Chapter 2 - I QUIT AFTER THE MAFIA BOSS ACCUSED ME OF BETRAYAL—THEN HE SHOWED UP AT MY APARTMENT WITH PROOF THAT THE MAN WHO COMFORTED ME HAD BEEN USING MY FAMILY FOR YEARS
Freedom felt terrible for the first three days.
I expected relief.
Instead, I woke at 5:15 every morning because my body believed Dominic needed coffee at six.
I checked a phone that no longer carried his calendar.
I mentally reviewed meetings I no longer managed.
It was humiliating.
I had built my life around a man who could replace me.
Now I had to discover what remained when I stopped organizing his.
Natalie helped.
My sister was twenty-four and incapable of allowing sadness to remain elegant.
She arrived with groceries, sweatpants and a bottle of cheap wine.
“You’re unemployed.”
“I resigned.”
“Same pajamas.”
“Helpful.”
“Also, your terrifying former boss has called eleven times.”
I looked at my phone.
“I know.”
“You aren’t answering?”
“No.”
“Excellent.”
She poured wine.
“Make him suffer.”
“This isn’t revenge.”
“Can it be a little revenge?”
I smiled despite myself.
Then the building buzzer rang.
Natalie checked the monitor.
Her smile disappeared.
“Oh.”
“What?”
“Your extremely handsome unemployment problem.”
Dominic.
I did not let him upstairs.
He waited in the lobby for forty minutes.
Then left.
The next morning, flowers arrived.
I sent them back.
The next day, a handwritten note.
I did not open it.
Then Marcus called.
I answered because I wanted explanations.
“Diana.”
“Did you steal Dominic’s file?”
Silence.
“Marcus?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Did you?”
“I needed information.”
My stomach dropped.
“You used me.”
“No.”
“You cloned my badge.”
Another silence.
That was enough.
“You asked me to dinner because of my access.”
“It started that way.”
The sentence hurt more than I expected.
“Started?”
“I like you.”
“Don’t.”
“Diana—”
“You found me crying because my employer had treated me like an object, and you decided that was a good moment to use me as one.”
“That isn’t fair.”
I hung up.
Ten minutes later, Dominic called.
I rejected it.
He texted only four words.
MARCUS KNOWS YOUR FATHER.
My father had been dead eleven years.
I called back.
“Explain.”
“I need to show you something.”
“Send it.”
“Not electronically.”
“Why?”
“Because Marcus has compromised systems I believed were secure.”
I hated that this sounded plausible.
“Public place.”
“Name it.”
We met at a coffee shop.
Dominic arrived without his usual entourage.
He looked exhausted.
He placed a folder on the table.
Before I opened it, he said:
“I owe you an apology.”
“You owe me several.”
“Yes.”
No defense.
That surprised me.
“I was cruel.”
“Yes.”
“I used your competence as an excuse to demand more from you than I demanded from anyone.”
“Yes.”
“I broke a glass near you.”
“Yes.”
His jaw tightened.
“That should never have happened.”
I waited.
“And when the file disappeared, I let fear speak before trust.”
There it was.
“I’m sorry.”
I believed he meant it.
That did not erase anything.
“Thank you.”
He looked almost disappointed.
“You’re not forgiving me?”
“I acknowledged the apology.”
Dominic leaned back.
“Right.”
“Now the folder.”
My father, Henry Mercer, had worked for Caruso Shipping twenty-three years earlier.
Accountant.
Compliance officer.
Then internal investigator.
I had known he worked in shipping.
I had not known the company.
Dominic showed me records.
Henry discovered millions moving through shell corporations controlled by Dominic’s father, Salvatore Caruso, and another executive.
Marcus’s father.
Anthony Santoro.
My father had prepared evidence for federal investigators.
He died before delivering it.
Official cause:
Car accident.
My hands went cold.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
I stood.
Dominic remained seated.
“Diana.”
“My father fell asleep driving.”
“That’s what the report said.”
“You’re telling me he was murdered?”
“I’m telling you Marcus appears to believe he was.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
Marcus had spent years investigating his own father.
Anthony Santoro had died in prison.
Before his death, he claimed Salvatore Caruso ordered Henry Mercer killed.
Marcus believed Dominic inherited not only his father’s empire but his crimes.
“He thinks you covered it up.”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did you know?”
Dominic looked directly at me.
“Not until three days ago.”
Could I believe him?
I did not know.
That uncertainty hurt.
