Chapter 3 - THE SECRETARY’S RESIGNATION LETTER TURNED OUT TO BE WORTH MORE THAN THE ROSSI EMPIRE—AND THE WOMAN WHO KIDNAPPED HER FIANCÉ WAS PREPARING TO SELL THOUSANDS OF LIVES FOR BILLIONS
Vittoria made one mistake.
She believed the key was complete.
It wasn’t.
Clara discovered that within thirty minutes.
The resignation letter contained an encryption sequence, but several characters were missing.
Dominic remembered why.
Coffee.
“What?”
Clara asked.
“The morning after you left, I spilled coffee on it.”
She stared.
“You kept a coffee-stained resignation letter for four months?”
Dominic looked irritated.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Clara.”
Matteo laughed.
Dominic glared.
Clara almost smiled.
Then returned to the problem.
The damaged portion contained enough missing characters to make the encryption useless.
Vittoria would need another source.
Matteo knew where.
Antonio Rossi’s grave.
Their father had hidden backup keys in a metal capsule beneath the family crypt.
Dominic stared.
“Of course he did.”
Clara looked at him.
“Is that normal?”
“For my family? Unfortunately.”
They knew where Vittoria was going.
Dominic wanted men.
Matteo wanted a gun.
Clara wanted federal agents.
For twenty minutes, all three argued.
Clara won.
Not because she shouted.
Because she asked one question.
“If Vittoria dies, who gives investigators the names of everyone still operating the network?”
Silence.
Dominic hated when logic sounded like her.
The operation at the cemetery happened after midnight.
Vittoria arrived with four armed men.
Agents waited.
Dominic and Matteo remained in a surveillance vehicle.
Clara was supposed to remain there too.
She did.
Growth.
Mostly.
Vittoria retrieved the capsule.
Agents moved.
Gunfire erupted.
One of Vittoria’s men was wounded.
Two surrendered.
Vittoria escaped through a maintenance tunnel beneath the mausoleum.
Dominic swore.
Clara noticed something on surveillance.
Vittoria left the capsule.
“She didn’t need it.”
Matteo leaned forward.
“What?”
“She wanted us to think she did.”
Clara understood.
The cemetery was a distraction.
“Where is the actual key?”
Matteo’s face changed.
“Mother.”
Dominic froze.
Their mother, Sofia Rossi, had died twelve years earlier.
Or so everyone believed.
Clara stared.
“Please tell me we are not doing another dead relative.”
Matteo looked sick.
“She’s dead.”
“Definitely?”
“I saw her body.”
“Good.”
Dominic stared at him.
“Poor wording.”
Matteo continued.
“Mother had a safe-deposit box.”
Vittoria wanted it.
They reached the bank too late.
The box was empty.
But surveillance showed who had opened it.
Leo.
Dominic stared.
His most trusted enforcer.
The man whose logs had been planted.
The man Clara had initially suspected and then dismissed.
“Maybe the footage is fake again,” Clara said.
Dominic wanted to believe that.
It wasn’t.
Leo called.
“Boss.”
Dominic answered.
“Tell me this isn’t what it looks like.”
Silence.
Then:
“I’m sorry.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“Why?”
“My daughter.”
Leo had a daughter nobody knew existed.
Seventeen.
Vittoria discovered her.
Threatened her.
Leo cooperated.
The planted logs were not planted by Vittoria.
Leo created them himself so Clara would notice.
He had been trying to expose the conspiracy without openly betraying Vittoria.
“Why not come to me?”
Dominic demanded.
“Because she had someone in your bedroom the night she threatened me.”
Dominic looked at Clara.
Again.
Compromised from within.
Leo continued.
“I gave Vittoria the box.”
“What was inside?”
“A list.”
“Of what?”
“Children.”
Clara felt cold.
Hundreds of names.
Children of officials.
Judges.
Business owners.
Criminal leaders.
Vittoria had built an enormous leverage network.
Not trafficking them.
Not yet.
She had collected medical histories, school schedules, photographs and vulnerabilities.
Blackmail through threatened families.
Dominic became pale.
“She’s going to auction access.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“Where?”
Leo gave the location.
A luxury yacht outside U.S. territorial waters.
Then gunfire exploded through the call.
Leo grunted.
The line died.
They never learned whether he survived.
Dominic wanted to attack the yacht.
Federal authorities wanted evidence.
Clara wanted both.
She had an idea.
Vittoria believed Clara possessed financial knowledge Dominic needed.
She also believed Clara was emotionally vulnerable because of Tom and the baby.
So Clara contacted her.
“I want out.”
Vittoria laughed.
“From Dominic?”
“Yes.”
“He crashed your wedding.”
“He thinks paternity gives him rights over my life.”
Dominic, listening nearby, winced.
Good.
Some truth made lies convincing.
Clara continued.
“I’ll give you access to Rossi financial systems.”
