Chapter 3 - The Secret Her Father Left Behind
At 11:42 that night, Dominic arrived at Mara’s apartment himself.
He brought Luca, two security men, and an expression that made the police officers already inside step out of his path.
Mara sat at her kitchen table wrapped in an old cardigan.
She had not cried.
Not yet.
Fear had pushed her beyond tears into something colder.
Dominic entered.
Their eyes met.
“You came.”
It sounded more vulnerable than Mara intended.
Dominic looked around the damaged apartment.
“I told you not to travel alone.”
“I didn’t. Your driver brought me.”
“Then this happened after you arrived.”
“Yes.”
He crouched beside her chair.
“Did they hurt you?”
“No.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“No.”
“What’s missing?”
“A brass key.”
“Anything else?”
Mara hesitated.
“My privacy.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“And they asked about a recipe book.”
“What recipe book?”
She pointed toward the bedroom.
“My father’s.”
Luca appeared in the doorway.
“Found it.”
He carried an old green notebook.
Mara stood.
“Where?”
“Under the mattress.”
“They searched the room but left it?”
Dominic and Luca exchanged a look.
“What?” Mara demanded.
Dominic took the book.
“Maybe they weren’t looking for the book itself.”
Mara frowned.
Dominic opened it.
Handwritten recipes filled the pages.
Soda bread.
Apple tart.
Cinnamon buns.
Lemon cake.
Dozens of notes written in her father’s familiar handwriting.
Mara felt a painful tug in her chest.
“Dad wrote everything down.”
Dominic turned pages carefully.
Near the back, he stopped.
One page was thicker than the others.
He held it toward the light.
“There’s something inside the binding.”
Luca produced a small knife.
Mara immediately grabbed the book.
“Absolutely not.”
Dominic looked at her.
“It could matter.”
“It belonged to my father.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
His expression changed.
Mara regretted the words instantly.
Of course he understood holding onto something because it was all that remained.
“I’m sorry.”
Dominic nodded.
“We won’t damage it unnecessarily.”
Using tweezers and patience, Luca separated the loosened backing.
A tiny memory card slid onto the table.
Nobody spoke.
Mara stared.
“What is that?”
Dominic looked at her.
“Your father’s insurance policy.”
They returned to the Castellano estate before sunrise.
Dominic insisted Mara stay in a guest room until security understood the threat.
Mara protested.
Then she looked at the broken lock on her apartment door and stopped protesting.
At five in the morning, Dominic’s technology specialist accessed the card.
It contained photographs of contracts.
Bank statements.
Audio files.
Copies of emails.
And a video recorded by Mara’s father, Thomas O’Leary.
Mara nearly dropped the laptop when his face appeared.
Her father sat in the bakery’s back office.
He looked thinner than she remembered.
Sick.
But alive.
“If you’re watching this,” Thomas said, “then something has gone badly wrong.”
Mara covered her mouth.
Dominic moved away, giving her space.
Thomas explained that months before his death, Samuel Price had approached him with an investment offer.
At first it appeared legitimate.
Then Thomas noticed unusual transactions.
Price was laundering money through several small businesses.
But not for Dominic Castellano.
For people stealing from Dominic.
Thomas had secretly copied documents.
“I thought I could protect the bakery,” Thomas said on the recording. “Maybe protect Mara and Patrick too.”
His voice weakened.
“But Samuel found out I knew.”
Mara’s eyes filled.
The final portion was almost impossible to watch.
“If I don’t get the chance to fix this, remember something. The bakery was never the dream. You were. You and Patrick. Don’t destroy yourselves saving bricks and ovens just because I loved them.”
Mara began crying.
Quietly.
Dominic stood near the window.
He knew grief well enough not to interrupt it.
The recording ended.
Mara wiped her face.
“So Samuel knew Dad had evidence.”
“Yes,” Dominic said.
“And he thought the recipe book contained it.”
“He was right.”
Mara stared at the laptop.
“Why didn’t Dad go to the police?”
“Perhaps he didn’t know who he could trust.”
Luca entered.
“We have another problem.”
Dominic looked up.
“What?”
“Evelyn is gone.”
Mara turned.
“What do you mean gone?”
“Her room is empty. Phone disconnected.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
Luca continued.
“And we confirmed it. Samuel Price is Evelyn’s younger brother.”
Mara felt sick.
Evelyn.
The woman who hired her.
Who had brought her into the Castellano estate.
“Did she hire me because of Samuel?”
“That’s what we need to determine,” Dominic said.
Mara stood abruptly.
“I need air.”
She walked onto the terrace.
Dawn was beginning to color the skyline.
Dominic followed several minutes later.
“You don’t have to keep following me.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because someone is threatening you.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s enough.”
Mara turned.
“Was I hired because you were investigating Samuel?”
“No.”
“Then why was I hired?”
“Evelyn approved you.”
“And now she’s disappeared.”
“Yes.”
Mara folded her arms.
“So maybe I was placed here.”
Dominic’s silence confirmed the possibility.
“Wonderful.”
She looked toward the city.
“I finally get a job and apparently it’s part of a criminal conspiracy.”
Dominic’s mouth twitched.
“Do not laugh.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were about to.”
“I was thinking about it.”
“Your emotional recovery is becoming inconvenient.”
That time he did smile.
Then Mara noticed.
When Dominic smiled, he looked younger.
Not harmless.
Never harmless.
But human.
“Why did you stop laughing?” she asked.
His smile disappeared.
She regretted the question.
Then he answered.
“Because the last morning Isabella was alive, we argued.”
Mara stayed silent.
“She wanted me to leave this life. I told her I couldn’t.”
He looked toward the horizon.
“She left angry. Two hours later the car exploded.”
“You blamed yourself.”
“I still do.”
“Did you plant the bomb?”
His eyes snapped toward her.
“No.”
“Then somebody else made that choice.”
“You think guilt cares about logic?”
“No.”
Mara’s voice softened.
“I think guilt is greedy. It takes everything you give it and asks for more.”
Dominic stared at her.
“How do you know?”
“Because I spent six months believing I killed my father’s bakery.”
Silence settled between them.
Finally Dominic said, “Perhaps we’ve both been paying debts that weren’t ours.”
Before Mara could answer, Luca stepped outside.
“We decoded more files.”
Dominic turned.
“What did Thomas have?”
“Enough to identify the person inside your organization who worked with Samuel.”
“Who?”
Luca looked uncomfortable.
“Victor Castellano.”
Dominic went still.
Mara recognized the surname.
“Your family?”
“My uncle.”
Victor had raised Dominic after Dominic’s father died.
He had been beside him for decades.
He had attended Isabella’s funeral.
Dominic’s face became almost terrifyingly calm.
Luca lowered his voice.
“There’s more.”
He handed Dominic a photograph recovered from Thomas’s files.
It showed Victor meeting Samuel Price nine years earlier.
The date was three weeks before Isabella’s death.
Dominic stared at it.
Something inside him seemed to break without making a sound.
Mara understood immediately.
The theft.
The bakery.
Samuel.
Everything led backward nine years.
Back to the worst day of Dominic’s life.
Dominic raised his eyes.
“If Victor was working with Price back then…”
Luca finished the thought.
“He may know who ordered the bomb.”
And somewhere beyond the estate gates, Samuel Price still had the brass key taken from Mara’s apartment.
May you like
A key Thomas O’Leary had hidden for years.
A key that might unlock the final piece of the truth.
