Chapter 4 - The Secret Dominic Was Never Supposed to Learn
The drive back from Maine took four hours.
Norah spoke for perhaps five minutes.
Dominic did not pressure her.
That may have been the only reason she did not ask him to stop the car somewhere along Interstate 95 so she could walk the rest of the way.
Salvatore had known.
Seventeen years.
He had known Evelyn Gallagher was alive.
Known where she lived.
Known she had a daughter.
Known Norah existed.
And never appeared.
Daniel Mercer had explained everything he knew.
Rosa had contacted him near the end of her life.
She had cancer.
She believed Evelyn deserved the truth.
Daniel had wanted to contact his daughter immediately.
Rosa refused.
She said Evelyn was happy.
Married.
Raising Norah.
She had escaped the Moretti world completely.
Dragging her back into it simply because adults felt guilty would be selfish.
Daniel accepted that.
Barely.
Salvatore, apparently, had also accepted it.
Norah did not know whether that made things better or worse.
When they returned to the estate, she went directly upstairs.
Salvatore was awake.
She closed the door behind her.
“You knew.”
His face changed.
“Seventeen years.”
He nodded.
“You knew my mother.”
He reached for a communication board Norah had introduced during her second week.
Large letters.
Simple words.
Salvatore’s left hand moved slowly.
S.
A.
F.
E.
“Safe?”
He nodded.
“You stayed away to keep her safe?”
Again.
Norah’s anger remained.
“Do you know what she wanted?”
Salvatore waited.
“She wanted to know where she came from.”
Pain crossed his face.
“She spent her entire life thinking something was wrong with her because Grandma Rose refused to discuss the past.”
Salvatore pointed again.
S-A-F-E.
“I understand the reason.”
Norah’s voice cracked.
“That doesn’t mean the reason didn’t hurt her.”
Salvatore lowered his hand.
For several moments there was only rain against the glass.
Then he pointed to another word.
S-O-R-R-Y.
Norah looked away.
The apology did not erase anything.
But it mattered.
She sat beside him.
“Daniel is alive.”
Salvatore closed his eye.
“You knew that too?”
A nod.
“You people are exhausting.”
Something almost resembling a smile touched his face.
Norah wiped her cheek.
“My mother died never knowing her father loved her.”
Salvatore pointed toward the dresser.
Norah opened the top drawer.
Inside was an envelope.
Dozens of letters.
All addressed to Evelyn Gallagher.
None stamped.
Norah picked one up.
The handwriting belonged to Salvatore.
“You wrote to her.”
A nod.
“But never sent them.”
His gaze fell.
Norah opened one.
Evelyn, today you turn thirty-seven. Rosa sent a photograph. You are holding a little girl with dark curls. Your daughter. My great-granddaughter. I have spent my life believing protection and control were the same thing. I understand now that one is love and the other is fear.
Norah stopped.
Salvatore stared at the blanket over his legs.
She continued silently.
There were birthday letters.
Christmas letters.
One written after Rosa’s death.
Another after Evelyn’s cancer diagnosis.
Norah looked up sharply.
“You knew she was sick?”
His eye filled.
“You could have come.”
He pointed.
P-R-O-M-I-S-E.
“You promised Rosa.”
A nod.
Norah cried then.
Quietly.
Not because Salvatore was innocent.
He wasn’t.
Not because everything could be forgiven.
It couldn’t.
She cried because human beings were more complicated than villains and heroes.
A terrible man could keep one promise for seventeen years.
A loving grandmother could build a life from a lie.
A mother could die without knowing she had been loved from several directions at once.
And a granddaughter could feel furious and grateful in the same breath.
That evening Dominic found Norah in the greenhouse.
She sat beneath a fig tree.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She frowned.
“That’s a strange response.”
“I’ve learned saying ‘yes’ when people are obviously not okay irritates them.”
Norah looked at him.
“Personal experience?”
“Extensive.”
He sat beside her.
“My father showed me the letters.”
“Of course he did.”
“He showed me something else.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
Norah recognized the look.
Another secret.
“Please tell me there aren’t twenty more hidden relatives.”
“No.”
“Good.”
“This is worse.”
She sighed.
“Of course it is.”
Dominic handed her a document.
A trust agreement.
She skimmed.
Then looked up.
“I don’t understand.”
“My father transferred thirty percent of the legitimate Moretti holdings into a trust twenty years ago.”
“For whom?”
“Alessandra’s descendants.”
Norah stared at him.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Dominic hesitated.
“That hesitation means I’m going to hate the number.”
“Approximately eighty-four million dollars.”
Norah nearly dropped the document.
“No.”
“You already said that.”
“Because that’s insane.”
“It includes real estate and business equity.”
“I owe thirty-eight thousand dollars in student loans.”
Dominic’s mouth twitched.
“You can probably handle that now.”
“I don’t want mafia money.”
“It isn’t.”
She looked at him skeptically.
“These assets came from legitimate companies established after my mother convinced my father to diversify. Hotels. Commercial property. Logistics.”
“Logistics sounds suspicious.”
“In our family, everything sounds suspicious.”
Norah laughed despite herself.
Then she became serious.
“Why didn’t he give it to my mother?”
“The trust required her to claim it.”
“And she didn’t know.”
“No.”
“That’s cruel.”
Dominic nodded.
“My father believed contacting her violated Rosa’s request.”
“He could have anonymously sent her enough money to keep the electricity on.”
“Yes.”
Norah looked toward the mansion.
“What do you think I should do?”
“I think money is a tool.”
“That sounded rehearsed.”
“I have considerable experience with money.”
“You also have three hundred-dollar socks.”
“They were a gift.”
“From yourself?”
Dominic looked offended.
Before Norah could laugh again, Frank appeared at the greenhouse entrance.
His expression erased all humor.
“Dom.”
Dominic stood.
“What?”
Frank glanced at Norah.
“We found someone inside the east service corridor.”
Dominic’s posture changed instantly.
“Who?”
“Not one of ours.”
“Police?”
“No.”
Frank handed him a phone.
On the screen was a photograph of a man in his forties wearing maintenance clothes.
Dominic stared.
Norah noticed his face.
“You know him.”
Dominic nodded.
“Carlo Vittorio.”
Norah’s stomach tightened.
“Vittorio?”
“His son.”
The greenhouse suddenly felt cold.
“What was he doing here?”
Frank answered.
“Trying to access Salvatore’s room.”
Dominic’s jaw hardened.
“Where is he now?”
“Security office.”
Norah stepped closer.
“Why would he come now?”
No one answered.
Then Dominic’s phone rang.
A guard upstairs.
Dominic answered.
His face changed immediately.
“What?”
He began running before the caller finished.
Norah followed.
They reached Salvatore’s bedroom.
The bed was empty.
The wheelchair remained near the window.
On the pillow lay a note.
Dominic picked it up.
Three handwritten words.
Trade the nurse.
Norah stared at it.
“What does that mean?”
Dominic’s eyes moved toward her.
Then to the open balcony door.
Rain blew across the carpet.
Frank returned seconds later.
“Carlo wasn’t alone.”
Dominic turned.
Frank’s expression was grim.
“Salvatore is gone.”
Norah felt ice travel down her spine.
And then Frank said the sentence that changed everything again.
May you like
“The security footage shows your father leaving willingly.”
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