Chapter 4 - Interrogation in the ShadowsAt 4:30 a.m., the rain over Boston turned into a heavy, freezing sleet.
Deep beneath the wine cellar of the Romano estate, three floors below the grand marble foyer where Vanessa had kicked the blanket, sat a reinforced concrete room lit by a single bare bulb hanging from a chain.
Daniel Vance sat tied to a heavy oak chair in the center of the room. His mouth was bloody, his expensive charcoal suit ruined, but his eyes still held a flicker of stubborn defiance.
The heavy steel door groaned open, and Dominic walked in. He had removed his waistcoat, rolling the sleeves of his black dress shirt up to his forearms, revealing dark, intricate tattoos that traced his wrists—symbols of his family's long, violent history in the Sicilian underworld.
Behind him walked Marco, his underboss and oldest enforcement officer, carrying a silver briefcase.
Dominic didn't say a word. He walked over to a metal table, pulled out a wooden chair, and sat down opposite his former head of security.
“Daniel,” Dominic began, his voice smooth, devoid of any anger. “Eight years. I paid for your daughter’s leukemia treatments in Switzerland. I bought your house in Wellesley. I trusted you with the security codes to my father’s bedroom.”
Daniel spat blood onto the concrete floor. “Dominic... you don't understand how deep this goes.”
“Help me understand,” Dominic replied calmly, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “Because right now, all I see is a dog who bit the hand that fed him.”
Marco opened the silver briefcase on the table, revealing rows of financial statements, encrypted phone logs, and property deeds gathered by Dominic’s cyber-intelligence team over the last three hours.
“Vanessa didn't plan this alone,” Dominic said, tapping the documents. “She’s smart, but she’s arrogant. She doesn't know how to set up offshore shell accounts in Panama. She doesn't know how to bypass the estate’s medical supply procurement protocols. Someone else gave her the blueprint.”
Daniel remained silent, his jaw locked tight.
Dominic reached out, picked up a heavy steel pen from the table, and twirled it between his fingers. “Vanessa’s father, Senator Sterling, owes forty million dollars to the Moretti family in New York. The Morettis have been trying to breach our territory in South Boston for five years.”
Daniel’s eyes twitched slightly.
“Ah,” Dominic murmured, a dark smile touching his lips. “There it is. The Senator promised Vanessa’s hand to Moretti’s son, didn't he? But first, they needed the Romano estate. They needed my father dead so the family assets would be locked in probate, forcing me into a legal distraction while the Morettis moved on the docks.”
“If Antonio died naturally,” Daniel rasped out, his voice shaking now, “the estate taxes and legal freezes would have bankrupted your holding companies within ninety days. Vanessa was supposed to marry you, secure the legal power of attorney over your father’s estate, and poison him slowly so you’d be too grieved to notice the land transfers.”
“And what was your price, Daniel?” Dominic asked, his voice dropping into a lethal register. “How much was my father’s life worth to you?”
“Two million dollars and a safe house in Florida,” Daniel confessed, hanging his head in shame. “They threatened my daughter, Dominic! They showed me photos of her walking to school in Geneva! They said if I didn't help Vanessa swap the pills, they’d send a hitter to Switzerland!”
Dominic stood up slowly. The air in the room felt twenty degrees colder.
“You should have come to me,” Dominic said softly. “You knew what I would have done to protect your daughter. Instead, you tried to murder my father.”
Dominic turned toward Marco. “Find his daughter in Geneva. Bring her to our safe house in Zurich under full guard. She’s innocent; she won't suffer for her father's cowardice.”
“And Daniel, boss?” Marco asked quietly.
Dominic walked toward the heavy steel door, not looking back. “He stays in this room until the Moretti syndicate is erased from Boston. Then he faces family justice.”
Dominic stepped out into the corridor, shutting the heavy steel door behind him, sealing Daniel into the dark.
He walked up the winding stone stairs toward the main floor of the mansion. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, casting pale gray light through the tall windows of the estate.
He walked down the long corridor toward the West Wing, where Vanessa was being held. Two armed guards stood outside her heavy mahogany suite door.
“Open it,” Dominic ordered.
The guard unlocked the door and stepped aside.
Dominic walked into the luxurious bedroom. Vanessa was sitting on the edge of a velvet four-poster bed, still wearing her ivory evening gown from the night before, her hair messy, her makeup ruined by hours of frantic crying.
She leaped to her feet when she saw him. “Dominic! Thank God! You have to let me out of here! This is a nightmare! I can explain everything—”
Dominic didn't speak. He reached into his coat, pulled out a thick folder of documents, and tossed it onto the bed in front of her.
“What is this?” she stammered, looking down at the papers.
“Your father’s arrest warrant,” Dominic said plainly. “Filing by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for treason, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit murder. The FBI raided his campaign headquarters half an hour ago.”
Vanessa fell to her knees beside the bed, her face turning gray. “No... no, please...”
“You thought you were playing chess with me, Vanessa,” Dominic said, stepping up to her kneeling form, looking down at her with absolute disdain. “You thought I was just a rich mobster you could manipulate. But you forgot one simple truth.”
He leaned down, his face inches from hers.
“This city belongs to me. And nobody touches my family and lives to tell about it.”
He turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
“Keep her locked in,” he told the guards. “Federal agents will be here at 8:00 a.m. to take her into custody.”
As Dominic walked back toward the garage to take his car back to Saint Jude’s Hospital, his phone buzzed. It was a picture message from the head nurse at the hospital.
It was a photo of Antonio, sitting up in his hospital bed, drinking a cup of broth, while Emily sat beside him, smiling softly as she read him a chapter from his favorite history book.
May you like
Dominic stared at the small image on his screen.
The darkness that had consumed him all morning suddenly felt a little lighter. He slid his phone back into his pocket, got into his black Mercedes SUV, and drove toward the sunrise.
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