Chapter 2 - THE MAID ACCUSED OF POISONING HIS MOTHER WAS ONCE A DOCTOR—AND THE MAFIA BOSS’S FAMILY NAME WAS THE REASON SHE DISAPPEARED
Dominic moved Hannah before sunrise.
Not to the police.
Not to the servants' quarters.
To a secure apartment on the estate's third floor.
Rafe objected.
“She could be involved.”
“She could.”
“Then why put her inside the house?”
Dominic looked at him.
“Because if she wanted my mother dead, she could have let her drink the wine.”
Rafe had no answer.
Hannah did.
“You should call the police.”
Dominic turned.
“You want me to?”
“No.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because normal people call the police when someone poisons their mother.”
“Normal people don't have my telephone number.”
“That is not the reassuring statement you think it is.”
Dominic almost smiled.
Almost.
Then he became serious.
“You said they found you.”
Hannah looked toward Rafe.
Dominic understood.
“Leave us.”
Rafe frowned.
“Dominic.”
“Outside.”
Rafe went.
Dominic remained near the door.
He deliberately left distance between them.
Hannah noticed.
“Who found you?”
She sat on the edge of the bed.
For a long time, she said nothing.
Then:
“My name really is Hannah Reed.”
“I didn't ask.”
“But almost everything else on my employment application is false.”
Dominic waited.
“I wasn't a housekeeper before this.”
“I know.”
“I was a physician.”
He expected nurse.
Paramedic.
Maybe medical student.
Not physician.
“You're twenty-six.”
“Twenty-seven next month.”
“You finished medical school?”
“At twenty-three.”
“How?”
“I started college at sixteen.”
Dominic studied her.
“What specialty?”
“Emergency medicine residency.”
“Where?”
“St. Catherine Medical Center.”
Dominic knew the hospital.
Everyone in Chicago did.
“What happened?”
Hannah looked at her hands.
“Three years ago, a man was brought into the emergency department with two gunshot wounds.”
Dominic felt something change.
“Who?”
“His name was Michael Reed.”
Her voice broke.
“My older brother.”
Dominic became still.
“He wasn't shot randomly.”
“No.”
“Who shot him?”
“I don't know.”
That was a lie.
Dominic could tell.
But he let her continue.
“Michael worked as an accountant.”
“For whom?”
She looked at him.
“Moretti Shipping.”
The room went quiet.
Dominic remembered the name.
Not immediately.
Then he did.
Michael Reed.
Internal audit.
Thirty-one.
Missing financial files.
A body found near Cicero three years earlier.
Official story: robbery connected to illegal gambling debts.
Dominic had accepted the report.
He had barely thought about the man's family.
Hannah saw recognition.
“You remember.”
“Yes.”
“You signed the payment.”
“What payment?”
“The funeral money.”
Dominic remembered now.
Twenty-five thousand dollars to the family.
A standard gesture.
Hannah laughed bitterly.
“You don't even remember how much.”
“I authorized dozens—”
“Exactly.”
He stopped.
She stood.
“My brother died at 2:14 in the morning.”
“Hannah—”
“You sent twenty-five thousand dollars at nine.”
Dominic said nothing.
“My mother returned it.”
“I didn't know.”
“No.”
Her eyes filled.
“You didn't know anything.”
Dominic accepted the blow.
“What happened at the hospital?”
“Michael was conscious when he arrived.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me someone inside Moretti Shipping was stealing money.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“How much?”
“He didn't know.”
“Name?”
“He wouldn't say.”
“Why?”
“Because he thought the hospital wasn't safe.”
Dominic felt cold.
“He was right?”
Hannah nodded.
“Thirty minutes later, two men arrived claiming to be police.”
“Were they?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“One called Michael by a nickname that wasn't in his chart.”
Dominic listened.
“I asked security to remove them.”
“And?”
“They left.”
Hannah looked away.
“Michael survived surgery.”
Dominic frowned.
“The report said he died from blood loss.”
“The report lied.”
Silence.
“He was stable.”
“What happened?”
“Someone changed his medication.”
Dominic understood.
“Poison?”
“Potassium chloride.”
“Who?”
“I never proved it.”
“But you suspected.”
“Yes.”
“Someone connected to my organization.”
Hannah looked at him.
“Yes.”
Dominic absorbed that.
“And afterward?”
“I reported it.”
“To whom?”
“Hospital administration. Police. Medical board.”
“And?”
“The medication record changed.”
“Changed?”
“The electronic log suddenly showed my credentials accessing the drug cabinet.”
Dominic went still.
“They blamed you.”
“Yes.”
“They said I killed my brother.”
Her voice cracked for the first time.
Dominic said nothing.
Hannah continued.
“I was suspended.”
“The investigation?”
“Found insufficient evidence for murder charges, but the hospital terminated my residency for protocol violations.”
“Your license?”
“Suspended pending review.”
“And you disappeared.”
“My mother died eight months later.”
“From?”
“Stroke.”
Hannah swallowed.
“She spent her last months believing people might come through our door because of what Michael knew.”
Dominic looked away.
He had ordered men beaten for stealing less than ten thousand dollars.
He had burned businesses for betraying him.
Yet a young doctor had lost her brother, career, mother, and name because corruption had existed inside his own company.
And he had sent twenty-five thousand dollars.
As though grief had an invoice.
“Why come here?”
“To find the person who killed him.”
“By becoming a maid?”
“Doctors don't clean bedrooms.”
