Chapter 14 - The Real DominicThe man who had been hidden from himselfThe next morning, Boston was burning with rumors.
News outlets reported the Moretti family was collapsing.
Markets reacted.
Politicians denied connections.
Old enemies resurfaced.
And every screen showed a blurred photograph of Roman.
I sat in the safe room with Elena.
“What do you mean there are two Dominics?”
She stared at me.
“Your father named both sons Dominic.”
I felt sick.
“Why?”
“Because he wanted people to believe you were interchangeable.”
I said nothing.
“Your biological twin was born minutes before you.”
I stared at her.
“A twin?”
She nodded.
“He was taken.”
“By whom?”
“Victor.”
I looked toward Sloane.
She nodded slowly.
“He raised your twin as a weapon.”
“What happened to him?”
Elena whispered:
“He became Roman.”
I couldn't breathe.
Roman wasn't my sixth son.
He was my twin.
Then who was the son?
I looked at Elena.
She broke down.
“Your father lied about the age.”
I replayed the video in my mind.
Roman looked sixteen.
Not six.
The four boys were six.
The timeline finally shifted into place.
The boy in the video wasn't a teenager.
He was thirty-seven.
My age.
He had been digitally altered.
Voice-modified.
Everything about him had been fabricated.
A clone of my identity.
Victor wasn't raising another Dominic.
He was manufacturing one.
I looked at Sloane.
“What does Victor want?”
“To replace you.”
“With him.”
“Yes.”
“Then where is my real son?”
Elena stared at me.
“You still don't understand.”
She pointed toward the children.
“One of the boys is your twin's child.”
I froze.
“Which one?”
She shook her head.
“We need a DNA test.”
“No.”
Sloane stepped forward.
“I already did one.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
She handed me a sealed envelope.
“Six years ago.”
I opened it.
Five names.
Five results.
Four matched me.
One did not.
Luca.
I felt my heart stop.
Luca was not my son.
I looked toward him.
He was asleep against Elena.
Sloane whispered:
“Luca is Roman's.”
That meant the boy who looked most like me wasn't mine.
He was my twin's.
My own son was elsewhere.
And suddenly the front door exploded.
Men stormed the safe house.
Gunfire thundered through the halls.
I grabbed the children.
Elena ran beside me.
Sloane fired behind us.
We reached the underground tunnel.
A man stepped into the passage.
Victor Barrett.
He held a gun against the head of one child.
Luca.
“Stop.”
I froze.
Victor smiled.
“Now you understand.”
I raised my weapon.
He pressed the barrel tighter against Luca's temple.
“You have three seconds.”
“One.”
“Two.”
Then a gunshot came from behind him.
Victor dropped.
The man holding the gun stepped into the light.
Older.
Same face as mine.
Same eyes.
Same scar above the eyebrow.
He looked at me.
“Hello, brother.”
Then he turned toward the boys.
May you like
And smiled.
“Hello, children.”
