Chapter 7 - The Cost of Telling the Truth

The silver sedan did not solve the case.

It made the case heavier.

That was how Detective Chen explained it.

A camera in the underground garage beneath Salvatore Commercial Group showed Luca driving the car out forty-three minutes before the explosion. Another camera captured it returning a little more than an hour later.

He had told Chen he spent that entire evening in his office preparing financial reports.

He had lied.

But a lie about location was still not proof that he planted a bomb, hired gunmen, or ordered Nolan Price to follow me.

So Chen kept building.

Celia Ward handed over emails.

Halcyon produced payment records.

The city recovered additional traffic footage.

Dominic’s attorneys delivered internal files by the box.

And with each box, I watched his face become harder to read.

On the fourth morning, a gray-haired attorney named Miriam Vale arrived at the house and asked to speak with Dominic alone.

He refused.

“Emma stays.”

I immediately said, “Emma does not need to stay.”

Miriam looked between us.

“I like her already.”

Dominic rubbed his forehead.

“Fine. Emma can decide.”

I stayed.

Not because I wanted access to his secrets.

Because whatever Miriam had come to say had put fear into a man who had barely reacted when three armed men tried to finish him beside a burning car.

She opened a legal pad.

“The records you authorized Detective Chen to review may expose historical conduct unrelated to the attack.”

Dominic leaned back.

“I assumed that.”

“I don’t think you understand the scale.”

“I do.”

“Threat-based collections. Undeclared payments. Financial transactions your father structured before his death but that continued after you took control.”

My stomach tightened.

Miriam glanced at me, then back at him.

“You signed some of those documents.”

Dominic’s expression did not change.

“Yes.”

“You can still narrow the production.”

Detective Chen was not in the room. No one was forcing him to answer quickly.

He looked at his hands.

I remembered what he had told me in the kitchen.

Change can be selfish before it becomes moral.

Maybe this was the moment selfishness stopped being enough.

“What happens if I narrow it?” he asked.

“We litigate scope. Protect privileged and unrelated material. Slow things down.”

“And Luca?”

“We can still cooperate on the bombing.”

“While hiding the records that explain why he thought I was vulnerable?”

Miriam’s mouth tightened.

“My job is to protect you.”

“No. Your job is to advise me.”

She stared at him.

Then something like sadness moved across her face.

“I knew your father for twenty-six years,” she said. “You sound nothing like him right now.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You shouldn’t. He died rich and free.”

Dominic looked toward the window.

“He also died with armed men outside his bedroom.”

No one spoke.

Finally, he said, “Give Chen everything the warrant covers. Voluntarily disclose anything directly connected to the companies Luca managed. If prosecutors find my conduct in it, we deal with that honestly.”

Miriam closed her eyes for a moment.

“You could be charged.”

“I know.”

“You could lose companies.”

“I know.”

“You could go to prison.”

His jaw tightened.

“I know.”

I thought of Lily’s drawing again.

The black rectangle beside the fire.

Maybe the most beautiful lie we tell ourselves is that becoming better means the consequences disappear.

They do not.

Sometimes becoming better simply means you stop running from the bill.

After Miriam left, I found Dominic in the garden.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he told me.

“Good, because I don’t know what to say.”

He nodded.

“I’m not going to tell you this makes everything okay.”

“I know.”

“And I’m not going to promise I’ll wait for you if you end up in prison.”

A shadow of a smile touched his mouth.

“I know.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

I stepped closer.

“Why are you doing it?”

He looked at me for so long I wondered whether he would answer.

“Because for three weeks I thought surviving the explosion meant I had been given my life back.”

He glanced toward the house, where Lily was practicing spelling words with Mateo at the dining table.

“But I think I was wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“I got the same life back. Same fear. Same secrets. Same people waiting for me to become my father.”

His eyes returned to mine.

“You pulling me from that car didn’t change me. It gave me time to decide whether I would change myself.”

My throat tightened.

“Don’t do it for me.”

“I’m not.”

That answer mattered more than if he had said yes.

He reached toward me slowly.

Not for my waist.

Not for my face.

His fingers touched the back of my hand.

A question.

I turned my hand over.

This time, when he leaned closer, I did not step away.

The kiss was nothing like I would have imagined from Dominic Salvatore.

No dramatic claim.

No hunger meant to erase common sense.

