Chapter 12 - The First LedgerThe basement was older than the mansion.
Brick walls.
Low ceiling.
Rusty pipes.
Dominic had never been allowed to enter this section.
His father called it storage.
Isabelle led them to a wall covered in wine racks.
She counted twelve bricks.
Then sixteen.
Then eighteen.
She pressed the eighteenth.
A section of wall moved.
Dominic stared.
“Who built this?”
“My grandmother.”
Eleanor.
The network's architect.
The hidden door opened into a vault.
Inside were boxes.
Photographs.
Documents.
Old passports.
Tapes.
And one wooden desk.
On the desk sat a single leather ledger.
Dominic opened it.
The first entry was dated 1979.
Every Romano transaction was recorded.
But there was more.
The ledger contained names from outside the family.
Judges.
Executives.
Police officials.
Bankers.
People who had spent decades appearing respectable.
Dominic turned page after page.
Then he found his own name.
DOMINIC ROMANO
Underneath:
DESIGNATED HEIR.
Isabelle stood beside him.
“You were selected when you were nine.”
Dominic stared.
“Selected for what?”
“To inherit the network.”
“But I never agreed.”
“They didn't need your permission.”
Dominic's face hardened.
“They made me.”
“Yes.”
“Then Isabelle…”
She nodded.
“They chose me too.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Why did they choose you?”
“Because I was supposed to marry you.”
Silence.
That sentence cut through him.
“For the network?”
“At first.”
Dominic looked away.
“And then?”
Isabelle's eyes filled.
“Then I loved you.”
He didn't answer.
She continued.
“That was the mistake.”
Behind them, Evelyn was scanning documents.
“There's something here.”
Everyone turned.
She held up a file.
“Isabelle's death wasn't ordered because she found the ledger.”
“What was it?”
Evelyn opened the file.
“Because she found the missing account.”
Dominic frowned.
“What account?”
She pointed to a series of numbers.
“An offshore account receiving money from the foundation.”
“Where did it go?”
Evelyn's face went pale.
“To a private trust.”
“Whose?”
She looked at him.
“Yours.”
Dominic stared.
“No.”
Isabelle stepped closer.
“They created a trust in your name before you were twenty.”
Dominic's hands trembled.
“How much?”
Evelyn looked at the number.
“Eight hundred million.”
Silence.
Dominic laughed bitterly.
“All these years…”
He looked at Isabelle.
“You knew.”
“I knew enough to understand what they wanted.”
“What?”
“For you to become the legal owner.”
“Of what?”
“The network.”
Dominic stared.
Then the lights went out.
The vault door slammed shut.
A recording started playing.
His father's voice.
“You will eventually choose the family.”
Dominic turned.
The voice continued.
“Everyone does.”
A second voice emerged.
Isabelle's.
Recorded years earlier.
“I won't.”
Then Dominic heard his own voice.
Much younger.
“I will.”
He froze.
“I never said that.”
Isabelle looked shocked.
The tape played again.
Young Dominic's voice:
“I will protect my family.”
The recording stopped.
Evelyn whispered:
“They recorded all of you.”
Then another door opened.
A man stepped into the vault.
Dominic's father.
Alessandro Romano.
Dead for twelve years.
May you like
He smiled.
“Hello, son.”
