Chapter 4 - blood on the collar
Dominic stared at the initials *D.V.* on the birth certificate.
His mind was a storm of calculations. Thirty-one years ago, Dominic had been twenty-four, already running the ports in South Boston for the syndicate. His father, Dante Vercelli, had still been the undisputed Don, ruling the family with an iron fist and an appetite for betrayal.
Was Elena his half-sister? Or was she someone his father had hidden away to keep his mother from tearing the family apart?
Dominic slowly closed the folder and looked up at Elena. "Did she tell you who your father was?"
"No," Elena said honestly, her voice dropping. "My mother took that secret to her grave. Donna Maria only told me that this box contained the reason my mother was killed. She said Julian knew the truth, and that Vivienne helped him bury it."
Before Dominic could respond, heavy footsteps echoed outside the hallway. The door to the study swung open violently.
Vivienne stood in the doorway. She had changed out of the ruined crimson gown into a silk emerald dressing robe, but she hadn't bothered to wash off the smeared mascara. The dark purple bruise on her cheekbone stood out sharply against her pale skin. Behind her stood two armed guards from the mansion's secondary detail—men who had been on Julian’s private payroll before his death.
"Get out of this room, both of you," Dominic said without raising his voice.
The two guards hesitated, their eyes darting nervously between Dominic and Vivienne. In the Vercelli family, crossing Dominic was a death sentence, but Julian had paid their families for a decade.
"Stand down, boys," Dominic added, his tone dangerously smooth. "Before Mateo paints the wallpaper with you."
Mateo’s hand rested casually on the grip of his pistol. The two guards swallowed hard, backed out of the doorway, and pulled the door partially shut, leaving Vivienne standing alone in the room.
"You're losing your mind, Dominic," Vivienne said, her voice shaking with rage. "You hit me in front of our associates. You dragged a servant into your office over a piece of trash she pulled from a basement bin! Do you know what people are saying downstairs?"
Dominic picked up the tarnished metal box and set it squarely in the center of the desk under the lamp light.
Vivienne’s eyes fell on the dirt-covered box. The color instantly drained from her lips. Her breath caught in her throat.
"You recognize it, don't you?" Dominic asked softly.
"I have no idea what that is," Vivienne stammered, taking a step backward toward the door. "Julian had dozens of old tackle boxes and tool kits in the shed."
"This wasn't in the shed. It was buried under the stone angel in the rose garden," Dominic said, stepping out from behind his desk. He walked slowly toward her, his imposing frame casting a massive shadow across the room. "The garden Julian begged me to pave over three years ago."
Vivienne’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. "Julian was paranoid toward the end. You know how he was. He thought everyone was stealing from him."
"Did he think my mother was stealing from him?" Dominic stepped closer, towering over her. "Did he think Clara Grace was stealing from him when his car ran her down on 4th Street?"
"That was an accident!" Vivienne snapped, the words tumbling out too fast, too rehearsed. "The police cleared him! It was raining! The driver lost control!"
"Julian wasn't driving that car," Dominic said, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. "Julian never drove himself anywhere in the city. He had a driver. Frank Rossi."
Vivienne froze. Her eyes darted toward the window, then toward Elena, who was watching her with silent, burning intensity.
"Frank Rossi died in prison three years ago, Vivienne," Dominic continued, his voice dropping into that terrifying register that made grown men beg for their lives. "Or at least, that’s what Julian told me. But last week, when I reviewed the private payroll for the estate’s security company... I found a monthly transfer of ten thousand dollars going to an offshore account in the Caymans. Under the name of Frank Rossi's sister."
Vivienne backed up until her shoulders hit the doorframe. "Julian made business arrangements I didn't ask about. I'm his widow, Dominic. Not his partner."
"You were his accountant before you married him," Dominic countered coldly. "You signed every transfer."
Vivienne’s face tightened. A sharp, bitter smile suddenly broke through her panic. "You think you're so righteous, don't you, Nico? You think you came back from Chicago to be the honorable Don." She pointed a trembling, manicured finger at Elena. "Ask her about the leather pouch in that box. Go on. Open it."
Dominic turned back to the desk. He reached into the metal strongbox and pulled out the small, worn leather pouch he had noticed earlier.
He loosened the leather drawstring and tipped the contents onto the mahogany desk.
A heavy gold pocket watch slid out. The back casing was engraved with an intricate family crest, but it wasn't the Vercelli crest.
May you like
It was the silver falcon of the Falcone family—the Vercellis' bitterest blood rivals for over forty years. And engraved beneath the falcon was a single date: *October 14, 1993.*
The exact night Dominic’s father had been gunned down outside his own restaurant.
