma touched the scar on her temple.
"Mama hurt?"
Elena broke completely.
"Not anymore."
Lily pointed toward Hannah.
"Hanna."
Elena laughed through tears.
"Yes."
She looked at Hannah.
"That's Aunt Hannah."
Grace tried the new word.
"Ant Hanna."
Hannah started crying too.
Dominic stepped quietly into the room.
Emma looked at him.
"Dad."
Then she pointed at Elena.
"Mama."
She pushed their hands together.
"Home."
Every adult in the room went silent.
Elena looked at Dominic.
He looked at her.
Neither corrected the child.
For ten minutes, the war outside the brownstone ceased to exist.
The girls talked in fragments, repeating words they had apparently stored in silence for months.
Cup.
Bear.
More.
Mama.
Dad.
Hanna.
Elena listened to every syllable as though each one were a jewel.
When the triplets finally slept, the adults gathered downstairs.
Luca arrived with a man in a gray suit carrying two locked document cases.
Dominic introduced him as federal prosecutor Daniel Reeves.
Hannah stared at Dominic.
"You really called the government."
"Try not to sound disappointed."
"I'm shocked."
Reeves looked between them.
"Is there a reason the waitress is insulting the target of my investigation?"
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
"Former target, I hope."
Reeves smiled without warmth.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."
Elena sat at the dining table.
"You were the attorney we were supposed to meet the morning after my crash."
"Yes."
"Did Matteo know?"
"Not from me."
"Adrian Cole?"
Reeves's expression changed.
"He arranged the contact."
Dominic swore.
"Then he knew everything."
"Likely."
Reeves opened one case.
"I need the original forged-order file."
Elena shook her head.
"Gone from Dominic's safe."
"The blue ledger?"
Hannah looked at Dominic.
He nodded once.
Luca placed a sealed copy of the ledger on the table.
"Original is somewhere else."
Reeves examined the first pages.
"Thomas Mercer kept better records than half the accountants I've subpoenaed."
Hannah felt a painful flicker of pride.
"He was afraid."
"Fear makes some people careless."
Reeves looked at her.
"It made your father meticulous."
Elena removed a flash drive from inside her sleeve.
Dominic stared.
"What's that?"
"Clinic records."
"You said the copies burned."
"Those copies did."
"And this?"
"The originals Carla downloaded."
Dominic's mouth tightened.
"You lied to me."
Elena met his gaze.
"I didn't know if I could trust you yet."
The words hurt him, but he nodded.
"Fair."
Hannah raised an eyebrow.
"You're getting good at that word."
Dominic ignored her.
Reeves inserted the drive into an isolated computer.
Records filled the screen.
Medication logs.
False psychiatric evaluations.
Payments.
Security authorizations.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Adrian Cole.
Elena leaned forward.
"He signed the legal holds that prevented outside doctors from reviewing my case."
Reeves scrolled.
"And he prepared guardianship paperwork."
Dominic's face darkened.
"For who?"
"Matteo Vale."
The room went quiet.
Reeves opened another file.
"This was drafted nine months ago."
It was a petition declaring Dominic unfit to serve as trustee for his daughters because of alleged criminal violence and emotional instability.
Attached were forged records designed to implicate Dominic in Elena's disappearance.
Hannah stared.
"They were going to destroy him legally after framing him criminally."
Reeves nodded.
"Then Matteo controls the girls' shares."
Elena looked sick.
"My daughters became a corporate transaction."
Dominic's voice was cold.
"Not anymore."
Reeves looked at him.
"That depends on what you're willing to turn over."
Dominic met his gaze.
"Everything connected to Matteo and Adrian."
"That's not what I said."
"I know."
Reeves leaned back.
"If I open Vale Shipping, I open all of it."
Dominic was silent.
"Old payments."
"Contract intimidation."
"Labor coercion."
"Whatever else your people buried."
Elena watched her husband carefully.
Hannah did too.
This was the choice Thomas's tape had predicted.
Family or empire.
Dominic looked toward the ceiling where his daughters slept.
"Open it."
Reeves studied him.
"You understand you may implicate yourself."
"Yes."
"You could lose companies."
"Yes."
"You could face charges unrelated to Matteo."
"Yes."
Elena's eyes filled.
Dominic looked at Reeves.
"My daughters have spent eighteen months without their mother because I protected a structure that made men like Matteo useful."
His voice remained steady.
"Open everything."
Hannah saw Elena's hand move across the table.
Dominic took it.
Reeves closed the file.
"Then we start tonight."
At 2:13 a.m., Rosa came downstairs carrying a baby monitor.
"Grace is awake."
Hannah stood.
"I'll get her."
Elena smiled tiredly.
"I can."
"You've been awake for two days."
"So have you."
"I have waitress stamina."
Elena laughed.
Hannah went upstairs.
Grace's crib was empty.
For one second, Hannah's brain refused to understand.
Then she saw the open window.
The curtain moved in the cold air.
The stuffed rabbit lay on the sill.
Hannah screamed.
"Dominic!"
Everyone ran upstairs.
Lily and Emma woke crying.
Elena pushed past Hannah and stared at the empty crib.
"No."
Dominic crossed to the window.
A narrow service roof ran along the back of the brownstone.
One security camera above it had been painted black.
Luca swore.
"How?"
Rosa staggered against the wall.
"I checked them ten minutes ago."
Elena grabbed the crib rail.
"Where is my daughter?"
Dominic turned toward the guards.
"Seal every street."
Luca's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He put it on speaker.
Matteo's voice filled the nursery.
"Now we negotiate."
Daniel Reeves did not trust Dominic simply because Dominic had decided to cooperate.
Before accepting the Vale records, the prosecutor required a recorded statement in the brownstone dining room.
Hannah watched from the kitchen doorway.
"State your full name."
Dominic did.
"Do you understand that information you provide may be used in investigations that include your own conduct?"
"Yes."
"Are you requesting immunity?"
Dominic looked at Elena before answering.
"No blanket immunity."
Reeves's brows rose.
"Your attorney would hate that answer."
"My attorney is missing and apparently corrupt."
"Fair point."
Reeves continued.
"Why cooperate now?"
Dominic's eyes moved toward the ceiling where the girls slept.
"Because I spent years believing I could separate what happened in business from what happened in my home."
"And?"
"I was wrong."
Reeves waited.
Dominic continued.
"Men I tolerated because they were useful reached my wife and children."
"I am responsible for building a system where that was possible even if I did not order what they did."
Elena's face changed.
Hannah saw the exact moment Dominic's words cost him pride.
That mattered because it was the first payment Elena had asked to see.
Reeves switched off the recorder.
"That's the beginning."
Dominic nodded.
"I know."
Hannah looked at Elena.
May you like
Her sister did not smile.
But she reached under the table and briefly touched Dominic's hand.
