“The boy I raised isn’t mine?”
Isabella covered her mouth, but it was too late.
Marco and Enzo exchanged a look.
Emma stood near the doorway, clutching her rabbit.
Dominic stepped closer.
“Whose son is he?”
Isabella whispered, “Vincent Caruso’s.”
The name hit the room like a gunshot.
Vincent Caruso was not just Dominic’s enemy.
He was the man Dominic believed had been killed twelve years earlier.
Dominic grabbed the edge of the desk.
“You told me Vincent was dead.”
“I thought he was.”
“Then why were you meeting him?”
Isabella began crying.
“Because he came back.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
The hidden recordings suddenly made sense.
The missing money.
The dock attacks.
The men who always seemed to know where Dominic would be.
But one thing still didn’t.
Dominic looked at Emma.
“How did you know about the basement?”
Emma looked down at her rabbit.
Then she quietly opened a small tear in its stitched ear.
Something tiny fell onto the carpet.
A silver key.
Dominic picked it up.
Isabella went white.
“Where did you get this?”
Emma pointed at Isabella.
“She gave it to my mommy.”
Sophia’s face changed instantly.
Dominic turned toward the housekeeper.
“Sophia?”
She closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Sophia reached inside her apron and pulled out an old photograph.
Dominic took it.
It showed Sophia as a teenager standing beside Dominic’s father.
And in his father’s arms was a newborn baby.
On the back, one sentence had been written:
“FOR DOMINIC — WHEN HE IS READY TO KNOW THE TRUTH.”
Dominic looked at Sophia.
“What truth?”
Her voice broke.
“Emma isn’t my daughter.”
Dominic froze.
Sophia looked directly at him.
“She’s yours.”
And from somewhere beneath the house, a door slammed shut.
