Chapter 16 - The Sister Matteo Didn't Plan For
Hannah dropped the document case and ran sideways as Adrian drew his gun.
A shot cracked against the pavement behind her.
The pier erupted.
Federal vehicles surged from darkness at both ends of the warehouse.
Dominic's men moved from behind stacked containers.
Luca shouted through Hannah's earpiece.
"Down!"
Hannah threw herself behind a concrete barrier.
Grace screamed from beside the van.
Dominic appeared from the shadows with the terrifying speed of a man who had forgotten fear.
The man holding Grace tried to climb into the vehicle.
Dominic hit him before the door closed.
They went down together.
Grace rolled onto the pavement.
Elena, who had been hidden in a federal surveillance vehicle despite Dominic's objections, ran toward her daughter.
"Grace!"
The toddler saw her.
"Mama!"
Elena reached her and pulled her against her chest.
Adrian fired toward them.
Luca returned fire.
Adrian ducked behind the van.
Hannah crawled along the barrier until a hand grabbed her ankle.
She kicked hard.
The attacker cursed.
Hannah twisted and struck him with the metal flashlight Reeves had insisted she carry.
He released her.
She scrambled backward.
"I hate this family!"
Dominic heard her from ten yards away.
"Not the time!"
"It feels like the time!"
A black SUV roared from behind the warehouse.
Matteo was driving.
He accelerated toward the open end of the pier.
Adrian ran for the passenger door.
Luca aimed.
Reeves shouted, "Alive if possible!"
Luca lowered the weapon half an inch and fired at the tire.
The SUV swerved.
Adrian missed the door and fell.
The vehicle kept going without him.
Matteo crashed through a wooden barrier and disappeared onto the service road.
Dominic started after him.
Then Grace screamed again.
He stopped.
For one visible moment, every instinct in him split in two directions.
Hannah saw the old Dominic want the chase.
She saw the father choose the child.
He turned back.
Matteo escaped.
Dominic went to his daughter.
Elena held Grace while the little girl sobbed into her shoulder.
Dominic wrapped both of them in his arms.
"You're safe."
Grace reached for him.
"Dad."
His face crumpled.
"I'm here."
Hannah sat on the cold pavement and laughed shakily from relief.
Luca helped her up.
"You all right?"
"Ask me after I stop hearing gunshots."
"Fair."
"Everyone says that now."
Adrian Cole lay face down on the pavement with federal agents restraining him.
Reeves approached.
"Mr. Cole, you're under arrest."
Adrian looked past him at Dominic.
"Matteo will destroy you."
Dominic held Grace closer.
"He already tried."
"You think handing your records to the government saves your family?"
"No."
Dominic met his eyes.
"Getting men like you out of it might."
Adrian laughed.
"You still don't understand."
Reeves hauled him upright.
"You'll have plenty of time to explain."
Adrian looked at Hannah.
"Your father understood."
Hannah went still.
"What about my father?"
"Thomas knew Matteo wasn't the beginning."
"What does that mean?"
Adrian smiled.
"Ask Celia who created the first ledger."
Dominic stepped forward.
"What are you talking about?"
Agents pulled Adrian away.
"Ask your mother!"
His laughter followed them across the pier.
Hannah looked at Dominic.
"Every answer creates another question."
"Welcome to my family."
"I preferred the restaurant."
"You threw peas there."
Grace said it softly from Elena's arms.
Everyone turned.
The little girl pointed toward Dominic.
"Peas."
Despite the cold, the arrests, the blood on Dominic's sleeve, and the fact that Matteo had escaped, Elena started laughing.
Hannah joined her.
Then Luca.
Even Dominic smiled.
The moment lasted three seconds.
Reeves returned holding Adrian's phone inside an evidence bag.
"We have a location ping from Matteo's vehicle."
Dominic's smile vanished.
"Where?"
"Abandoned toll facility near the old waterfront."
"He's still in Brooklyn?"
"Vehicle is."
Luca frowned.
"He'll dump it."
"Probably already did."
Reeves looked at Elena.
"We also found messages between Adrian and Matteo."
