Chương 4 - The Night the Lights Went OutThe darkness lasted six seconds.
It felt like six years.
Dominic moved before I did.
One moment he was sitting beside Samuel.
The next, I heard his chair slam backward and felt his hand close around my wrist.
“Get down.”
Emergency lights flickered red along the floor.
I dropped beside the hospital bed.
Samuel woke crying.
Outside, voices erupted in the hallway.
Then the power returned.
Dominic immediately looked toward the window.
The curtain was open.
He crossed the room and pulled it shut.
Marcus entered seconds later with two security officers.
“Hospital-wide outage. Backup generators activated normally.”
“Coincidence?” Dominic asked.
Marcus gave him a look.
“No.”
My stomach twisted.
“Where are Luca and Noah?”
“With Dr. Patel and two of our men in the family lounge.”
“I want them here.”
“They're coming.”
I didn't breathe properly until both boys ran through the door.
Luca climbed onto my lap.
Noah went directly to Dominic.
That surprised everyone.
“Was it thunder?”
“No,” Dominic said.
“What was it?”
“A problem.”
“Did you fix it?”
“I'm working on it.”
Noah nodded as if that answer were sufficient.
Children trusted with terrifying simplicity.
I wondered how long Dominic would deserve it.
Marcus placed a tablet on the counter.
“We traced the picture sent to Elena.”
“And?”
“Disposable relay. But there was an interesting routing signature.”
“What kind?”
“Same encrypted service used by one of our former logistics subsidiaries.”
Vittorio's businesses.
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
“Which subsidiary?”
“Arden Freight.”
Dominic went very still.
I remembered the name.
Arden Freight was one of the companies Vittorio had supposedly sold after Dominic took over.
“Who controls it now?”
Marcus hesitated.
“On paper? A shell corporation in Luxembourg.”
“And actually?”
“We're checking.”
Dominic looked toward me.
“You need to know something.”
I tightened my arms around Luca.
“What?”
“Arden Freight was Carlo's company.”
The dead uncle.
The man who had allegedly wanted me killed.
“So someone inherited it.”
“Maybe.”
“Who?”
“That is the question.”
By dawn, Samuel's fever finally dropped.
The boys slept scattered across couches and chairs in the hospital suite.
I stood by the window with coffee I hadn't touched.
Dominic joined me.
His tuxedo jacket was gone.
His bow tie had disappeared hours earlier.
He looked less like a crime-family heir and more like an exhausted father.
“You should sleep,” he said.
“So should you.”
“I don't think that's happening.”
“Same.”
For a while we watched Boston wake beneath a pale gray sky.
Then he said, “I was supposed to be in Hawaii tomorrow.”
I looked at him.
“Honeymoon?”
“Yes.”
Guilt hit me unexpectedly.
“I'm sorry.”
His jaw tightened.
“For what?”
“For what happened to Celeste.”
“You didn't kidnap her.”
“I destroyed her wedding.”
“No. Someone else did that long before you arrived.”
There was pain in his voice.
He had cared for her.
Maybe loved her.
That thought hurt in a place I had no right to protect anymore.
“Did you love her?”
He looked at me.
I immediately regretted asking.
But Dominic answered.
“I tried.”
That was worse.
“She deserved better than that.”
“Yes.”
“Why marry her?”
His gaze returned to the city.
“Because she was kind. Intelligent. Strong. Because my father approved of her. Because she understood the public parts of my life and never asked about the private ones.”
“And because she wasn't me?”
He stayed silent.
That was answer enough.
My phone vibrated.
This time it was my Swiss attorney.
I stepped away to answer.
“Mr. Keller?”
“Elena, we have a serious problem.”
My chest tightened.
“What?”
“Someone attempted to access the children's trust accounts yesterday.”
I looked at Dominic.
He immediately knew something was wrong.
“How?”
“Using documents apparently signed by you.”
“I didn't sign anything.”
“I know. The signatures failed verification.”
“What were they trying to do?”
“Transfer the entire principal.”
Eighty million dollars.
Every cent.
“To where?”
“An account associated with Arden Holdings.”
Arden.
Again.
Dominic came closer.
“Put him on speaker.”
I did.
My attorney hesitated.
“Who is there?”
“Dominic Russo.”
Silence.
Then: “I see.”
“You know who I am?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me everything.”
Keller explained that the original funds transferred by Vittorio had been placed into a Swiss trust after I fled America. Over three years, conservative investments had grown the balance to almost ninety-four million dollars.
I had never touched it except for legally permitted expenses related to the children's security.
Yesterday, someone tried to liquidate everything.
“Who besides Elena knew the trust existed?” Dominic asked.
“Mr. Vittorio Russo.”
