Chapter 3 - Blood Doesn't Lie
Thirty minutes later, the executive boardroom on the forty-second floor of the Moretti Grand was as silent as a crypt.
The panoramic glass windows offered an unobstructed view of the New York skyline, bathed in a sea of cold electric blue and amber lights. Rain had begun to fall, long streaks of silver slashing across the thick glass, mimicking the storm raging inside Dominic’s mind.
On the massive mahogany table lay a manila folder, spread open beneath the glow of a single brass lamp.
Dominic stood over it, both hands planted on the polished wood, his tie loosened, the top two buttons of his collar undone. His reflection in the glass looked hollowed-out, haunted.
Beside him, Marco stood at attention, his tablet resting flat on the table.
"Read it to me again," Dominic said. His voice was a rasping scrape of gravel.
Marco cleared his throat. "Her full name on the registry is Natalie Vance. She checked in three hours ago using an international passport issued in Switzerland. She’s staying in Suite 1402 on the corporate account of Studio V Interior Architecture."
"Studio V," Dominic repeated.
"It’s an exclusive firm based in Zurich," Marco explained, tapping the screen to bring up the company profile. "High-end restorations. Historic estates, private museums. Apparently, the Board of Trustees for the Metropolitan Heritage Trust hired them six months ago to oversee the restoration of the St. Jude Basilica downtown. She is the lead architectural conservator. That’s why she’s in New York."
Dominic’s mind spun. When Natalie had been his wife, she had spent her afternoons sketching floor plans in a tiny leather notebook by the bay window of their home. He had dismissed it as a harmless hobby. He had bought her expensive jewelry she never wore, wrapped her in silks she never asked for, and ignored the fire in her mind because he had been too consumed by the violent consolidation of the Five Boroughs.
"And the children?" Dominic asked, the words catching in his throat. "What are their names, Marco?"
Marco hesitated. In fifteen years of service, the giant enforcer had never once hesitated to deliver bad news to his boss. But the tension in the room was electric, primed to detonate.
"Leonardo and Amelia," Marco said quietly. "Four years and eight months old."
Four years and eight months.
Dominic closed his eyes. The numbers slammed into his chest with mathematical precision.
He did the calculation instantly. Sixty months ago, on a bitter November night, he had thrown Natalie out of his penthouse. Fifty-six months ago, these children were born.
She was already pregnant when he kicked her out.
She had been six weeks pregnant, carrying his twins, when he stood by that fireplace, drank scotch with Elena, and accused her of being a traitor’s daughter and a corporate spy.
*God forgive me,* Dominic thought, a wave of sickening vertigo washing over him. He pressed his palms harder into the wood until the joints ached. *She was carrying my children, and I sent her into the cold with nothing.*
"Boss," Marco said, pulling a slip of paper from the file. "There’s more. I ran the flight manifests and hospital archives through our contacts in Geneva."
"Show me."
Marco placed a high-resolution photocopy on the table. It was a birth certificate, translated from French.
*Father: Undeclared.*
Dominic’s jaw clenched until his teeth ground together. *Undeclared.* She had erased him. She had sat in a foreign hospital bed, bleeding and exhausted, bringing two new lives into the world, and when asked who had fathered them, she had chosen to write *nobody* rather than write *Dominic Moretti*.
"She protected them from me," Dominic whispered, the agony in his voice breaking through his icy veneer. "She hid them because she thought I would take them. Or kill them."
"Or," Marco offered carefully, stepping back into the shadows, "she hid them because she didn't want them anywhere near the life, Boss."
Before Dominic could respond, the heavy double doors of the boardroom swung open with an aggressive bang.
Elena marched in, her floor-length silk skirt bunched in her fists, her chest heaving with indignation. Her hair was still immaculately styled, but the veneer of poise was entirely gone, replaced by a frantic, manic energy.
"Dominic! This is absurd!" she cried out, ignoring Marco completely. "Your security just told me I am barred from the penthouse! Do you have any idea how it looks down there? The Mayor left early. The donors are whispering. You humiliated me in front of the entire city!"
Dominic didn't move. He didn't turn around. He simply kept staring at the birth certificate on the table.
"Get out, Elena," he said, the flatness of his tone more terrifying than a shout.
"I will not get out!" Elena marched right up to the other side of the table, slamming her manicured hands down. "You are letting that woman manipulate you all over again! Did you forget what she did? Did you forget how she leaked the port manifests to the Feds? She almost destroyed your family! And now she shows up with two bastards, parading them around your hotel, and you lose your mind?"
In a flash of movement so fast Marco barely had time to flinch, Dominic moved.
His hand shot across the table, his long fingers closing around Elena’s throat. He didn't lift her, but the pressure was instantaneous, firm, and uncompromising. Elena’s eyes bulged in shock, a strangled gasp escaping her lips.
"Do not," Dominic whispered, his face inches from hers, his gray eyes burning like molten iron, "call my children bastards."
Elena clawed weakly at his wrist, terror finally piercing through her rage. "D-Dominic..."
"Five years ago, you brought me a folder," Dominic said, his voice dropping into a register of cold venom. "You brought me emails, bank transfers, and recordings that proved Natalie had betrayed me. You were so helpful, Elena. You were so comforting when I was drowning in rage. You were right there to warm my bed three months later."
Elena trembled, her feet barely touching the carpet.
"I was blind," Dominic continued, his thumb pressing lightly against her carotid artery, feeling the frantic, rabbit-like beat of her pulse. "I was an arrogant, paranoid fool who believed the serpent whispering in his ear instead of the woman who held his heart. But if I find out—if I find out even a single pixel of those files was manufactured by you to take her place—I will not simply fire you, Elena."
He leaned in closer, his breath cold against her ear.
"I will erase you from the face of the earth. Do you understand me?"
He released her.
Elena stumbled backward, gasping for air, clutching her bruised neck, tears of humiliation and genuine terror finally spilling down her powdered cheeks. She looked at Marco, seeking an ally, but the enforcer stood like an unmoving stone statue, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
"Pack your things from the penthouse," Dominic told her, turning his back on her dismissively. "You have two hours. If you are still in this building by midnight, Marco will throw your belongings into the East River, and you will follow them."
"You're making a mistake, Dominic," Elena choked out, her voice cracking with bitter spite. "She hates you. Look at the boy’s eyes! She raised them to despise the ground you walk on! You will never have them! Never!"
"Marco," Dominic said calmly. "Remove her."
Marco took one heavy step forward, his shadow falling over Elena. "Miss Vance. This way."
Sobbing with fury, Elena turned and fled the room, Marco trailing closely behind her.
Dominic stood alone in the vast, echoing boardroom.
He looked down at the birth certificate one last time. Slowly, reverently, his trembling fingers reached out and touched the names.
*Leonardo.*
*Amelia.*
May you like
"I will get them back," Dominic swore to the empty room, the cold rain beating mercilessly against the glass. "Even if I have to burn the world to the ground to earn their forgiveness."
***