"How far back?"
"Nine years."
Dominic stared.
"Before Elena and I met."
"Yes."
Reeves scrolled on a secure device.
"Adrian appears to have helped Matteo monitor Elena's inheritance before she ever met you."
Elena's face hardened.
"So our meeting really may have been engineered."
Dominic looked at her.
"We met at a charity auction."
"Adrian invited me."
"He invited me too."
They went silent.
Hannah understood the cruelty of the realization.
Matteo might not have arranged their love, but he had placed them in the same room for a financial reason.
Elena took Dominic's hand.
"He put us in a room."
Dominic looked at her.
"He didn't choose what happened after."
She squeezed his fingers.
"No."
Reeves cleared his throat.
"There is more."
Hannah groaned.
"I officially hate that phrase."
Reeves almost smiled.
"Adrian maintained a hidden copy of the trust's original drafting notes."
"Why does that matter?"
Elena asked.
"Because the secondary trustee was not always Matteo."
Dominic frowned.
"Who was it?"
Reeves looked toward Celia's name in the recovered document.
"Your mother."
Dominic stared.
"Celia?"
"She was removed three days before the trust was signed."
"By who?"
"Adrian Cole, using a change authorization allegedly signed by Elena."
Elena shook her head.
"I never signed that."
Reeves nodded.
"We assumed as much."
Hannah thought about Adrian's final taunt.
Ask Celia who created the first ledger.
"We need to talk to Dominic's mother again."
Dominic agreed.
They returned to the brownstone near dawn.
Celia was waiting in the dining room.
When she saw Grace, she burst into tears.
Elena did not let her hold the child.
Celia accepted that without complaint.
Dominic placed the recovered trust documents on the table.
"Why were you originally the secondary trustee?"
Celia looked at the pages.
"Because Maria Rossi asked me to be."
Elena stared.
"You knew Maria?"
"Yes."
"Since when?"
"Since Matteo arranged your adoption."
Hannah's anger returned.
"You said the Rossis didn't know the adoption was illegal."
"They didn't."
"But you stayed in contact with them."
"Quietly."
Dominic tapped the document.
"Why were you removed?"
"I wasn't told I had been."
Reeves leaned forward.
"Adrian claims you created the first ledger that Thomas Mercer later copied."
Celia's face changed.
Dominic saw it.
"Mother."
She closed her eyes.
"I did."
Hannah stared.
"Why?"
Celia looked at her son.
"Because Victor was stealing from his own companies."
Dominic's expression hardened.
"Father?"
"Yes."
"And Matteo?"
"Helped him."
"Then why did Matteo spend decades hiding the ledger after Victor died?"
Celia's voice became very quiet.
"Because Victor did not die when you think he did."
The room went still.
Dominic stared at his mother.
"What did you say?"
Celia's eyes filled with dread.
"Your father was alive for almost two years after the funeral."
After Grace was rescued, Dominic refused medical treatment for the cut above his eyebrow until a pediatric doctor examined his daughter first.
Grace had no injuries beyond a bruise on one wrist and signs of dehydration.
The doctor cleared her after an hour.
Only then did Dominic sit while a medic closed his wound with adhesive strips.
Hannah stood nearby.
"You look terrible."
"Thank you."
"I mean worse than usual."
"Still thank you."
Elena entered carrying Grace.
The toddler reached toward Dominic.
He took her carefully.
Grace touched the bandage above his eye.
"Dad hurt."
"A little."
She kissed the bandage.
Dominic closed his eyes.
Elena watched him.
"You let Matteo go."
He opened his eyes.
"Yes."
"Old you wouldn't have."
Dominic looked at Grace.
"Old me would have chased him."
"Even with her crying behind you?"
He did not answer.
That silence was honest enough.
Elena sat beside him.
"Thank you for choosing her."
Dominic looked almost offended.
"She's my daughter."
"I know."
"There was no choice."
Elena smiled sadly.
"There always is."
Dominic understood what she meant.
For years, he had chosen the empire first often enough that it had become invisible to him.
May you like
This time he had seen the fork in the road.
And he had turned toward his child.
