Chapter 9 - JULIAN’S LEGACY
The name Julian echoed through the vast marble hallway like a gunshot.
Dominic Valenti felt the air get pulled straight from his lungs. His older brother, Julian Valenti—the rightful heir to the Chicago syndicate who had vanished without a trace four years ago off the coast of Lake Michigan, presumed dead after a rival ambush—had been the only other person alive who carried that silk thread.
Dominic turned his head slowly, looking up at Claire Bennett with an intensity that burned like white-hot iron.
"Julian..." Dominic whispered, his voice shaking with a combination of profound shock, grief, and reawakened rage. "You were with Julian."
Claire wiped a single tear from her cheek, her defensive posture finally breaking under the weight of the truth. She took two steps forward, stepping between Dominic and her daughter, though she no longer looked at him with sheer terror, but with a mother's fierce, protective defiance.
"He hid us," Claire revealed, her voice steadying. "Four years ago, when the ambush happened, Julian knew someone inside your family had leaked his coordinates. He knew if they found out I was pregnant with his child, they would kill us both to wipe out his line."
Dominic’s jaw clenched so tightly the muscles along his face throbbed beneath his dark ink.
"So he sent you away..." Dominic realized, his voice raspy.
"He told me to stay in hiding until Sophie turned three," Claire said, tears falling softly down her face. "He said if he didn't come back for us, I had to bring her to the Lake Forest mansion. He said I had to stitch the crest under Mr. Buttons' ear so you would know she was family... and not an enemy."
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Dominic stood up slowly, towering over Claire, his dark eyes filled with a turbulent storm of emotions. The brother he had mourned for four years—the brother whose death had forced Dominic to take up the mantle of syndicate boss and wage a bloody war across Chicago—had left behind a child.
A daughter. A Valenti heir.
