Chapter 15 - The Name Beneath the NameThe final pieces fell into place with a terrible simplicity.
Eleanor sat inside the black sedan.
The fourth daughter beside her.
Dominic stepped closer.
Isabelle grabbed his arm.
“Don't.”
Eleanor lowered the window.
“You finally understand.”
Dominic looked at the little girl.
She was frightened.
But not crying.
Nora saw her.
For the first time, the sisters stared at one another.
Nora stepped forward.
The fourth daughter smiled.
Then Nora whispered:
“Emma.”
Dominic looked at Isabelle.
“Emma?”
Isabelle nodded.
“Her name is Emma.”
Emma reached toward her sisters.
Dominic felt his chest tighten.
Eleanor watched quietly.
“Take your family,” she said.
“What do you want?”
“You.”
Dominic frowned.
“I already have your name.”
“No.”
Eleanor smiled.
“I want the heir.”
Dominic understood.
She wanted him to inherit the network.
To become the legal owner of everything.
Then she would control it through him.
“You spent years trying to make me your weapon.”
“And you spent years becoming one.”
Dominic looked at the mansion.
At the bloodshed.
At his father's lies.
At Isabelle.
At the girls.
Then he reached into his coat.
Eleanor's guards raised their weapons.
Dominic removed the burned ledger.
Only half of it remained.
He held it up.
“This is what you want.”
“Yes.”
“You can have it.”
Isabelle looked at him.
Dominic continued.
“But not the way you think.”
He handed the ledger to the prosecutor.
Eleanor's face changed.
“The names will become public.”
“You wouldn't.”
“I will.”
“You destroy your own family.”
Dominic looked at his daughters.
“My family already survived you.”
Silence.
The prosecutor opened the ledger.
Federal agents moved in.
Eleanor's guards dropped their weapons.
She stared at Dominic.
“You think this ends with my arrest?”
“No.”
Dominic turned toward the girls.
“It ends with them.”
Eleanor's face twisted.
“You cannot escape blood.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Watch me.”
Agents arrested Eleanor.
Alessandro was found hiding beneath the chapel.
Vincent became a cooperating witness.
Thomas Reed survived and was taken into custody.
The financial network collapsed over the following weeks as accounts were frozen and records seized.
But Dominic cared about none of it.
He cared about the four girls.
For the first time in fourteen months, the mansion was not silent.
Olivia laughed.
Sophie argued with her sisters over breakfast.
Nora sang.
Emma sat beside Isabelle and listened.
Every evening, Isabelle sang the same song.
“You are my sunshine…”
The girls joined her.
Dominic stood in the doorway.
Watching.
Trying to understand how the woman he had buried had returned to the same kitchen where his daughters had first found their voices.
One evening, Isabelle walked toward him.
“You never asked me something.”
“What?”
“Why I stayed away after I escaped.”
Dominic looked at her.
“I was afraid of the answer.”
She touched his hand.
“I stayed away because they were watching.”
“And now?”
“They're gone.”
Dominic glanced at the girls.
“Are they?”
Isabelle's expression changed.
“What do you mean?”
Dominic pulled a final envelope from his pocket.
He had found it inside the burned ledger.
It had survived.
Written across the front were four words.
FOR THE TRUE ROMANO HEIR.
Isabelle stared.
“I never saw that.”
Dominic opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
A much older photograph.
Eleanor stood beside another woman.
Dominic recognized her instantly.
His grandmother.
But there was something else.
A man stood beside her.
Not Alessandro.
Not Anthony.
Not Dominic.
A stranger.
On the back of the photograph was a single sentence.
The Romanos were never the family in control.
Dominic looked up.
“Then who are we?”
Isabelle shook her head.
“I don't know.”
The house suddenly went quiet.
All four girls stopped moving.
Dominic's skin prickled.
Nora slowly turned toward the hallway.
She pointed toward the library.
“Someone is there.”
Dominic reached for his gun.
Isabelle grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
“Why?”
Nora whispered:
“He isn't hiding.”
Dominic stared at the dark hallway.
A man's voice came from the library.
Calm.
Familiar.
Impossible.
“I've waited a long time to meet you, Dominic.”
Dominic froze.
The voice belonged to Anthony.
His supposedly dead brother.
Again.
Then the lights went out.
A child's voice whispered through the darkness.
Not Nora.
Not Emma.
Not Olivia.
Not Sophie.
A fifth voice.
“Daddy…”
Dominic looked toward the girls.
Four faces stared back at him.
Terrified.
And somewhere inside the mansion, something moved.
The last thing Dominic heard before the lights returned was Isabelle whispering:
“Dominic…”
“What?”
“That voice…”
She looked toward the hallway.
May you like
“It belongs to the daughter I thought we lost.”
TO BE CONTINUED.
