Chapter 6: What Vincent Had Already Sold
They were in the car — Lily asleep across the back seat with her rabbit tucked under her chin, Sophia in the front with her arms wrapped around herself — when Dominic's phone rang again.
Marco glanced in the mirror.
Dominic answered.
"Talk to me," he said.
It was Raf, his head of intelligence.
Raf had been with the Moretti organization for nineteen years and had the particular gift of delivering bad news in a tone that made it sound like a weather report.
"The Vescari contact wasn't surveillance," Raf said.
"It was a meeting.
We pulled the building's exterior camera.
The man outside the building at six — he met with someone coming out of the front entrance.
We ran the face."
"Who?"
"Vincent."
Dominic looked out the window at the passing street.
"Vincent met with a Vescari man outside Sophia's building tonight."
"At six-oh-eight.
They spoke for approximately four minutes.
The Vescari man handed him an envelope.
Vincent put it in his coat and went back to his car."
In the front seat, Sophia had gone very still.
She was listening.
"Where is Vincent now?" Dominic said.
"His apartment on the Upper East Side.
We have eyes on it."
"Keep them there.
Don't move on him yet."
"Understood."
"And Raf — I need everything.
Every communication Vincent has had with anyone connected to the Vescari organization.
Every call, every message, every meeting.
How far back can you go?"
"Depends on what he used.
If he was smart, he used clean phones and cash.
If he wasn't—"
"He wasn't," Dominic said.
"He never thought he'd need to be."
The call ended.
Sophia turned to look at him.
"He sold us to them," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"It looks that way."
"For how long?"
"I don't know yet."
She turned back to face the windshield.
Her jaw was set.
Her hands were in her lap, very still.
"He knew about Lily for two years," she said.
"And the Vescari have been watching my building.
So either he told them two years ago, or—"
"Or he told them recently, when he realized I was going to find out about her and he needed leverage of his own." Dominic kept his voice low.
Lily hadn't stirred.
"If he's in business with Carlo, then my finding out about Lily wasn't a problem he was managing.
It was a commodity he was selling."
Sophia made a sound.
Small.
Like something had hit her.
"She's five years old," she said.
"I know."
"She rode a train alone across the city to ask you why you fired me, and your cousin was selling her name to people who—" She stopped.
"How do you live in this world, Dominic?
How do you do it?"
He didn't have an answer for that.
He had never had one.
"I'm going to fix this," he said.
"You keep saying that."
"Because I keep meaning it."
She looked at him then.
Really looked at him, the way she had at the door — like she was trying to find something in his face that she could trust.
"What does fixing it look like?"
"Vincent answers for what he did.
Carlo loses his leverage.
You and Lily are safe.
Permanently."
"And the territory Carlo wants?"
"He doesn't get it."
"He'll retaliate."
"Yes."
"And then what?"
"And then we deal with that." He glanced at her.
"I'm not going to trade three blocks of Greenpoint for my daughter's safety and call it a solution.
That's not a solution.
That's a down payment on the next threat."
Sophia was quiet for a moment.
"She doesn't know what you are," she said.
"She thinks you're just the boss who fired me."
"I know."
"She likes you."
He looked in the mirror at Lily.
The rabbit.
The crease between her sleeping eyebrows.
"I know," he said again, more quietly.
"Don't make me regret letting her like you."
The car turned onto a quiet street in a part of the city that didn't appear on any map connected to the Moretti name.
A safe house — clean, comfortable, watched from three angles.
Marco pulled up.
Dominic got out and opened the back door carefully so as not to wake Lily.
She woke up anyway.
She always did.
"Are we there?" she murmured.
"Yes."
She looked around at the unfamiliar street, then up at him with those eyes.
"Is Mama coming?"
"Right behind you."
Lily considered this.
Then she held out her arms to be carried.
Dominic stood there for one second — the most feared man on Long Island, who had made grown men beg without blinking — and then he picked her up.
She put her head on his shoulder and went back to sleep.
Sophia watched from the other side of the car.
She didn't say anything.
But she stopped holding herself quite so tightly.
Inside the safe house, after Lily was settled in a bedroom with the rabbit and a nightlight that Marco had somehow produced, Dominic found Sophia in the small kitchen.
She had made tea without asking where anything was — just opened cupboards until she found what she needed.
She pushed a mug across the counter toward him.
He sat down.
"Tomorrow," he said, "I'm going to need you to tell me everything you remember about the termination.
Every detail.
Who called.
What they said.
The exact wording of the letter.
Everything Elena told you."
"Why?"
"Because Vincent was careful.
Which means I need to build the case from the outside in."
Sophia wrapped both hands around her mug.
"You're going to go after him."
"Yes."
"Through official channels?"
He looked at her.
"Through every channel available to me," he said.
She nodded slowly.
She understood what that meant.
She had always understood more than he'd given her credit for.
"There's one more thing," she said.
"Tell me."
She set her mug down.
Reached into the pocket of her jacket.
Pulled out a folded piece of paper and set it on the counter between them.
He unfolded it.
It was a printed email.
Dated fourteen months ago.
Sent from a Moretti Holdings internal address to an external account that he didn't recognize.
The subject line read: *Re: Carter situation — confirmed.*
The body of the email contained three lines.
*She doesn't know he's aware.
Termination scheduled for Q1.
The child's details are attached as discussed.*
The sender's name was Vincent Moretti.
Dominic read it twice.
"Where did you get this?"
"Elena," Sophia said.
"She kept a copy.
She sent it to me six weeks ago.
She said she'd been holding it because she was scared.
She said she was still scared, but she thought I should have it."
He looked up at her.
"You've had this for six weeks."
"Yes."
"And you didn't—"
"What was I going to do, Dominic?
Walk up to your front door?" Her voice was steady.
"I was managing it.
I had a plan.
It wasn't a fast plan, but it was a safe one."
He looked back at the email.
"This changes things," he said.
"I know."
"This is enough to—" He stopped.
Refolded the paper.
Set it down.
"This is more than enough."
From the bedroom down the hall, there was a small sound.
Lily, shifting in her sleep.
Both of them went quiet until it stopped.
Then Sophia picked up her mug again.
"She asked me once," she said quietly, "why she didn't have a dad.
I told her that some families are just a mom and a kid, and that was its own kind of whole." She looked at the mug.
"She said okay.
She said her friend Noah had two moms and that seemed fine too." A pause.
"She accepted it so easily.
She always does."
Dominic said nothing.
"I don't know what you want from this," Sophia said.
"From us.
I need you to be honest with me about that before anything else happens."
He looked at her across the small kitchen.
"I want to know her," he said.
"I want her to be safe.
And I want—" He stopped.
"I want to earn the right to figure out the rest."
Sophia held his gaze for a long moment.
"That's a more honest answer than I expected," she said.
"You always brought that out in me."
She almost smiled.
Not quite.
May you like
"Get some sleep," she said.
"You have a cousin to deal with tomorrow."
