Chapter 6 - The Night the Family Turned Against Him
Dominic reached Hannah in seconds.
“What?”
She looked startled.
“Grace’s bow.”
“What about it?”
Dominic carefully removed the peach-colored clip from the baby’s hair.
Ordinary plastic.
Or so it appeared.
He twisted the decorative center.
Nothing.
Hannah stared.
“Julian bought that.”
“When?”
“Before he died.”
Dominic looked closer.
A nearly invisible seam ran through the plastic.
He snapped the outer shell apart.
Inside was a micro-SD card.
Hannah gasped.
“My God.”
Julian had hidden evidence in his unborn daughter’s hair accessory.
Dominic stared at it.
Even incapacitated, somehow Julian had remembered.
Or perhaps he had hidden it before the crash and told someone later.
They returned to the warehouse.
Samuel inserted the card into an isolated computer.
One video file.
Julian appeared on screen.
Alive.
Uninjured.
Recorded two days before the crash.
Dominic felt as though his brother were sitting across from him.
“If you’re watching this,” Julian began, “then I probably failed to get out.”
He looked exhausted.
“I’m not recording this because I think Dominic betrayed me. I’m recording it because I think someone will try to make him believe that.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
Julian continued.
“Vincent built Lazarus with Dad.”
Elena, standing beside Dominic, covered her mouth.
“Dad discovered what Vincent was doing and tried to shut it down. That’s why he died.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
Confirmation.
Then Julian said something worse.
“Vincent intends to force a succession crisis. He wants Dominic dead and Marco blamed. Once both branches of the family collapse, Vincent controls the corporate trusts.”
Marco swore.
“But there’s one thing Vincent doesn’t know.”
Julian leaned toward the camera.
“The controlling voting shares of Caruso Global don’t belong to Dominic.”
Dominic frowned.
Elena stared.
“They belong to Mom.”
Everyone turned toward her.
Elena whispered, “Antonio transferred them before he died.”
Julian continued.
“Mom signed them into a protected trust. Vincent never found the document.”
Elena sat down.
“He knew.”
Dominic looked at her.
“You never told me?”
“Your father told me not to.”
Dominic almost laughed at the absurdity.
His entire family had been built on secrets designed to protect one another.
Secrets had nearly destroyed them instead.
Julian’s recording continued.
“The original trust is stored with St. Matthew’s Parish in Brooklyn.”
Dominic knew the church.
Where he and Julian had been baptized.
“If Vincent kills Dominic, he still cannot legally take the company without Elena’s authorization. That’s why Mom is in danger.”
Elena went pale.
Dominic immediately called her security team.
No answer.
Then the warehouse lights flickered.
Marco looked toward the door.
“We’ve got company.”
The first explosion shattered the rear windows.
Vincent had found them.
Armed men stormed the building.
Dominic pushed Elena behind a steel cabinet.
“Stay down.”
Marco drew his weapon.
Samuel grabbed the evidence drives.
Gunfire filled the warehouse.
Dominic’s people returned fire.
The battle moved through aisles of abandoned shipping equipment.
Then Vincent’s voice sounded through a loudspeaker.
“Dominic!”
Gunfire slowed.
“You have five minutes.”
“For what?”
“To surrender Elena and the evidence.”
Dominic laughed.
“You’ve become desperate.”
“No.”
Vincent’s voice remained calm.
“I’ve become practical.”
Then another voice came through.
Hannah.
“Dominic!”
His blood froze.
He turned.
Hannah had been moved to a separate safe location with Grace.
Or he thought she had.
Vincent continued.
“You hid them well.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
Not well enough.
“Bring them out.”
A side door opened.
One of Vincent’s men pushed Hannah forward.
Grace was strapped against her chest.
Hannah’s face was terrified.
Dominic stepped from cover.
“Let them go.”
Vincent appeared above on a metal catwalk.
“You keep saying that as though you are still in charge.”
“I am.”
“You’re a man trapped in a warehouse while his empire collapses.”
Dominic looked around.
“No.”
He smiled faintly.
“You’re trapped.”
Vincent frowned.
Outside, sirens erupted.
Not police.
Federal tactical units.
Vincent stared.
Dominic had released Julian’s evidence three hours early.
Agents surrounded the building.
“You betrayed the family,” Vincent hissed.
Dominic looked at him.
“You were never my family.”
Vincent raised his gun toward Hannah.
Dominic fired first.
The bullet struck Vincent’s shoulder.
Chaos exploded.
Hannah dropped to the floor, shielding Grace.
Agents entered.
Marco tackled one gunman.
Samuel crawled behind machinery.
Vincent ran along the catwalk.
Dominic pursued him.
They met above the warehouse floor.
Vincent was bleeding heavily.
“You think prison changes anything?” Vincent spat. “The Caruso name is finished.”
“Maybe.”
Dominic lowered his gun.
“But Grace gets to grow up without men like you deciding what family means.”
Vincent laughed.
“Soft.”
“No.”
Dominic stared at him.
“Free.”
Vincent suddenly lunged.
They struggled.
The damaged railing broke.
Vincent slipped.
Dominic caught his wrist.
For several seconds the older man hung above the concrete floor.
Vincent looked up.
“You’re going to save me?”
Dominic’s arm strained.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Julian was right.”
Vincent stared.
“About what?”
Dominic pulled him upward enough for federal agents to seize him.
“That becoming you would be the only way you truly won.”
Vincent was arrested.
By dawn, fifty-three others had been detained.
Two federal officials resigned.
Three port executives disappeared before warrants could be served.
Caruso Global’s stock-linked debt collapsed.
News networks surrounded the tower.
Dominic’s reputation was destroyed and reborn in the same twenty-four hours.
To some he was a criminal cooperating only to save himself.
To others, a businessman who had exposed his own empire.
Dominic cared about none of them.
He flew to Blackwood Private Care with Hannah, Grace, and Elena.
The hospital room was quiet.
Julian lay beside the window.
Thinner.
Scarred.
His hair cropped short.
Dominic stopped in the doorway.
His brother turned his head slowly.
Their eyes met.
For eighteen months Dominic had imagined the last words he would say if he could see Julian again.
Anger.
Questions.
Accusations.
None came.
He walked to the bed.
Julian’s lips moved.
“Dom.”
Dominic sat.
“You look terrible.”
Julian laughed weakly.
It became a cough.
Elena sobbed behind them.
Then Hannah entered.
Julian saw her.
His face broke.
“Hannah.”
She approached slowly.
“You idiot.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“I know.”
“You left me.”
“I tried…”
“I know.”
Then Hannah stepped aside.
Grace sat in her arms.
Julian stared.
His entire body trembled.
Hannah placed Grace gently beside him.
The baby studied the scarred stranger.
Everyone waited.
Then Julian raised one shaking hand.
Grace grabbed his finger.
Julian began to cry.
Dominic turned away.
He could face guns.
He could face betrayal.
He could not watch his brother meet his daughter without feeling something inside him collapse.
Then Julian whispered:
“There’s one more thing.”
Dominic looked back.
“What?”
Julian’s eyes became serious.
“Vincent wasn’t the last person in Lazarus.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“Who?”
Julian swallowed.
“Someone signed the final transfers after Vincent was arrested.”
“That was this morning.”
Julian nodded.
Dominic stared.
“You know who?”
Julian whispered a name.
And Elena’s face went white.
Because the person Julian named was someone all of them believed had been dead for twelve years.
May you like
Antonio Caruso.
Their father.