It was careful.

Almost uncertain.

And when I pulled back, he let me.

“That was probably a terrible idea,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

He smiled.

For a few seconds, I forgot about Luca Ferraro.

Then Vincent arrived and ruined everything.

He came through the gate furious enough that even Mateo moved faster.

“You gave them the books,” Vincent said before he had fully entered the living room.

Dominic did not rise from the sofa.

“Yes.”

“Do you understand what you’ve done?”

“Yes.”

“No, you self-righteous little fool, you don’t.”

Lily was upstairs. I was grateful for that.

Vincent threw a folder onto the coffee table.

“Banks are freezing credit. Partners are asking questions. Men who worked for your father for thirty years think you handed them to prosecutors.”

“If they committed crimes, I may have.”

Vincent stared at him as if he had spoken another language.

“Our family protected you.”

“Our family trapped us.”

“Your father would—”

“My father is dead.”

The words landed hard.

Dominic stood.

“And I am done using him as an excuse for choices I make while alive.”

Vincent’s face changed.

For the first time, he looked old.

Not weak.

Old.

“You think the world rewards men who confess?” he asked quietly.

“No.”

“Then what exactly do you expect?”

“Consequences.”

Vincent laughed once, bitterly.

“You really are your mother’s son.”

He turned to leave.

I stopped him.

“Vincent.”

He looked back.

“Did Luca ever talk to you about Crescent Harbor?”

His eyes narrowed.

“Why?”

“North Briar was financed through it.”

“I know.”

“Did you know money was moving through properties your attorney filed but Luca administered?”

He looked at Dominic.

“What is she asking me?”

Dominic answered. “Whether Luca used your reputation as cover.”

Vincent went very still.

I saw the idea reach him.

Then anger.

Then humiliation.

A man like Vincent could forgive danger more easily than being made a fool.

“I’ll speak to him,” he said.

“No,” Dominic replied immediately.

Vincent smiled coldly. “You don’t give me orders anymore.”

“If Luca is responsible, confronting him only warns him.”

“Perhaps I enjoy warnings.”

“Vincent.”

The older man paused at the door.

Dominic’s voice softened.

“Don’t make the mistake I almost made.”

For one second, uncle and nephew simply looked at each other.

Then Vincent left.

He did not answer Dominic’s calls afterward.

By evening, Chen had obtained additional authority to search Luca’s office and devices.

By nine, Luca was gone.

His apartment was empty.

His office computer had been left behind.

His passport was still in a desk safe.

His phone was turned off.

Vincent was missing too.

At 10:17 p.m., my phone rang.

Not an unknown number.

Luca’s.

Detective Chen, sitting across the kitchen table, held up one finger before I answered.

I put the call on speaker.

“Emma,” Luca said.

His voice sounded tired.

Not frantic.

Tired.

“What do you want?”

“To tell you Dominic is about to destroy everyone around him because he needs you to believe he can be redeemed.”

Dominic stood in the doorway behind Chen.

I looked at him.

Then I said, “You keep talking about Dominic because you don’t want to talk about yourself.”

Silence.

Luca exhaled.

“You want answers?”

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow. Rosie’s. Noon.”

Chen wrote something on a pad and turned it toward me.

KEEP HIM TALKING.

“Why Rosie’s?” I asked.

“Because you trust that place.”

“That doesn’t mean I trust you.”

“I don’t need trust. I need five minutes.”

“And Vincent?”

The silence lasted half a second too long.

“What about him?”

My pulse accelerated.

“You tell me.”

Luca’s voice hardened.

“Noon, Emma. Come alone, or I disappear and you spend the rest of your life wondering which parts were true.”

The line went dead.

Chen looked at me.

“You are not going alone.”

“I know.”

Dominic said, “You’re not going at all.”

I turned toward him.

He stopped.

Closed his eyes.

Then corrected himself.

“I am asking you not to go.”

I looked at Detective Chen.

“Can you make it safe?”

“Safe?” she said. “No.”

I appreciated the honesty again.

“Controlled?”

She thought for several seconds.

“Yes.”

Dominic’s face hardened.

I reached for his hand.

“This isn’t me trying to prove I’m brave.”

“Then why?”

“Because he picked me because he thinks I’m the easiest person in this story to manipulate.”

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I held his gaze.

“I want him to be wrong.”