Chapter 4 - THE BROTHER WHO REMEMBERED
Julian stumbled backward.
Nobody reached for him.
Not because nobody cared.
Because nobody knew who had the right.
“No.”
His voice was almost childlike.
Their mother moved toward him.
He raised one hand.
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
Dominic had never seen his brother afraid of her.
Until now.
“You told me my name was Julian.”
“It is.”
“You just said Julian died.”
“I raised you as Julian.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
Gabriel looked away.
Even he seemed uncomfortable now.
Dominic stepped between Julian and everyone else.
“Enough.”
Julian looked at him.
Dominic held his gaze.
“Whatever your name was before, you are my brother.”
Julian’s eyes filled.
Dominic didn’t hug him.
Julian would have hated that in front of everyone.
Instead, Dominic rested one hand briefly against the back of his neck.
A gesture they had used since they were teenagers.
Still us.
Julian swallowed.
Then nodded.
Their mother sank into the nearest chair.
“Your father brought you home after Julian died.”
Dominic turned.
“Start there.”
She looked older than she had an hour earlier.
“Julian developed pneumonia. He was four. It happened quickly.”
Dominic remembered almost nothing.
He had been six.
“I remember a hospital.”
“You remember pieces.”
She wiped her face.
“Your father was terrified that losing Julian would make me leave him.”
Hannah whispered, “So he replaced him?”
Their mother winced.
“Yes.”
Madeline covered her mouth.
Dominic’s stomach turned.
“With Elias?”
“At the time, I didn’t know.”
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“Vincent told her the boy was an orphan from a family connected to ours.”
Dominic’s mother nodded.
“He said the child’s parents were dead. He said nobody wanted him.”
Julian stared at her.
“And you accepted that?”
“I was grieving.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.” She forced herself to look at him. “It isn’t.”
Her honesty stopped him.
“I did something unforgivable because I wanted my son back. And a frightened little boy needed someone to hold him.”
Julian’s mouth trembled.
“So you called me Julian.”
“For one night.”
“What?”
“You woke screaming.”
She pressed both hands together.
“You told me your name was Elias.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Dominic’s anger sharpened.
“And?”
“Your father came into the room. He told you never to say that name again.”
Julian’s face changed.
A memory.
Dominic saw it happen.
Julian touched his temple.
“A silver watch.”
Everyone looked at him.
“My father wore a silver watch.”
Dominic nodded slowly.
Vincent Moretti had worn the same Omega every day.
Julian whispered, “He put it beside my bed.”
Their mother began sobbing.
“He told you that whenever you forgot who you were, you should look at the watch and remember you belonged to him.”
Julian sat down hard.
Hannah quietly moved a glass of water toward him.
He took it without looking at her.
Dominic turned to Gabriel.
“Why did you disappear?”
Gabriel touched the scar on his cheek.
“Because I learned what Vincent had done.”
“Eight years ago?”
“Earlier.”
“Then why wait?”
“Because I had no proof.”
He looked toward the photograph.
“Thomas Cross did.”
Madeline finally spoke.
“My father found Claire’s diary.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Your aunt.”
“Yes.”
“What did it say?”
“That Elias witnessed Vincent kill a man at the Hudson warehouse.”
Anthony’s jaw tightened.
“Who?”
Gabriel answered.
“A federal accountant who had discovered money was being skimmed through Moretti construction contracts.”
Dominic looked at his uncle.
“And my father thought a six-year-old would expose him?”
“Children talk.”
Gabriel’s voice had no emotion.
“Vincent couldn’t kill his own son.”
Dominic went still.
His mother looked at the floor.
There it was.
Another truth.
Another door opening.
“Elias was Dad’s son?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Before he married your mother.”
Julian looked nauseated.
“So Dominic really is my brother.”
“Yes.”
“But his mother isn’t mine.”
“No.”
“Who is?”
Gabriel looked at Madeline.
Madeline’s eyes filled.
“My aunt Claire.”
The room went quiet.
Hannah whispered, “Claire wasn’t just his nurse.”
“No,” Madeline said.
“She was his mother.”
Julian stared at her.
That made Madeline his cousin.
Dominic’s fiancée was related to his brother.
Not by blood to Dominic.
But tangled inside the same secret.
Madeline lowered herself beside Julian.
“I knew about Elias. I didn’t know you were him until three months ago.”
Julian looked at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Gabriel told me what would happen if Dominic learned the truth too soon.”
Dominic’s gaze snapped toward Gabriel.
Gabriel looked almost amused.
“I told her your father left safeguards.”
“What safeguards?”
“The kind powerful men leave when they think their children might someday judge them.”
Gabriel reached inside his coat.
Anthony drew his weapon.
“Slowly.”
Gabriel removed a brass pocket watch.
Not silver.
Older.
Engraved.
Dominic recognized the Moretti crest.
“My grandfather’s.”
Gabriel placed it on the desk.
“The Bellini ring opens this.”
Dominic took the ring from his pocket.
Inside the watch was a narrow slot matching the signet.
He inserted it.
A hidden back panel released.
Inside was a tiny strip of paper.
Not documents.
A handwritten sequence of numbers.
Anthony leaned closer.
“Bank account?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Storage coordinates.”
“To what?”
“The evidence Vincent couldn’t destroy.”
Dominic stared at him.
“And you invaded my house for this?”
“I came because the storage location becomes inaccessible at midnight.”
Madeline whispered, “That’s why he needed the ring tonight.”
Dominic checked the grandfather clock.
11:43.
Seventeen minutes.
“Why inaccessible?”
Gabriel looked at Anthony.
“Because Vincent arranged for a private vault to transfer ownership if nobody accessed it for eight years.”
Anthony frowned.
“To whom?”
Gabriel smiled bitterly.
“That is what Thomas Cross died trying to learn.”
Madeline flinched.
Dominic caught it.
“Your father is dead?”
Madeline nodded.
“For real this time.”
“So the threat to Hannah’s brother came from whoever controls that vault.”
Nobody answered.
Then Hannah’s eyes moved to the brass watch.
“There was a watch in one of the photographs.”
Everyone turned.
She pointed.
“On the desk beside the envelope. Silver face. Black leather strap.”
Dominic frowned.
“Whose?”
“I don’t know.”
Hannah closed her eyes, trying to remember.
“There were initials engraved on the back.”
“What initials?”
She looked at Anthony.
His expression changed before she spoke.
Hannah whispered:
“A.R.”
Anthony Russo slowly lowered his gun.
May you like
And Dominic realized the man he had trusted with every lock, camera and gate in his home had just become part of the mystery.
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