Chapter 10 - THE THIRTEEN FAMILIES MY WIFE REFUSED TO FORGET
“What promise?”
Isabella looked down at the thirteen names.
“That if I ever got home, I would help them.”
I studied the page.
There were addresses beside some names.
Others had been crossed out and rewritten.
A few had small notes.
Medical bills.
Rent assistance.
Widowed mother.
Two children.
I looked at my wife.
“You remembered all of them?”
She nodded.
“Every single one.”
I felt ashamed.
For years, I'd believed my foundation was helping struggling families.
I'd attended ceremonies.
Shaken hands.
Smiled for photographs.
Meanwhile, money was being stolen from the very people we claimed to serve.
“Why didn't anyone tell me?” I asked.
Isabella gave me a sad look.
“Dominic, when someone is afraid of losing their job, their home, or their life, they don't always know how to reach the most powerful man in New York.”
I looked away.
She was right.
I'd built an empire where people feared speaking honestly.
And I'd mistaken their silence for respect.
The next morning, I met Detective Sullivan at the foundation's administrative office.
She had arranged for the remaining original records to be preserved.
Rafe's access had been revoked.
The financial investigation was continuing.
I handed her Isabella's list.
“These families deserve restitution.”
She examined the names.
“Some may have claims against the foundation. Others may have lost assistance because funds were diverted.”
“Then I want to make it right.”
She studied me.
“Mr. Moretti, paying people doesn't erase what happened.”
“I know.”
“Neither does cooperating with this investigation.”
“I know that too.”
She closed the folder.
“Good. Then perhaps we can accomplish something useful.”
Our first visit was to an elderly widow named Margaret Ellis.
Seventy-six.
Former school librarian.
Her husband had died three years earlier.
The foundation had promised to help cover his medical expenses.
The money never arrived.
Margaret had sold her wedding jewelry to pay the bills.
When Isabella stepped onto her porch, the older woman began crying.
“Oh, honey.”
They embraced.
“I thought you were gone,” Margaret whispered.
“I'm here now.”
Margaret looked toward me.
Recognition crossed her face.
Then uncertainty.
“Mr. Moretti?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
She straightened.
“I don't want trouble.”
The words hurt.
I hadn't come to threaten anyone.
But apparently, my name was enough to make an elderly widow afraid in her own doorway.
“I know,” I said quietly. “I've come to apologize.”
She stared.
I explained what we'd discovered.
The missing funds.
The investigation.
The foundation's failures.
Then I told her I was establishing an independently administered restitution fund using my personal assets, without requiring families to waive any legal claims.
Margaret slowly sat down.
“You're telling me the money was stolen?”
“Yes.”
“And nobody knew?”
“Some people knew. I failed to find out.”
She looked at me for a long time.
Then she said something I'll never forget.
“My husband died believing he was a burden.”
I couldn't answer.
“He worked forty-three years,” she continued. “Paid his taxes. Raised three children. And when he needed help, he thought he'd done something wrong.”
Isabella squeezed her hand.
“You didn't do anything wrong.”
Margaret began crying again.
I looked down at my expensive watch.
For the first time, I was embarrassed by what it represented.
Over the next several days, we met the other families.
A single father raising two daughters.
A grandmother caring for her disabled adult son.
A retired factory worker who had lost his apartment.
People whose names had been reduced to figures in a financial report.
But every number was a life.
Every stolen payment had consequences.
Isabella insisted on meeting them personally.
I went with her whenever she wanted me there.
Not as a Mafia boss.
As her husband.
As a man trying to understand the damage he'd allowed to happen.
One afternoon, Sophie helped me assemble a small pink bookshelf in the cottage.
She handed me screws.
Most of them were the wrong size.
I thanked her anyway.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, princess?”
“Uncle Vin coming?”
My hands stopped.
Vincent had surrendered to Detective Sullivan.
He was cooperating with investigators.
I didn't know what his future would look like.
I wasn't sure I wanted to.
But Sophie remembered him.
Good memories.
Bad memories.
A complicated mixture I couldn't simply erase.
“Not right now, sweetheart.”
“Uncle Vin sad?”
“Yes.”
She thought about that.
“Maybe bunny bandage?”
I almost smiled.
“Maybe, princess.”
Then Isabella entered carrying a letter.
It was from Vincent.
He had written it by hand.
No excuses.
No requests for forgiveness.
Only an acknowledgment of what he'd done.
And a list of additional financial records he had preserved.
At the bottom, he'd written:
I know I don't deserve another chance to be your brother. But Sophie deserves to grow up knowing that you were never the man I told Isabella you were.
I read the sentence twice.
Then I folded the paper.
Isabella watched me.
“What are you thinking?”
“That I spent my whole life protecting the wrong things.”
She sat beside me.
“And now?”
I looked at Sophie.
Our daughter was trying to balance a pink wooden butterfly on her head.
“Now I need to change what comes next.”
That evening, I called a meeting of the senior men who controlled my criminal operations.
I informed them that I would begin dismantling the activities that endangered innocent people and cooperating with the lawful investigations already underway.
Some looked shocked.
Others furious.
One man, Carlo Vescari, stood.
“You can't simply walk away, Dominic.”
“I know.”
“Do you understand how many people depend on this organization?”
“Yes.”
“Then you're choosing your family over everything your father built?”
I looked at him.
“No.”
I thought of Margaret Ellis.
Of Isabella's letters.
Of Sophie's little bicycle.
“I'm choosing not to make my daughter pay for what I built.”
Carlo slowly placed a black leather folder on the table.
“Then there's something you should see before you make another decision.”
Inside was a notice concerning the federal investigation.
My name appeared on the first page.
Not as a witness.
Not as a complainant.
As a subject of investigation.
May you like
Carlo looked at me.
“Rafe isn't the only man they're coming for, Dominic.”
