Chapter 4 - WHAT DOMINIC VALE DID THAT NIGHTAmelia did not go home.
Not because Dominic ordered it.
He didn’t.
The decision came after Jasmine discovered the driver’s-side window of Amelia’s twelve-year-old Honda had been smashed in the hospital garage.
Nothing had been stolen.
On the passenger seat lay a single object.
A red rose.
Amelia stared through the broken window.
Her stomach dropped.
Jasmine looked confused.
“Is that supposed to mean something?”
Amelia couldn’t speak.
Raymond used to bring roses after hurting her.
Never chocolates.
Never apologies.
Always one red rose.
The first had appeared after he shoved her into a pantry door.
The second after he broke her phone.
The third after she spent a night in an emergency room with “a fall.”
By the time Amelia left him, there had been eleven roses.
This was number twelve.
Dominic stood several feet behind her.
He didn’t need an explanation.
He saw the terror on her face.
“I’m not telling you what to do,” he said quietly. “But I have a guest apartment above Castellano’s. Private elevator. Security twenty-four hours.”
“I don’t need—”
“You need sleep.”
She turned.
“I’ve spent three years making sure I don’t need people to rescue me.”
“Then don’t consider it rescue.”
“What should I consider it?”
“A locked door.”
That answer changed something.
An hour later, Amelia was sitting in a guest suite larger than her entire apartment.
She hated how beautiful it was.
She hated how safe it felt.
Mostly, she hated how exhausted she was.
Dominic remained near the doorway.
“You asked about October 2001.”
Amelia touched the bandage at her temple.
“Yes.”
“I can tell you tomorrow.”
“No.”
He nodded.
Then sat across from her.
“After Malcolm admitted forging Claire’s letter, I confronted him.”
“Four years after she disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“He laughed.”
Dominic’s hands tightened.
“He told me Claire had begged him not to hurt me.”
Amelia felt sick.
“I lost control.”
“How badly?”
“I broke his jaw, two ribs and his left wrist.”
Jasmine, sitting near the kitchen counter, stopped drinking her coffee.
Dominic did not soften the truth.
“I was arrested.”
“You went to prison?”
“No. Malcolm refused to testify and claimed he had fallen during an argument.”
“Why?”
“Because the police investigation would have exposed his fraud.”
“So Raymond knows.”
“He was eleven. He saw his father afterward.”
Amelia understood.
For Raymond, Dominic wasn’t merely powerful.
He was the man his father feared.
“Did you threaten Malcolm afterward?”
“No.”
Dominic paused.
“I didn’t need to. Federal investigators eventually discovered enough to indict him. He cooperated, returned part of the money and avoided prison because of his health.”
“And you built all this?”
“Eventually.”
“With his money?”
“Not one dollar.”
That mattered to Amelia more than she expected.
Dominic leaned forward.
“There is something else.”
She waited.
“When Malcolm died, his son inherited documents.”
“Raymond.”
“Yes.”
“What documents?”
“Evidence connecting Malcolm to shell companies used to hide stolen money.”
Amelia frowned.
“Why would Raymond care about twenty-year-old fraud?”
“Because some of those companies still exist.”
Silence filled the apartment.
Dominic continued.
“My accountants believe Raymond has been using them.”
“For what?”
“Moving money.”
“What kind of money?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Amelia laughed bitterly.
“So this isn’t about me.”
“It is absolutely about you.”
“No. Raymond didn’t suddenly show up because he missed me.”
She stood.
Her head protested.
She ignored it.
“He came to Castellano’s because I work there. A restaurant you own. His father had a history with you. And now there are companies involved.”
The pieces rearranged themselves.
“Did Raymond know who I was when he met me?”
Dominic’s silence lasted too long.
“Dominic?”
“We don’t know.”
Amelia’s stomach dropped.
She remembered meeting Raymond at a neighborhood coffee shop.
He had spilled sugar packets near her table.
Made her laugh.
Asked for her number.
He had seemed accidental.
What if he hadn’t been?
“What exactly does Raymond do?”
“Commercial consulting.”
“That means nothing.”
“I agree.”
“Did you investigate him?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
Dominic looked uncomfortable.
“After identifying you.”
“And?”
Evelyn, who had joined them downstairs, answered from the doorway.
“He is associated with three companies currently under federal financial review.”
Amelia looked between them.
“You called the FBI?”
“No,” Evelyn said. “They were already looking.”
The room suddenly felt too small.
Amelia sat again.
Jasmine moved closer.
“You okay?”
“No.”
At 2:13 a.m., Amelia finally slept.
At 2:41, someone tried to enter the building through the service alley.
Security detained a man carrying a camera, gloves, and an envelope containing eight photographs of Amelia.
Walking home.
Buying groceries.
Waiting for a bus.
Leaving a laundromat.
The oldest photograph was fourteen months old.
Raymond had been watching her long before he walked into Castellano’s.
By sunrise, Chicago detectives were involved.
So was Evelyn.
And Amelia’s fear had begun transforming into something else.
Fury.
At nine, Detective Lena Ortiz sat across from her in Castellano’s private conference room.
“You said you dated Raymond Fletcher for approximately two years?”
“Yes.”
“When did the abuse begin?”
“About four months in.”
“Physical?”
“Not at first.”
Amelia hated how familiar the progression sounded when spoken aloud.
He criticized what she wore.
Who she spoke to.
How long she stayed at work.
Then passwords.
Location sharing.
Money.
The first shove.
The apologies.
The roses.
“What made you leave?”
Amelia stared at her hands.
“He strangled me.”
Dominic’s chair moved.
He stopped himself from standing.
Detective Ortiz looked at Amelia carefully.
“Did you report it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the next morning he told me his father had connections with police officers, judges, everybody.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still?”
Amelia looked toward Dominic.
“No.”
Ortiz nodded.
“What else did Raymond say?”
Amelia searched her memory.
One sentence surfaced.
Something Raymond had screamed while drunk.
At the time, she thought it was nonsense.
Your mother ruined everything for my family.
Her heart stopped.
“Wait.”
Everyone looked at her.
“What?”
Amelia stood.
“The night he strangled me… Raymond said something about my mother.”
Dominic’s face changed.
“What exactly?”
“He said, ‘Your mother ruined everything for my family.’”
Evelyn went still.
Detective Ortiz leaned forward.
“Did Raymond know your mother?”
“He always claimed he didn’t.”
Dominic was already reaching for his phone.
Amelia grabbed his wrist.
“What?”
Dominic looked at her.
“Claire kept journals.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me once she wrote every night.”
Amelia nodded slowly.
“She did.”
“Do you have them?”
Amelia thought of the storage unit on the South Side where boxes from her mother’s apartment had remained untouched for seven years.
“Yes.”
Dominic stood.
“So does Raymond.”
Thirty minutes later they reached the storage facility.
Amelia’s unit door was open.
The lock had been cut.
Boxes lay torn apart.
Clothes.
Photographs.
Books.
Her mother’s belongings scattered across the concrete.
Amelia stepped inside, devastated.
Then she saw the empty shelf at the back.
Six blue notebooks had been stored there.
Claire’s journals.
All gone.
Except one.
A thin notebook had fallen behind a broken dresser.
Amelia picked it up.
The cover read:
1999.
She opened to the bookmarked page.
Her mother’s handwriting filled the paper.
Halfway down was one sentence underlined three times.
If anything happens to me, Dominic needs to know Malcolm has a son—and the boy already knows about Amelia.
May you like
Raymond had been ten years old.
He had known who she was before Amelia had ever known he existed.
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