Chapter 2 - THE FAMILY AMELIA NEVER KNEWTwenty minutes later, the ballroom no longer resembled an elegant charity dinner.
Police officers moved between tables.
Paramedics treated Amelia behind a portable privacy screen.
Guests whispered into phones.
Restaurant managers replayed security footage.
And Raymond sat in a chair near the entrance with two uniformed officers watching him.
Dominic remained ten feet from Amelia.
He had not approached again without permission.
That surprised her.
Men like Raymond always treated boundaries as challenges.
Dominic seemed to treat them as rules.
A paramedic pressed gauze against Amelia’s forehead.
“You probably have a mild concussion. We need to take you in.”
“I can walk.”
“I’d still prefer a stretcher.”
Amelia hated stretchers.
They made her feel helpless.
“I’m walking.”
The paramedic sighed.
“Fine. Slowly.”
Dominic stepped forward.
Amelia stiffened.
He immediately stopped.
“I’m not going to touch you.”
She studied him.
“You said my mother was your sister.”
“Yes.”
“My mother had no brother.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“She had two.”
“Two?”
“Me and Vincent.”
Amelia almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because her brain rejected the information.
“My mother died when I was seventeen. I knew everything about her.”
“No,” Dominic said softly. “You knew everything she wanted you to know.”
Amelia stood carefully.
The room tilted.
Dominic reached toward her, then stopped before touching her.
The gesture was so instinctive and restrained that Amelia noticed.
She balanced herself against the table.
“What happened between you?”
Dominic glanced toward Raymond.
“This isn’t the place.”
“It became the place when you threw my ex-boyfriend against a pillar.”
“I didn’t throw him.”
Even one of the paramedics looked at Dominic.
Dominic cleared his throat.
“I moved him firmly.”
Despite herself, Amelia almost smiled.
Then Raymond called across the room.
“Ask him what happened to Vincent.”
Dominic turned.
Raymond smiled again.
There it was.
That terrible confidence returning.
“Go ahead, Amelia. Ask Uncle Dominic why your mother ran away.”
“Quiet,” one officer ordered.
Raymond leaned back.
“What? She deserves the truth.”
Dominic’s fists tightened.
Amelia noticed.
“What happened to Vincent?”
Dominic did not answer immediately.
That silence frightened her.
“Dominic.”
He looked at her.
“Vincent died.”
“How?”
“Twenty-four years ago.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Dominic lowered his voice.
“He was murdered.”
Amelia stared at him.
Raymond laughed.
“You forgot the interesting part.”
Dominic stepped toward him.
An officer blocked his path.
“Mr. Moretti.”
Raymond continued.
“Tell her who everyone blamed.”
Dominic stopped.
Amelia suddenly wished she had taken the stretcher.
“Who?”
Dominic looked at her.
“Me.”
The ambulance ride lasted fifteen minutes.
It felt like hours.
Dominic followed in another vehicle.
Amelia considered telling the police she wanted him kept away.
But she didn’t.
She needed answers.
At the hospital, doctors confirmed a concussion, bruised ribs, and several cuts requiring stitches.
Nothing broken.
By midnight, Amelia sat in a private room wearing a hospital gown and staring through rain-streaked windows at downtown Chicago.
Dominic stood near the door.
A detective named Maria Alvarez had just finished taking Amelia’s statement.
Raymond would remain in custody overnight while prosecutors reviewed charges related to assault and violations of an old protection order Amelia had obtained years earlier.
But Detective Alvarez had asked one question Amelia could not answer.
How had Raymond found her?
He had searched unsuccessfully for years.
Then appeared at her workplace less than two weeks after she received an anonymous envelope containing a childhood photograph of her mother.
Coincidence suddenly seemed impossible.
Dominic placed an old photograph on Amelia’s bedside table.
Three young people stood outside a brick house.
A teenage girl with Amelia’s eyes.
Two boys.
One was clearly Dominic.
“This is Mom.”
