Chapter 4 - Whispers in the Glass
Z
The penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side was an impenetrable fortress of glass, steel, and private security. For three days following the nightmare in New Jersey, Sophia and Lily had lived in a gilded cage. Dominic had stationed four heavily armed, discreet bodyguards at the private elevator entrance and reinforced every window with bulletproof laminate.
To five-year-old Lily, however, it was simply a palace.
"Papa! Look!" Lily squeaked, her small bare feet padding softly across the polished Italian marble floor of the living room. She was holding up a drawing—a wildly colorful masterpiece done in oil pastels.
Dominic, who was sitting at the massive mahogany dining table surrounded by four open laptops and stack of financial ledgers, immediately looked up. The sharp, cold line of his jaw instantly relaxed. He pushed aside a mountain of security reports and held out his hands.
"Bring it over here, sweetheart," Dominic said, his voice entirely different from the command tone he used with his men.
Lily scrambled into his lap, sitting comfortably on his knee. She thrust the paper into his face. "It's us. Look, that's Mama, that's me, and that's you. And look!" She pointed her tiny finger at the right side of the page. "You have a face now. And a suit. A blue one, not black."
Dominic stared at the drawing. His mind flashed back to the heartbreaking picture on Sophia's refrigerator three weeks ago—the one with the empty, father-shaped outline. Now, the outline was filled with bright, scribbled blue crayon, holding hands with the little girl and her mother.
A strange, unfamiliar lump formed in Dominic's throat. He wrapped his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. "It's the best painting I've ever seen. We're putting this right on the main wall."
"Not on the fridge?" Lily asked, tilting her head.
"No," Dominic smiled softly. "This one deserves a golden frame."
From the open kitchen, Sophia stood leaning against the granite counter, holding two mugs of coffee. She had been watching them in silence. Her eyes met Dominic's over Lily's head, sharing a quiet, profound moment of unspoken gratitude.
"Alright, artist," Sophia said, stepping forward with a gentle smile. "Time for your bath. Rabbit is already waiting in the tub."
"Rabbit can't swim!" Lily giggled, jumping down from Dominic's lap. "I have to save him!" She sprinted down the long hallway toward her massive new bedroom, her laughter echoing through the cavernous apartment.
Sophia set one of the coffee mugs down in front of Dominic. She didn't leave. Instead, she rested her hip against the edge of the table, looking down at the messy spread of surveillance reports and financial records.
"You haven't slept in forty-eight hours," she said quietly.
"I sleep fine," Dominic lied smoothly, taking a sip of the dark coffee.
"Dominic," Sophia said, her voice dropping, carrying that familiar, stubborn firmness he had missed for six long years. "You have dark circles under your eyes, you've drunk three pots of coffee, and you haven't left this table since yesterday morning. What was on that phone in the car?"
Dominic froze slightly, his cup halfway to his mouth. He set it down slowly. "Sophia..."
"Don't 'Sophia' me," she interrupted, stepping closer. "Six years ago, people kept secrets from me to 'protect' me, and it ruined our lives. It took my daughter's father away for five years. If we are doing this—if we are living under the same roof—you do not hide things from me."
Dominic looked up at her. He saw the fire in her brown eyes—the same ferocious, independent spirit that had made him fall hopelessly in love with her when she was just a brilliant, fiery junior accountant standing up to him in a boardroom.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, unlocked it, and handed it to her.
Sophia took it. She scrolled to the text message from three nights ago. She stared at the photograph of the SUV on the bridge, and then read the threat beneath it.
Her breath hitched slightly, but she didn't panic. She squeezed her eyes shut, took a slow, deep breath, and opened them again. "Who is it?"
"I don't know yet," Dominic admitted, his voice tight. "Vescari is in federal custody, dying of cancer in a prison hospital. His syndicate is fractured. But whoever sent this has access to high-level city surveillance feeds. That takes serious money and political juice."
"Victor?" she asked.
"Victor is sweeping the financial records of every rival family in the tri-state area," Dominic said, rubbing his face with his hands. "He thinks it might be an inside job. Someone within the Moretti organization who wanted Vescari and me to destroy each other so they could step into the vacuum."
Sophia handed the phone back to him. She looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the glittering lights of Manhattan far below. "I got a phone call today," she said softly.
Dominic snapped his head up. "What? From whom?"
"From my new boss at the Brooklyn firm," Sophia replied, turning to face him. "He said someone called offering to triple their firm's investment portfolio if they terminated my contract immediately."
Dominic's eyes flashed with instant, dangerous fury. He slammed his hand onto the table, making the coffee cups rattle. "I swear to God, I will tear down every—"
"I told him no," Sophia interrupted calmly.
Dominic paused, staring at her. "What?"
"My boss told them to go to hell," Sophia said, a tiny, proud smile touching her lips. "He said I was the best forensic accountant he'd hired in ten years, and he doesn't take bribes. But Dominic... I looked at the routing number of the caller that my boss saved."
Dominic stood up immediately, leaning over the table. "You ran the routing number?"
"I'm a senior auditor, Dominic," she said, raising an eyebrow with faint amusement. "You aren't the only one who knows how to hunt. The caller used an offshore shell company registered in the Cayman Islands. But the parent company... it's a subsidiary of Moretti Enterprises."
Dominic felt the air leave his lungs. "That's impossible. Every subsidiary goes through my desk."
"Not this one," Sophia said, pulling a folded piece of paper from her pocket and laying it on the table. "This company was created seven years ago. Right before I was fired. It was set up under a dark trust."
Dominic picked up the paper, his eyes scanning the corporate registration numbers. At the very bottom of the document, listed as the sole primary trustee, was a signature he knew better than his own.
It wasn't Victor Bellini.
It was Dominic's late father, Eduardo Moretti.
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And listed right beneath Eduardo's name as the secondary executor was a man Dominic had believed was dead for nearly a decade:
Julian Moretti. His older brother.
