Chapter 2 - Bloodline Whispers
The room fell dead silent. The only sound was the faint hum of the estate’s generator and Lily’s soft, rhythmic breathing.
Dominic stared at the maid sitting in front of him. Sophia Carter had worked at the Moretti estate for eighteen months. She was quiet, hardworking, kept her head down, and never asked for advances on her pay. Her file showed she was from a small town in upstate New York, widowed young, left with a infant daughter and no living relatives.
"Your father?" Dominic echoed slowly. "Your father was Arthur Rossi?"
Sophia nodded slowly, wiping a tear from her cheek. "His real name was Arturo Rossi. He was Vittorio’s elder brother. The brother who walked away from the family thirty years ago."
Dominic felt a sudden, sharp shift in the floorboards beneath his feet. His mind raced back through the fragmented stories his father had told him over cigars in the mahogany study. Arturo Rossi—the brilliant, soft-spoken eldest son of the Rossi clan who had refused to take over the family’s shipping operations, surrendered his inheritance, and vanished into the night after a violent falling out with Vittorio.
"Arturo was supposed to have died in a car fire in Chicago in 1998," Dominic said, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinized her face—the high cheekbones, the deep hazel eyes, the stubborn set of her jaw. Features he had seen in old black-and-white family photographs hanging in the estate's private gallery.
"He didn't die in Chicago," Sophia said, her voice shaking with long-buried grief. "Vittorio set that fire to claim the family’s logistics empire for himself. My father survived, changed his name to Carter, and moved to upstate New York to live as a carpenter. He took that watch with him—it was his grandfather's. He kept it in a locked wooden box in his workshop. He told me if anyone ever came looking for that watch, it meant the shadows of his past had finally found us."
"How did Vittorio get it?" Dominic demanded.
"Four years ago... six months before I applied for a job here," Sophia whispered, looking up at him with raw pain in her eyes. "Vittorio’s men tracked my father down. They didn't just take the watch, Mr. Moretti. They killed him. They burned his workshop to the ground and made it look like a propane leak. I barely escaped with Lily. I had nowhere to go, no money, no protection. I knew the only place Vittorio wouldn't dare hunt for an obscure orphan was inside the estate of his own nephew—the head of the Moretti family."
Dominic stood motionless, processing the revelation. Sophia Carter wasn't just a maid he had hired out of pity from an agency pool. She was his second cousin. Lily was a Rossi by blood.
And Vittorio had been hunting them both while trying to exterminate Dominic’s son to claim the supreme seat of the Allied Syndicates.
"You knew who I was when you took the job," Dominic stated.
"I knew you were the only man strong enough to keep Vittorio at bay," she confessed, tears streaming down her face. "I never intended to tell you. I just wanted a safe roof over my daughter’s head. I wanted her to eat three meals a day without fear of fire in the night. I’m sorry, Mr. Moretti. I’m so sorry."
Dominic looked down at her. The anger that usually burned inside him when lied to was entirely absent. All he felt was a profound, cold clarity.
"You came into the lion's den to hide from the hyena," Dominic said gently. He reached out, his large, calloused hand coming to rest on her shoulder. "You don't need to apologize for protecting your daughter, Sophia. In this family, we do whatever it takes to keep our children breathing."
Before Sophia could answer, the door knocked violently. Marcus opened it without waiting, his face dark as thunder.
"Boss," Marcus said grimly. "We found Vittorio. He was trying to breach the East Gate using a forged diplomatic clearance. He’s in the lower wine cellar now. But... we have a bigger problem."
"Speak," Dominic ordered.
"He wasn't acting alone, Dominic," Marcus swallowed hard. "Two of the capos—Falcone and Moretti’s own cousin, Lorenzo—just called an emergency council meeting at the harbor house. They’re claiming you poisoned Ethan to frame Vittorio and consolidate absolute control over the waterfront docks. They’ve brought fifty armed men to the perimeter."
Dominic’s lips pulled back into a dark, feral smile. "They want a civil war."
He looked back at Sophia, who had risen from the bed, terror written across her features.
"Marcus," Dominic commanded, turning toward the door. "Move Sophia and Lily to the master suite upstairs. Double the guard outside their door. Put four snipers on the inner balcony."
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"Mr. Moretti—" Sophia began, reaching out to catch his sleeve.
Dominic stopped, turning his head to look at her hand on his dark suit coat. "You are safe here, Sophia. You and Lily are under my personal protection now. No one touches my blood. Not while I’m breathing."