“In exchange?”
“Five million dollars and a new identity.”
Vittoria was silent.
“And Dominic’s child?”
“My child.”
Dominic looked at Clara.
She held his gaze.
Vittoria laughed.
“Perhaps I underestimated you.”
“Yes.”
They arranged a meeting aboard the yacht.
Dominic said no.
Clara ignored him.
Then he stopped.
Breathed.
Tried again.
“I don’t want you to go.”
Better.
“I know.”
“I’m terrified.”
That surprised her.
Dominic Rossi admitting fear.
“I know.”
“Can we find another way?”
Clara considered.
“No.”
He nodded.
Not because he liked it.
Because she had chosen.
Federal agents fitted Clara with surveillance equipment.
The yacht glittered against black water.
Vittoria welcomed her.
Pearls.
Champagne.
Perfect smile.
“You look radiant.”
“I’m nauseous.”
“Pregnancy.”
“Your company.”
Vittoria laughed.
She liked Clara.
That was useful.
Inside the yacht were representatives from criminal organizations, corporations and foreign intermediaries.
The auction was real.
Clara saw screens displaying files.
Children.
Families.
Private information.
Vittoria had industrialized fear.
“You could have been extraordinary,” Vittoria told Clara.
“I am.”
Vittoria smiled.
“With us.”
“No.”
“Dominic will cage you.”
“He’s learning.”
“Men like Dominic don’t learn.”
“Some do.”
Vittoria’s expression hardened.
“And some women mistake scraps of improvement for transformation.”
That hit harder than Clara expected.
Because it contained a warning worth remembering.
Love did not require blindness.
Clara would judge Dominic by what he continued choosing.
Not what he promised.
She inserted the access drive.
Federal investigators began copying the system remotely.
Thirty percent.
Forty.
Then Vittoria said:
“Stop.”
Clara froze.
Vittoria looked at her stomach.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t search you?”
Security grabbed Clara.
The transmitter was found.
Vittoria smiled sadly.
“Disappointing.”
The upload stopped at sixty-eight percent.
Vittoria ordered the yacht farther offshore.
Dominic saw the signal die.
He moved immediately.
Agents tried to stop him.
Matteo joined him.
A Coast Guard interception was requested.
On the yacht, Clara was locked inside a cabin.
She did not panic.
She examined everything.
Window.
Vent.
Bathroom.
Fire alarm.
She remembered Dominic’s emergency training.
Not because he had taught her.
Because she had scheduled it.
Fire suppression on luxury vessels automatically unlocked certain interior doors.
Clara heated a towel against a lamp.
Held it near the sensor.
Alarm.
Doors released.
She ran.
On deck, chaos.
Vittoria’s buyers scattered.
A helicopter approached.
Vittoria headed toward it.
Clara saw the server drive in her hand.
She followed.
“Vittoria!”
The woman turned.
“You should have stayed locked up.”
“You should have hired a better yacht designer.”
Vittoria drew a gun.
Clara stopped.
“You think Dominic will save you?”
“No.”
That answer surprised her.
Clara continued.
“I think I can keep you talking until everyone else arrives.”
Vittoria smiled.
“Clever.”
She aimed at Clara’s stomach.
Then:
“Not clever enough.”
A shot exploded.
Clara screamed.
But she was not hit.
Vittoria’s weapon flew from her hand.
Leo stood near the stairwell.
Bleeding from his shoulder.
Alive.
“Boss said protect the secretary.”
Clara shouted:
“I’m not his secretary anymore!”
Leo almost laughed.
“Good to know.”
Agents flooded the deck.
Vittoria was arrested.
The server recovered.
Every file.
Every buyer.
Every victim.
The network collapsed.
Clara sat wrapped in a blanket while a medic checked the baby.
Heartbeat.
Strong.
Dominic arrived.
He stopped several feet away.
His face was white.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“The baby?”
“Fine.”
He closed his eyes.
Then opened them.
“Can I touch you?”
Clara nodded.
Dominic held her.
Not tightly.
Not possessively.
Carefully.
For the first time, Clara realized the most important change in Dominic was not that he had become gentle.
It was that he had learned gentleness required permission.
Then Matteo approached.
“We have another problem.”
Dominic groaned.
“Of course.”
Matteo handed him a recovered file.
Antonio Rossi’s records.
Dominic read.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Clara asked.
Dominic looked at her.
“My father wasn’t the only Rossi involved.”
“Who?”
Dominic turned the page.
His own name appeared.
Authorization codes.
Payments.
Shipping orders.
All bearing Dominic’s signatures.
He stared.
“I never approved these.”
Matteo looked grim.
“Prove it.”
Dominic understood.
Vittoria had prepared one final weapon.
May you like
If she fell, Dominic would take the trafficking empire down with her.
And this time the evidence was good enough that even Clara could not immediately tell where the forgery ended and Dominic’s real crimes began.
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