Chapter 6
I asked Isabella what Dominic told her when she was pregnant.
She did not want to answer in front of Lucia.
So Teresa took my daughter to the pastry counter and showed her how to stack empty paper boxes.
I watched Lucia laugh for the first time.
Then Isabella spoke.
“He said you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That I was pregnant.”
I had not.
“He said you thought a child would complicate succession.”
My stomach turned.
Dominic knew exactly which fear would work.
The Caruso organization had been unstable then. Two older captains had already questioned whether my engagement to Isabella was distracting me.
Dominic used that.
“He told me you said I should disappear quietly before people thought I trapped you.”
I closed my eyes.
I remembered what he told me.
Isabella had left with someone else.
She was tired of waiting for marriage.
She wanted a normal life.
He even gave me a hotel receipt.
Fake, apparently.
“I hated you,” I said.
Isabella looked at me.
“I know.”
“I believed him.”
“I know.”
No comfort.
I deserved that.
Dominic sat several tables away under guard, listening.
Then he said:
“She believed me faster than you did.”
Isabella went still.
I turned.
He smiled.
“There’s your great romance.”
I stood.
Isabella touched my wrist.
I stopped.
She looked at Dominic.
“You told a pregnant woman the father of her baby wanted her gone.”
Dominic shrugged.
“If she trusted Marco so much, why did she listen?”
That was his game.
Always make cruelty proof the victim deserved it.
Isabella’s voice shook.
“Because you had his ring.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
Dominic’s face changed.
She continued.
“He showed me your family signet.”
My eyes moved toward Dominic’s hand.
His capo pin.
His watch.
No ring.
I understood.
Years ago I had lost a signet ring.
Dominic told me it disappeared during a warehouse fight.
He had taken it.
Used it to make Isabella believe my message came from me.
I stared at him.
“You gave her my ring.”
He laughed softly.
“It was convincing.”
I moved toward him.
This time Isabella did not stop me.
I stopped myself.
Not because he deserved restraint.
Because Lucia was watching.
My daughter.
My first hour with her.
I would not make violence her first memory of me.
Dominic saw the decision.
Mistook it for weakness.
“There he is,” he said. “Already changing.”
I looked toward Lucia.
“No.”
May you like
Then back at him.
“I’m finally deciding what deserves to survive me.”
