Chapter 4 - SEVEN MINUTES WITHOUT POWER
Dominic found Salvatore drinking espresso in the Rossi mansion at six in the morning.
The older man sat beneath a portrait of Carlo Rossi as though nothing had happened.
That made Dominic angrier than fear would have.
Salvatore was sixty-two, silver-haired, sharp-eyed, and still built like the dockworker he had been before the Rossi empire made him rich.
He looked up as Dominic entered.
"You look terrible."
Dominic shut the study door.
"Where's your security band?"
Salvatore didn't move.
"What?"
"The blue band issued for last night's gala."
Salvatore lifted his coffee.
"In my jacket, probably."
"Which jacket?"
"The tuxedo."
"Where is it?"
"Upstairs."
Dominic placed the bloodstained wristband on the table.
Salvatore stared at it.
Then at Dominic.
"What's that?"
"Your band."
"No."
"The serial number says otherwise."
Salvatore's expression hardened.
Dominic studied every movement.
Every blink.
Every breath.
"An assassin entered Clara's ICU wearing it."
Salvatore slowly set down his cup.
"Clara."
"You know her name?"
"The waitress who saved Isabella."
"You've never met her."
"I've heard everyone talking about her for six hours."
Dominic said nothing.
Salvatore leaned back.
"You think I sent someone into a hospital to murder the woman who saved your mother?"
"I think somebody wearing your access band tried."
"Then somebody stole it."
"When?"
"I don't know."
"You wore it at the gala?"
"For twenty minutes. Then I left."
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
"You left before the shooting."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Your aunt felt sick."
"Lucia wasn't at the gala."
For the first time, Salvatore's face changed.
Small.
But Dominic saw it.
"You've been awake too long," Salvatore said.
"No."
Dominic's voice became deadly calm.
"You just lied to me."
Salvatore rose.
"Watch yourself."
Dominic stepped closer.
"My mother nearly died. Clara took seven bullets. Someone invaded a hospital protected by my men. I am watching everything."
Salvatore's nostrils flared.
"Carlo would be ashamed to hear you accusing his brother."
"My father is dead."
"And I raised you after he died."
"Then answer the question."
Salvatore stared at him.
"Where did you go before the shooting?"
Neither man spoke.
Then Salvatore's phone rang.
He glanced at the screen.
Dominic saw fear.
Salvatore immediately turned it facedown.
"Who is that?"
"No one."
Dominic reached for it.
Salvatore grabbed his wrist.
The room froze.
No one touched Dominic Rossi that way.
No one.
Slowly, Dominic looked down at his uncle's hand.
Salvatore released him.
"Don't do this."
"Give me the phone."
"Dominic—"
"Now."
Salvatore handed it over.
The incoming call had ended.
Private number.
Dominic opened the recent calls.
Nothing.
The log had been wiped.
Dominic looked up.
Salvatore whispered, "There are things your father never told you."
"Start talking."
"I can't."
"Then I can't protect you."
Salvatore gave a bitter laugh.
"Protect me?"
He stepped back.
"Boy, you have no idea who needs protection."
He walked toward the door.
Dominic blocked him.
"Where is Ellen Evans?"
Salvatore stopped breathing.
That was enough.
Dominic's hand closed around Salvatore's collar.
"You know her."
Salvatore whispered, "Everyone from the old days knew Elena Bellandi."
"Where is she?"
"I don't know."
"Victor Costa does."
"Then ask Victor."
"Maybe I am."
Salvatore's eyes widened.
Dominic slammed him against the wall.
"Did you sell my father to Costa?"
"No!"
"Did you help kill Michael Evans?"
"No!"
"Did you give Costa access to the gala?"
"I DID NOT!"
The door opened.
Isabella stood there.
"Dominic."
He released Salvatore.
Isabella looked at her brother-in-law.
"Tell him."
Salvatore's face went white.
Dominic turned.
"You know."
Isabella's eyes filled with grief.
"I know part of it."
"What part?"
"Your father suspected Salvatore."
Salvatore closed his eyes.
Dominic stared at his mother.
"For fourteen years?"
"I was trying to protect what remained of this family."
"You let me trust him."
"I didn't know whether Carlo's suspicions were true."
Salvatore looked broken.
"Because they weren't."
Dominic faced him.
"Then explain."
Salvatore's shoulders sagged.
"Michael found payments from Costa to a Rossi account."
Dominic waited.
"The account was in my name."
Silence.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Bullshit."
"It's the truth."
Salvatore looked at Isabella.
"Carlo confronted me the night before he died. I swore I hadn't taken Costa's money."
"Did he believe you?"
"No."
That single word changed the room.
Salvatore continued.
"I spent fourteen years trying to prove someone used my identity."
"And you never told me?"
"Your father ordered me out before he was killed. Afterward, every captain thought I was guilty. If Isabella hadn't vouched for me, I would've been buried with him."
Dominic looked toward his mother.
She nodded.
