Chapter 13 - The Recording That Made Dominic Doubt His Own Blood

Eleanor Price agreed to meet only after Dominic told her Michael Castile was dead.

She chose a public library in Evanston on a rainy afternoon and arrived carrying a canvas grocery bag instead of a briefcase. At seventy-four, she had white hair cut bluntly at her jaw and the impatient expression of someone who had spent a career listening to men lie under oath.

She looked at Dominic, then at Sadie.

“Which one of you is the problem?”

Sadie pointed at Dominic.

Price nodded. “That was my guess.”

Dominic almost smiled.

They showed her copies of Michael’s ledgers, the bank records, Nathan’s false confession, and the evidence connecting VCC contractors to Vale and Bellini.

Price read in silence.

When she finished, she removed a small digital recorder from her bag.

“Michael gave me this twenty-six years ago.”

Dominic stared at it.

“He came to me once,” Price said. “He said he might be willing to cooperate against organized crime at the docks. Then he disappeared and sent word that the meeting had been a mistake.”

“Why keep the recording?”

“Because prosecutors are sentimental hoarders.”

She pressed play.

Michael Castile’s younger voice filled the small study room.

He described discovering that Victor had diverted a shipment through North Crown and fed false information to Anthony Moretti. Michael believed Victor had wanted to stop the planned Castile-Moretti merger because it would leave him without control of the freight division.

Then Michael said something Dominic had not expected.

“I covered it up.”

Dominic’s face changed.

On the recording, Michael admitted he had found evidence within a year of the original theft.

He had hidden it.

He feared that exposing Victor would weaken the Castiles and invite attack.

So the war continued.

Sadie watched Dominic absorb the truth.

Victor had started the feud.

Michael had allowed it to survive.

The father Dominic had remembered as a hard but loyal man had known innocent people were dying over a lie and had chosen power over correction.

Price stopped the recording.

“There is more.”

She played another section.

Michael described Victor’s habit of using legitimate companies to finance illegal operations, then washing the proceeds through construction and insurance claims. He named Vassallo, Bellini, and several officials whose names still appeared in current city government.

Carmine swore softly.

Price turned off the recorder.

“This is not enough to prosecute current murders. It is enough to establish history and motive. The modern financial records are what matter.”

Dominic stared at the dark screen.

“Why did you never contact me?”

“Because you were not a federal agent, Mr. Castile. You were Michael’s son, and by the time you inherited his organization, your name was appearing in investigations of its own.”

The words were blunt.

Dominic accepted them.

Sadie looked at Price. “If we give you everything?”

“I am retired.”

“You know people.”

“Yes.”

“People you trust?”

“Fewer than I used to.”

Dominic finally spoke.

“If I turn over these books, I expose my father and myself.”

Price looked at him without sympathy.

“That is what evidence does.”

Carmine shifted.

“Dominic has nothing to do with the attacks on Rosa.”

“I believe you. That does not erase everything else.”

Sadie watched Dominic.

This was the choice Michael had avoided.

Not revenge.

Accountability.

Price slid the recorder toward him.

“Your father spent his life convincing himself that protecting family required preserving the machine. Decide whether you believe the same thing.”

The meeting ended without an agreement.

Outside, Dominic stood under the library awning while rain struck the sidewalk.

Sadie joined him.

“You’re angry.”

“At him.”

“Your father?”

“Both of them.”

He looked at the recorder in his hand.

“I spent my whole life thinking Victor betrayed my father.”

“He did.”

“My father betrayed everyone else.”

Sadie did not soften the truth.

“Yes.”

Dominic looked at her.

Most people around him rushed to make his pain easier. Sadie did not.

That was why he trusted her.

His phone rang.

Carmine answered before Dominic could.

A moment later, his face went pale.

“What?” Dominic asked.

“One of our teams picked up Bellini.”

“Alive?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“South warehouse.”

“And?”

Carmine swallowed.

“He had a recording on him.”

“Of what?”

Carmine held Dominic’s eyes.

“Victor ordering Rosa’s fire.”

The proof they had been chasing had finally appeared.

Too neatly.

Sadie felt the warning before anyone said it.

“Do not play it on your regular phones,” she said.

Dominic looked at her.

“Why?”

“Because every piece of easy evidence so far has been planted to make you move fast.”

Price, still standing inside the library doors, had heard.

She nodded once.

“Bring it to a forensic lab,” she said. “If it is real, patience will not hurt it.”

Dominic closed his hand around Michael’s recorder.

His father had failed because fear made him wait too long.

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Victor’s trap depended on making Dominic act too soon.

For the first time, Dominic understood that restraint and cowardice were not the same thing.