“Yes.”
Amelia touched the picture.
“She looks seventeen.”
“Sixteen.”
“And that’s Vincent?”
Dominic nodded toward the taller boy.
Amelia swallowed.
“Why did she leave?”
Dominic sat.
“Our father owned a small trucking company. By the time we were adults, the business had expanded. Warehouses. Construction contracts. Property.”
“You mean your empire.”
“I hate that word.”
“It seems accurate.”
A faint smile appeared.
Then vanished.
“Vincent handled finances. I handled operations. Claire wanted nothing to do with any of it.”
“What happened?”
“Vincent discovered money disappearing from several companies.”
“Stolen?”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
“We never proved it.”
“Then Vincent died.”
Dominic nodded.
“He was found in his car near the river.”
Amelia felt cold.
“The police thought you killed him?”
“Some did.”
“Did Mom?”
That question landed harder.
Dominic looked away.
“For a while.”
Amelia understood.
“She ran.”
“Yes.”
“She changed her name?”
“Eventually.”
“She had me.”
“Yes.”
“And you never found her?”
“I did.”
Amelia stared.
Dominic reached into his pocket and removed a second photograph.
Claire, older now, stood outside a small suburban house holding five-year-old Amelia.
The picture had been taken from across the street.
Amelia's stomach tightened.
“You were watching us?”
“I found Claire when you were four.”
“Why didn’t you come inside?”
“She made me promise.”
Amelia stood despite the pain.
“You knew where we were all those years?”
“Yes.”
“And after she died?”
Dominic’s face hardened with regret.
“I came for you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I did.”
“I was seventeen. I went into foster care for six months.”
“I know.”
“You knew?”
“I filed for guardianship.”
Amelia stared at him.
“I never heard about it.”
“Exactly.”
A chill ran through her.
Dominic removed a folder from his briefcase.
Inside were copies of court documents.
Guardianship petition.
Background investigation.
Then—
Withdrawal.
The signature appeared to be Dominic’s.
He pointed to it.
“I did not sign that.”
Amelia looked at him.
“Someone forged your signature?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’ve spent years trying to answer that.”
A knock interrupted them.
Detective Alvarez entered.
Her expression had changed.
“Ms. Hayes, we found something during Fletcher’s arrest.”
She set a phone inside an evidence bag on the table.
“Raymond had a second phone.”
Dominic stood.
The detective continued.
“There are hundreds of photographs of you on it.”
Amelia stopped breathing.
“From when?”
“Some from Chicago.”
“That’s not surprising.”
Alvarez hesitated.
“Some are much older.”
“How old?”
The detective looked at Dominic.
“The earliest photograph appears to have been taken outside a foster home when Amelia was seventeen.”
Amelia felt the room disappear beneath her.
Raymond had claimed they first met when she was twenty-four.
Seven years later.
Dominic's voice became dangerously calm.
“Raymond knew her before she knew him.”
Alvarez nodded.
“And there’s more.”
She placed a printed message on the table.
It was from an unidentified number.
ONLY APPROACH HER AFTER MORETTI STOPS LOOKING.
Another message appeared years later.
MAKE HER DEPENDENT ON YOU.
Then one dated three years ago, shortly before Amelia escaped Raymond.
SHE FOUND THE BOX. KEEP HER QUIET.
Amelia stared at the words.
“What box?”
Nobody answered.
Then she remembered.
The wooden box.
Her mother’s hidden photographs.
The one containing a sealed letter Amelia had never opened.
Because Raymond had burned it before she could.
She slowly raised her eyes.
“He didn’t destroy that letter because he was jealous.”
Dominic understood immediately.
“He was looking for something.”
Amelia nodded.
“And whoever hired him has been watching me since I was seventeen.”
Dominic looked toward the rain-covered window.
“For much longer than that, I suspect.”
Amelia's hands trembled.
“Why?”
May you like
Dominic turned back.
“Because your mother knew who killed Vincent.”
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