98I came home early and nearly fired the young maid I found sitting on my kitchen floor, making my three daughters laugh for the first time since their mother was murdered. But before I could throw her out, my eldest daughter grabbed my coat, looked me straight in the eyes, and spoke her first words in fourteen months: “Daddy killed Mommy.”

Dominic felt as though the floor beneath him had opened up, dropping him into an endless, icy abyss.

The man said 'Daddy said go'.

Someone had called Isabella’s phone seconds before the ambush. Someone using his caller ID, or someone mimicking his authority, giving Isabella instructions to take that specific route through Queens under the pretense that Dominic had ordered it.

Isabella hadn't been ambushed randomly. She had been led directly into the trap by someone she trusted completely—someone she believed was speaking on Dominic’s behalf.

And four-year-old Lucia had heard the call over the car’s Bluetooth speakers.

All this time, the little girl hadn't meant that Dominic had physically pulled the trigger. In her child’s mind, she had believed her mother died because 'Daddy' told her to go there.

Dominic leaned forward, pulling Lucia gently into his arms, burying his face in her dark hair as tears finally broke through his stone exterior.

“No, baby...” Dominic sobbed quietly, holding her close against his chest. “Daddy didn't tell Mommy to go there. I would have died ten thousand times before I ever let anyone hurt her. I swear to you, Lucia... Daddy didn't do it.”

Lucia wrapped her small arms tightly around his neck, burying her face into his shoulder. For the first time in fourteen months, her tiny frame relaxed, the unbearable weight of her unspoken secret finally slipping away.

Clara sat beside them, tears shining in her own eyes as she watched the father and daughter hold each other in the dim light of the nursery.

An hour later, after Lucia had fallen into a deep, peaceful sleep in her own bed, Dominic stood outside in the grand hallway. His face was transformed—the grief was gone, replaced by a cold, terrifying fury that burned with the power of a dying star.

Leo hurried up the staircase, carrying a heavy encrypted laptop.

“Boss,” Leo whispered, breathless. “I pulled the archived communication logs from the day of the attack. You were right. An encrypted satellite call was routed through our main server at the Long Island estate fifteen minutes before the shooting.”