“Anyone else?”
“Possibly whoever prepared the original transfer documents.”
“Name.”
Keller typed.
“Attorney Anthony Bell.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“What?” I asked.
“Bell worked for Carlo.”
A cold realization moved through me.
The eighty million hadn't only been payment.
It had created a financial trail.
Someone had always known where we were.
My supposed escape had never been invisible.
Dominic took out his phone.
“Marcus, locate Anthony Bell.”
Marcus responded moments later.
His answer came through speaker.
“Can't.”
“Why?”
“Bell died eighteen months ago.”
“How?”
“House fire.”
Dominic looked at me.
Nothing about that sounded accidental anymore.
Then another message appeared on my phone.
Not a threat this time.
An address.
And beneath it:
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT THE BRIDE ALIVE.
I showed Dominic.
“No,” he said immediately.
“It might be Celeste.”
“Exactly why you're not going.”
“She contacted Gabriel because she was afraid. She may know who did this.”
“And she may already be dead.”
The words were brutal.
But honest.
I looked away.
Dominic lowered his voice.
“Elena, whoever sent that wants you specifically.”
“Why?”
“We don't know.”
“Then maybe we need to.”
His expression hardened.
“We are not using you as bait.”
“Three years ago everyone made decisions for me because they said it was for my protection.”
“That is not what I'm doing.”
“It sounds remarkably similar.”
His nostrils flared.
But before he could answer, the hospital room door opened.
Vittorio walked in.
Dominic's face went cold.
“How did you get up here?”
“I own enough of this city to enter a hospital.”
“No. You used to.”
Vittorio ignored the threat and looked at me.
“I know the address.”
I froze.
Dominic stepped toward him.
“How?”
“Because I bought that building thirty-four years ago.”
He looked older than he had the night before.
For the first time, genuinely old.
“It was Carlo's first warehouse.”
Dominic's face tightened.
“What was stored there?”
“Records.”
“What records?”
Vittorio hesitated.
“Everything we did before we became respectable.”
Dominic laughed bitterly.
“We?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting time to develop honesty.”
Vittorio accepted that.
“I deserve that.”
“You deserve much worse.”
“Perhaps.”
He looked at our sleeping sons.
Something moved across his face.
Regret.
I didn't care.
“You knew about them,” Dominic said.
“I knew Elena was pregnant. I didn't know there were three.”
“Would it have changed anything?”
Vittorio looked at him.
“Yes.”
That single answer made Dominic furious.
“Why? One grandchild disposable, three inconvenient?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Vittorio lowered his voice.
“Because there is something I never told you about Carlo.”
The room tightened.
“What?”
“He wasn't trying to kill Elena because she was your weakness.”
Vittorio looked directly at me.
“He wanted the child.”
“Why?”
“Because Russo inheritance doesn't pass by age.”
Dominic went still.
“It passes by bloodline.”
I didn't understand.
Dominic did.
His eyes hardened.
“My grandfather's trust.”
Vittorio nodded.
“What trust?” I asked.
Dominic looked sick.
“My grandfather created an ownership structure decades ago. Family assets. Land. Voting control. Whoever becomes the first male Russo of my generation to have a legitimate son gains controlling authority when that child turns five.”
I stared at him.
“That sounds insane.”
“It is.”
“And Carlo?”
“Had no sons.”
Vittorio finished quietly.
“If Dominic had a son, Carlo would permanently lose control of the family trust.”
I looked toward Luca, Noah, and Samuel.
Three sons.
Suddenly the threats made sense.
Not emotionally.
Financially.
Powerfully.
Someone wasn't hunting us because of revenge.
They were hunting my boys because their existence changed ownership of an empire.
Dominic picked up the note with the warehouse address.
“When do the boys turn five?”
“Eighteen months,” I whispered.
Vittorio shook his head.
“No.”
We looked at him.
“The trust provision was amended after Carlo died.”
Dominic narrowed his eyes.
“How?”
“The trigger is no longer age five.”
Vittorio swallowed.
“It activates the moment paternity is legally acknowledged.”
The room fell silent.
Last night, three hundred witnesses had watched my sons call Dominic their father.
Photographs were already spreading online.
Dominic looked toward the door.
“Marcus.”
His security chief entered.
“Sir?”
“Has anyone filed anything regarding the boys?”
Marcus checked his phone.
His face changed.
“What?”
“There was an emergency petition submitted electronically twenty-seven minutes ago.”
“By whom?”
Marcus stared at the screen.
“Celeste Hart.”
My stomach dropped.
“What kind of petition?”
May you like
Marcus looked up.
“A request for DNA testing to establish Dominic Russo as the biological father of Elena Marlowe's three children.”
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