“No.”
“People talk in front of maids.”
Dominic almost smiled despite himself.
“That part is true.”
“I applied under my own name because I wanted whoever remembered Michael to underestimate me.”
“Did someone?”
“Walter recognized the surname.”
“Did he know?”
“No.”
“Vanessa?”
Hannah hesitated.
“I don't know.”
Dominic thought about the bottle planted in her room.
“Someone does.”
“Yes.”
“And now they're framing you again.”
“Yes.”
He sat opposite her.
“What did Michael discover?”
“I only have part of it.”
“Show me.”
Hannah looked uncertain.
“If I do, you might kill the person responsible.”
Dominic's expression did not change.
“That depends who it is.”
“That's exactly why I haven't shown you.”
He almost laughed.
“You infiltrated the home of a Mafia boss to investigate his organization, but you're worried I might behave like a Mafia boss?”
“Yes.”
“Fair.”
Hannah reached inside the lining of her suitcase.
She removed a flash drive.
“My brother mailed this to me the day before he was shot.”
Dominic inserted it into an isolated laptop.
Spreadsheets appeared.
Shipping manifests.
Insurance invoices.
Port fees.
One column repeated.
SOREN HOLDINGS.
Dominic's expression changed.
“What?”
“That company belonged to my father.”
Hannah looked at him.
“Your father died eight years ago.”
“Yes.”
“The payments continued until last month.”
Dominic scrolled.
Millions.
More than thirty-seven million over seven years.
Someone had been siphoning money through a dead man's company.
Then Dominic saw an authorization code.
He stopped.
Hannah noticed.
“Whose?”
Dominic did not answer immediately.
Finally:
“Walter's.”
Hannah stared.
“The steward?”
“He handled my father's private accounts.”
“You think he killed Michael?”
“No.”
Dominic closed the laptop.
“But he knows who did.”
They found Walter in the chapel at six in the morning.
He did not deny knowing Soren Holdings.
He sat in the front pew, shoulders bent.
Dominic remained standing.
“Tell me.”
Walter looked at Hannah.
“You shouldn't have come here.”
Hannah went cold.
“You knew Michael.”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Did you know who did?”
Walter closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Dominic's voice became dangerous.
“Name.”
Walter whispered:
“Your uncle.”
Dominic froze.
“Vittorio?”
Walter nodded.
Dominic's father's younger brother.
The man who had helped Dominic take control after his father's death.
The man currently running Moretti operations in Europe.
Hannah stepped closer.
“Why?”
“Michael discovered Vittorio was moving company money.”
“Thirty-seven million?”
“More.”
“How much?”
Walter looked at Dominic.
“Nearly ninety.”
Dominic went still.
“What did you do?”
“I tried to warn your father.”
“And?”
“Your father confronted Vittorio.”
“My father died of a heart attack.”
Walter looked at him.
“No.”
Dominic stopped breathing.
Hannah stared.
Walter continued.
“Your father was poisoned.”
The chapel seemed suddenly too small.
“With what?”
Walter looked at Hannah.
“Flecainide.”
Hannah went pale.
The same drug found in Eleanor's wine.
The same drug planted in Hannah's room.
Dominic sat slowly.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“And Michael?”
“He found the accounts two years later.”
“You knew all this?”
“I suspected.”
“You let me believe my father died naturally.”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
Dominic stood so quickly the pew scraped.
“You watched me work beside Vittorio for eight years.”
“I had no proof.”
“You had enough.”
“No.”
Walter's voice rose.
“Your father accused Vittorio without proof, and three days later he was dead!”
Dominic went silent.
Walter's eyes filled.
“I had already watched one Moretti son bury another brother once. I would not watch it happen again.”
Hannah whispered:
“And Michael?”
Walter looked at her.
“I warned him to stop.”
“He didn't.”
“No.”
“Then he was shot.”
“Yes.”
“And poisoned in the hospital.”
Walter cried.
“I didn't know until afterward.”
Hannah turned away.
Dominic felt something he rarely allowed.
Shame.
Not because he had ordered Michael's death.
He hadn't.
Because his world had created the conditions that made it possible.
He looked at Hannah.
“What do you want from me?”
She laughed through tears.
“You still don't understand.”
“Then tell me.”
“I don't want money.”
“Justice?”
“Yes.”
“I can give you that.”
“No.”
She looked directly at him.
“You can give me revenge.”
Dominic went silent.
“They aren't the same.”
He thought about every enemy he had ever punished.
Every man who had disappeared.
Every debt collected in blood.
Hannah continued.
“If you kill Vittorio, my brother stays dead.”
“I know.”
“My mother stays dead.”
“I know.”
“My career doesn't come back.”
“I know.”
“Then don't pretend killing him pays anything.”
Dominic stared.
For the first time in years, someone had placed a debt in front of him that violence could not settle.
And he had no idea what to do with it.
His phone rang.
Rafe.
Dominic answered.
“What?”
Rafe's voice was urgent.
“Vanessa is gone.”
Dominic's eyes hardened.
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“How?”
“Kitchen exit.”
“Find her.”
“We're trying.”
Then Rafe added:
“She left something.”
“What?”
“A note.”
Dominic listened.
Rafe read it.
“Ask Hannah why Michael Reed was really working for Vittorio.”
Hannah froze.
Dominic looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
Her face drained of color.
May you like
And Dominic realized the story she had finally told him—
still wasn't the whole truth.
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