Aria touched his leg.
“Daddy?”
“I’m okay.”
He wasn’t.
He continued.
Do not trust the report about the foundation. Someone has been stealing through the children’s medical grants, but that is only the beginning. I found altered patient records, forged identities, and private payments connected to Aurora House.
Dominic frowned.
Matteo leaned closer.
The letter continued.
Vivienne knows more than she pretends to. Marcus is afraid of her. If anything happens to me, find Dr. Adrian Keller. And Dom—
The last line made Dominic’s knees nearly fail.
If they tell you I died, make them prove the body was mine.
Dominic sat down.
No one spoke.
Aria climbed into his lap.
For twenty-six months Dominic had awakened every morning carrying the same memory.
Rain.
A police officer standing beneath the Ravello front portico.
A burned Mercedes at the bottom of a ravine.
A body damaged beyond visual identification.
The ring found among the remains.
Dental confirmation.
Funeral.
Ashes.
Silence.
He had never seen Elena’s face.
The medical examiner had advised against it.
Dominic had accepted the identification because Elena’s original wedding band had been recovered beside the body.
Now he remembered the oddest detail.
The original ring had been stored inside a velvet box after Aria’s birth.
Elena wore the new ring Dominic had commissioned.
Yet the police had recovered the old one.
At the time, grief had made logic impossible.
Now logic was screaming.
Dominic inserted the memory card into Matteo’s laptop.
Three files appeared.
The first contained spreadsheets.
Money transfers.
Aurora House.
Private patient payments.
Names Dominic didn’t recognize.
One name appeared repeatedly.
E. Rossi.
The second file was an audio recording.
Elena’s voice filled the room.
Dominic gripped the edge of the desk.
“I met with Adrian today. He confirmed someone accessed my medical records twice. Vivienne told me I was imagining things. She says motherhood has made me paranoid.”
A pause.
Then Elena laughed bitterly.
“I almost believed her.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
The recording continued.
“Marcus came to see me afterward. He was drunk. He said his sister was in trouble. He begged me not to ask questions about Aurora House. When I asked why, he said something strange.”
Static crackled.
Then Elena’s voice became clear again.
“He said, ‘She waited her whole life for yours.’”
Dominic opened his eyes.
Matteo looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
The third file was video.
Elena sat in the driver’s seat of her Mercedes.
The timestamp showed it had been recorded forty minutes before the crash.
She looked frightened.
Not panicked.
Controlled.
“Dominic, if this reaches you, I need you to understand something.”