“Why was my father’s name inside the acquisition file?”
“Because the company we’re buying owns an archive containing old Caruso records.”
“Marcus wanted the archive.”
“Yes.”
“Why not tell me?”
“He didn’t trust you.”
“Neither did you.”
Dominic accepted it.
“Yes.”
The irony almost made me laugh.
Two powerful men.
Both claiming concern.
Both deciding I could not handle the truth.
“I want copies.”
“Everything.”
“And I want access to the investigation.”
“That could be dangerous.”
I stood.
Dominic immediately corrected himself.
“That sounded like an order.”
“Yes.”
“I’m working on it.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
“Try again.”
“You deserve access. I would prefer you remain careful.”
“Better.”
We spent the next week examining my father’s records.
I did not return to work.
Dominic asked once.
I said no.
He never asked again.
Instead, he brought files to me.
Met on my schedule.
Answered questions.
For the first time, our relationship existed without employment hierarchy.
It changed him.
Or perhaps it allowed me to see parts I had never been permitted to see.
Dominic was not emotionless.
He was terrified of emotion.
His father taught him that employees obeyed, partners betrayed and affection created leverage.
At thirteen, Dominic’s mother left.
At sixteen, his older brother was killed.
At twenty-one, Dominic entered the family business because refusing would have endangered his younger cousins.
None of it excused how he treated me.
He never tried to make it.
That mattered.
Then Marcus contacted me again.
He asked to meet.
I refused.
He sent one photograph.
My father.
Alive.
Three weeks after the date on his official death certificate.
I called immediately.
“Where did you get that?”
“My father’s safe.”
“Is it real?”
“Yes.”
“Then my father didn’t die in the crash.”
“No.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic believed Marcus was manipulating me.
Marcus believed Dominic was lying.
I trusted neither.
So I did something both men hated.
I investigated without them.
Natalie helped.
My father had maintained a storage unit under our mother’s maiden name.
Inside, we found old notebooks.
One contained a sentence:
If Salvatore discovers Diana exists, everything changes.
I was eighteen when my father supposedly died.
Why would Salvatore not know I existed?
Then Natalie found an envelope.
Two birth certificates.
Hers.
Mine.
Mine listed Henry Mercer as father.
But beneath it was an older certificate marked amended.
Father:
Salvatore Caruso.
I stopped breathing.
Dominic’s father.
The man whose empire Dominic inherited.
I stared at Natalie.
“No.”
Then someone broke into the storage facility.
Lights died.
Footsteps.
Natalie screamed.
I grabbed her hand.
We ran.
A man caught my coat.
I twisted free.
Then another figure slammed him into the wall.
Dominic.
His security team flooded the corridor.
The attacker escaped.
Dominic turned toward me.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Natalie?”
“I’m okay.”
He saw the paper in my hand.
His face changed.
“What is that?”
I gave it to him.
Dominic read the certificate.
For once, the most controlled man I knew had no mask.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“My father…”
He looked sick.
“What?”
Dominic stared at me.
Then whispered:
“My father had an affair with a woman named Evelyn Mercer.”
My mother.
“You knew?”
“I knew her first name.”
He looked at the certificate.
“I didn’t know there was a child.”
My knees weakened.
Dominic caught my elbow.
I pulled away.
Not because his touch frightened me.
Because suddenly I needed space from every Caruso in the world.
“Diana.”
“Don’t.”
“If this is real—”
“What?”
I looked at him.
“Finish that sentence.”
He couldn’t.
Because if Salvatore Caruso was my biological father, Dominic and I shared blood.
Not siblings.
Salvatore was Dominic’s father too.
That made us half-siblings.
Everything inside me went cold.
Dominic stepped backward as though the paper itself had struck him.
Then Marcus emerged from the far end of the corridor.
His face was bleeding.
Security raised weapons.
Marcus lifted both hands.
“I’m not here to fight.”
Dominic moved between us.
Marcus looked at me.
“The certificate is fake.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Salvatore created it.”
“Why?”
“To control Henry.”
Marcus wiped blood from his mouth.
“Your father found something Salvatore could never let become public.”
“What?”
Marcus looked at Dominic.
Then at me.
“Diana isn’t Salvatore Caruso’s daughter.”
Relief hit too quickly.
I did not trust it.
Marcus continued.
“But Natalie is.”
My sister stopped breathing.
May you like
And suddenly the investigation was no longer about a dead accountant.
It was about us.
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