Chapter 2 - THE CONTRACT HE NEVER REMEMBERED SIGNING
“Vivian, what exactly did your family make me sign the night you put something in my drink?”
Dominic Moretti's voice was so quiet that I barely recognized it.
Vivian Hartwell stood in the library doorway, one hand pressed against her diamond necklace.
“I didn't put anything in your drink.”
“Then why did I wake up the next morning with no memory of signing papers?”
Her silence answered more than a confession would have.
Arthur Bennett gripped the back of his chair. At seventy-eight, his hands were badly scarred, but I had never seen them tremble like that.
“Miss Hartwell,” he said, “you need to tell him.”
Vivian looked at the old butler.
“You've already destroyed enough.”
Dominic moved toward her.
“Enough of what?”
Before she could respond, footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Marco Bellini, Dominic's security chief, entered carrying a leather folder.
Behind him stood Andrew Hartwell.
Vivian's younger brother was thirty-four, handsome, and dressed in a dark suit that probably cost more than my annual rent.
His confidence disappeared when he saw Dominic.
“Andrew,” Dominic said. “Why were you in my father's study?”
Andrew adjusted his cuffs.
“Your attorney asked me to retrieve something.”
“Without my permission?”
“Dominic, this is a misunderstanding.”
“Put the folder on the desk.”
Andrew hesitated.
Marco stepped forward.
“Now.”
Andrew obeyed.
Dominic opened the folder.
The first page contained his name.
DOMINIC ANTHONY MORETTI.
Below it was a signature that looked almost identical to his own.
There was a notary seal, a date from three months earlier, and a paragraph transferring certain management rights over Moretti waterfront holdings to a newly established trust.
Dominic read the paragraph twice.
Then he looked at Vivian.
“Your family's trust?”
She lowered her eyes.
Andrew spoke quickly.
“It's a protective arrangement. The waterfront redevelopment project has serious environmental liabilities. Our father wanted to shield you.”
“By taking control of my property?”
“It's not taking control.”
Dominic turned the page.
A second document authorized the trust to exercise voting rights over a valuable portion of his holdings after his marriage to Vivian.
The arrangement would become effective upon their legal wedding.
Dominic laughed once.
There was nothing pleasant about the sound.
“You weren't arranging a marriage,” he said. “You were arranging a takeover.”
Vivian began crying.
“Dominic, I thought it was temporary.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
I stood beside the fireplace, struggling to understand how a family could turn an engagement into something so calculated.
Dominic looked at Andrew.
“Who notarized this?”
“Elaine Mercer.”
“Our family attorney?”
Andrew nodded.
Dominic's expression hardened.
Elaine Mercer had handled Moretti legal affairs for almost twenty years.
She had attended Dominic's father's funeral.
She had helped organize scholarships in his mother's memory.
And she had been welcomed into this house like family.
“Where is she?” Dominic asked.
Marco answered.
“Waiting downstairs. I told her she wasn't leaving until you spoke.”
Dominic closed the folder.
“Bring her here.”
Andrew stepped toward him.
“You need to understand something. If you challenge that agreement, the entire waterfront project could collapse.”
“Then let it collapse.”
“Hundreds of people work there.”
Dominic stopped.
That argument reached him.
The waterfront properties included warehouses, shipping offices, and a proposed redevelopment that would create hundreds of jobs.
Dominic had spent years trying to turn the older businesses his father had built into legitimate investments.
Andrew knew exactly where to strike.
“You're not hurting my family,” he continued. “You're hurting dockworkers, contractors, small businesses—people who depend on your promises.”
Dominic looked at him for a long moment.
“Then your father should have thought about them before forging my signature.”
Andrew's jaw tightened.
“I didn't forge anything.”
“Who did?”
Andrew looked at Vivian.
And for the first time, she looked genuinely frightened of her brother.
“Don't,” she whispered.
Dominic noticed.
“Vivian?”
Her voice broke.
“I took your phone that night.”
The room went still.
“Why?”
“Your father had left you a message years ago. You kept it saved in a private folder.”
Dominic stared at her.
“My father's voice recording?”
She nodded.
“He wanted you to keep the waterfront property out of Charles Hartwell's hands.”
Arthur inhaled sharply.
Vivian continued.
“My father told me the recording was damaging our negotiations. He wanted it deleted.”
Dominic looked almost physically wounded.
“You deleted my father's voice?”
“I couldn't.”
“What?”
She wiped her cheeks.
“I listened to it. He sounded so worried about you. I couldn't erase it.”
Andrew suddenly interrupted.
“Vivian, stop talking.”
She turned on him.
“No. You told me nobody would get hurt.”
Dominic stepped between them.
“What else happened?”
Vivian swallowed.
“I gave Andrew your phone. He copied something from it. And when I came back, your drink had been replaced.”
“Replaced by whom?”
“I don't know.”
Andrew sneered.
“Convenient.”
Vivian stared at her brother.
“You told me it was something to help him sleep.”
Dominic's face went pale.
He remembered that evening.
A small private dinner at Charles Hartwell's home.
Wine.
A toast.
Then waking in the guest bedroom the following morning with Vivian beside him.
She had insisted he'd been exhausted.
He had believed her.
Now he looked at the contract again.
“Did you know what I was supposedly signing?”
Vivian shook her head.
“Not everything.”
“That's not an answer.”
“I knew there was an agreement about the waterfront. I didn't know it gave my father control.”
Dominic looked away.
The betrayal hurt him more than the financial threat.
He had trusted her.
He had been planning a wedding.
And she had handed his phone to the very people his father warned him about.
Arthur suddenly reached into his vest.
“Mr. Dominic, there's something else.”
He opened the gold pocket watch.
The tiny key remained tucked beneath the inner cover.
But Arthur carefully lifted a narrow piece of metal beneath the watch's face.
On its underside was an engraved number.
418\.
Dominic frowned.
“What's that?”
“The deposit box number.”
“You said my father opened it.”
“He did. But he wasn't the only person with access.”
“Who else?”
Arthur looked toward Vivian.
“Her mother.”
Vivian blinked.
“My mother?”
“Margaret Hartwell visited the bank three days before she died.”
Vivian gripped the doorframe.
Her mother had died nine years earlier, following a brief illness.
Arthur continued.
“She left something inside that box. Something Charles never knew about.”
Andrew abruptly reached for the watch.
Marco caught his wrist.
“Don't.”
Andrew pulled away.
“You have no idea what you're getting involved in.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Then explain it.”
Andrew looked at the little engraved number.
His expression changed.
“You can't open that box.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you do, you'll destroy your own father's reputation.”
Arthur shook his head.
“That's what Charles wanted you to believe.”
Andrew gave a bitter smile.
“Ask him about the photograph.”
Dominic turned.
Arthur looked confused.
“What photograph?”
“The one showing who really started the fire.”
Andrew reached inside his jacket.
Marco immediately moved.
But Andrew wasn't reaching for a weapon.
He removed a folded photograph and dropped it on the desk.
Dominic unfolded it.
The picture showed the old garage.
The burning car.
And Arthur Bennett standing beside a gasoline container.
On the back, in Charles Hartwell's handwriting, were six words.
ARTHUR BENNETT STARTED THE FIRE HIMSELF.
Dominic stared at the man who had raised him.
May you like
“Arthur,” he whispered, “why is there a photograph of you holding the gasoline can?”
And for the first time in forty-six years, Arthur Bennett had no answer ready.
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