Chapter 9
The six owners came to the club the next morning.
A tailor.
A florist.
A laundromat owner.
A widowed café owner.
Daniel.
And an elderly man who repaired watches in a shop barely wider than a hallway.
Every one of them had paid Dominic.
Every one thought I knew.
That was the part I could barely tolerate.
The tailor showed me a letter stamped with a Castellano seal.
Fake.
The florist had a voice message from one of Dominic’s men saying Rocco wants the block cleared.
False.
The café owner had already signed over twenty percent of her business because she believed refusal would make her son unsafe.
I looked at Dominic.
He avoided my eyes.
Then the watchmaker spoke.
“Your sister tried to stop this years ago.”
I turned.
He had known Sofia.
Of course.
She bought watches from him for birthdays.
“She came to me before the marina,” he said.
My chest tightened.
“What did she say?”
“That she finally had enough to confront Victor.”
I looked toward the old photograph on the table.
“Did she say where?”
“The boat.”
There.
The marina note.
Sofia met Victor on the family boat the night she died.
No proof he killed her.
But no accident story remained believable without questions.
The watchmaker continued.
“She told me if she didn’t come back, Elise had copies.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
His dead wife had carried Sofia’s last protection for eight years.
Then Dominic found enough of it to fear her.
I looked at my nephew.
“Did your father ever talk about that night?”
Dominic hesitated.
Then nodded.
Everyone went still.
“What did he say?”
“He said Sofia made him choose.”
My jaw tightened.
“Choose what?”
Dominic looked at the floor.
“Between her and the system.”
The words disgusted even him now.
Maybe because he finally heard them outside his father’s voice.
“What happened on the boat?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he ever say he killed her?”
“No.”
“Did he say she fell?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
Dominic looked at me.
“He said she wouldn’t stop fighting.”
That was enough to destroy the accident in my mind.
Not enough to invent every missing detail.
But enough.
Victor had carried the secret to his grave.
May you like
Dominic carried the system.
And I had rewarded him for both by handing him the club.