"Why was your security band on an assassin?"
"I don't know."
Dominic stared at Salvatore for another long moment.
Then Enzo entered without knocking.
"Boss."
"What?"
"We traced the hospital blackout."
"To whom?"
Enzo looked at Salvatore.
"No one here."
Dominic released a breath.
"It came from the hospital's maintenance system. Remote access."
"From where?"
"A public library terminal in Newark."
"Camera?"
"Disabled."
"Of course."
Enzo held up his phone.
"But we found something else."
He showed Dominic a frozen security image.
A man walking through the hospital parking garage thirty minutes before the attack.
Baseball cap.
Gray coat.
Partial profile.
Clara's heart would have stopped if she had seen him.
Because unlike Dominic, she knew that face.
Two floors above, Clara stared at the same image on a nurse's tablet.
She had secretly convinced a young orderly named Miguel to show her the news coverage.
A reporter had obtained leaked security footage.
The face appeared for less than two seconds.
Clara whispered, "Pause."
Miguel froze the video.
Her blood ran cold.
"Do you know him?" Miguel asked.
Clara couldn't answer.
The man was older now.
Heavier.
Gray at his temples.
But she remembered him.
He had attended her father's funeral.
He had stood at the back beneath a black umbrella.
Afterward, he'd approached thirteen-year-old Clara.
"Your father was a good man."
She remembered asking his name.
"Uncle Ray."
But she didn't have an Uncle Ray.
Later, when Clara asked her mother about him, Ellen became furious.
"Never speak to that man again."
Clara had not seen him since.
Until now.
She pressed the nurse-call button.
Dominic arrived five minutes later.
Clara pointed at the screen.
"I know him."
Dominic's attention snapped to the image.
"How?"
"He was at my father's funeral."
"What did he call himself?"
"Ray."
Dominic's face darkened.
"Ray what?"
"He didn't say."
Dominic took the tablet.
"Describe everything."
Clara told him.
The umbrella.
The funeral.
Her mother's reaction.
The phrase he'd used.
Dominic called Enzo.
"Run Raymond against every Bellandi and Evans associate from fifteen years ago."
Ten minutes later, Enzo returned.
"Found one."
A photograph appeared.
Raymond Bellandi.
Ellen's younger brother.
Clara stared.
"My mother had a brother?"
Dominic read.
"Raymond Bellandi disappeared fourteen years ago. Presumed dead."
Clara looked at the hospital image.
"He doesn't look dead."
"No."
Enzo continued scrolling.
"He was arrested in 2008 for assault. Charges disappeared. Later worked logistics for..."
He stopped.
Dominic knew before he spoke.
"Victor Costa."
Clara closed her eyes.
Her uncle was alive.
Her uncle worked for the man who had kidnapped her mother.
"Why would Mom tell me never to speak to him?"
Dominic answered quietly.
"Maybe because he was the person she was running from."
That afternoon Clara received a phone call.
Unknown number.
Dominic's security team tried to intercept it.
Clara answered first.
"Hello?"
Silence.
Then breathing.
"Clara."
Her mother.
Clara sat upright despite the pain.
"Mom!"
Dominic crossed the room instantly.
"Ellen? Where are you?"
Her mother's voice trembled.
"I don't know."
"Are you hurt?"
A pause.
"Clara, listen carefully."
"Mom, Dominic is here. We're tracing—"
"No!"
Ellen shouted so violently Clara froze.
"Do not trust anyone."
Dominic's face hardened.
"Mom—"
"Not Dominic. Not Isabella. Not Enzo. Not any Rossi."
Clara looked at Dominic.
He heard every word.
Ellen began crying.
"Sweetheart, remember the music box."
Clara frowned.
"What music box?"
"The blue one."
Memory flashed.
A tiny blue wooden box decorated with silver stars.
Her father had given it to her when she was five.
It played "Moon River."
Clara had broken the winding key when she was twelve.
Ellen had stored it in the attic.
"Mom?"
"Your father told you something the day he gave it to you."
"I was five."
"Try to remember."
A man's voice sounded in the background.
Ellen gasped.
"Mom!"
"Don't let them find the angel."
The line went dead.
Clara stared at the phone.
Dominic whispered, "What angel?"
Clara's eyes widened.
She remembered.
A stone angel beside a fountain.
White roses.
The Rossi garden.
And her father kneeling in front of her.
Five-year-old Clara held the blue music box against her chest.
"Someday," Michael had whispered, "if Daddy isn't here and Mommy says it's time, you take the little angel out."
Clara had laughed.
"Angels live in heaven."
Michael smiled sadly.
"This one lives inside the music."
Back in the ICU, Clara looked at Dominic.
"The ledger isn't in Cleveland."
"Where is it?"
Clara whispered the answer.
"In the house where I met you."
Dominic understood.
His mother's estate.
The Rossi mansion.
May you like
And at that exact moment, somewhere beneath that mansion, a silent alarm began blinking.
Someone had entered the old garden.
