Chapter 8 - THE SINS OF THE FATHER
The revelation hit the office like an explosion without sound.
Adrian didn't jump up. He didn't draw a gun. He sat perfectly still in his high-backed leather chair, his broad hands resting flat on the mahogany blotter, his tattooed chest rising and falling with slow, calculated breaths.
He looked at the tiny three-year-old girl wrapped in her mother’s arms.
Mia wasn't crying. She was watching Adrian with her big, curious brown eyes, her pink bow slightly crooked, completely untroubled by the dark storm breaking around her. She had crawled beneath a desk to find a shiny toy, and in doing so, had unearthing a decade of murder, treason, and hidden blood.
Adrian slowly shifted his gaze to Dominic.
"You killed Marco Rossi," Adrian stated, his voice devoid of all passion, flat and lethal as cold lead.
"I didn't kill him!" Dominic panicked, his stoic facade shattering completely as he dropped to his knees on the thick rug, holding his hands up in a desperate plea. "Adrian, listen to me! I swear on my life, I didn't pull the trigger! Your father... your father gave me that filigree key twenty years ago! He ordered me to hide it! He didn't trust you with the vault!"
"You're lying," Marcus snarled, taking a step toward the kneeling lieutenant.
"I'm not lying!" Dominic sobbed, sweat dripping off his nose onto the carpet. "Old man Moretti knew Adrian was too violent! He knew if Adrian opened that vault, he’d burn down half the families in New York! So he gave the key to me and told me to bury it where nobody would ever look—inside the framework of his own executive desk!"
"And key four-seventeen?" Adrian asked, pointing a thick finger at the tarnished brass key beside the filigree one. "What is four-seventeen?"
Dominic looked up, his eyes bloodshot and terrified.
May you like
"Four-seventeen is the safety box at the bank on Fifth Avenue," Dominic rasped. "The box that holds the location of the vault. Marco Rossi found the bank key three years ago while polishing the mahogany. He confronted me about it... and before I could explain, someone else put a bullet in him!"
Adrian stared at the kneeling man for a long, agonizing minute. The pieces of the puzzle were fitting together with terrifying precision—a story of distrust passed down from a father to a son, guarded by traitors, and uncovered by a three-year-old child playing on the floor.
