Chapter 5 - The Milwaukee File
The reveal hung in the air inside the armored SUV like a physical blow. Dominic didn't speak. He didn't move. Outside, the rain lashed against the dark tinted windows as the vehicle roared down the interstate toward Oak Park.
Vincent.
Twenty years ago, Vincent had been sixteen years old. Dominic had been twenty-one. Dominic remembered the night their father was taken away by federal agents in black trench coats. He remembered the cold horror of that evening, the way their mother had wept in the kitchen, and how he, as the eldest son, had stepped up to take control of the family business to keep them from starving.
He had always believed his father was betrayed by a rival captain. He had spent two decades hunting down the men he thought were responsible.
And all along, the viper had been sleeping in the bedroom next to his.
"Vincent was sixteen," Dominic said, his voice terrifyingly flat. "Why would a sixteen-year-old betray his own father?"
"Because your father was going to disown him," Clara explained, her hand reaching out to gently touch Dominic's arm. "My father's journal contained wiretap transcripts from 2006. Vincent had stolen two hundred thousand dollars from a Castell drop-house to pay off a gambling debt to Detroit mobsters. Your father found out. He gave Vincent a choice: confess to the family council or be sent away to military school in Europe."
Clara took a shaky breath. "Vincent didn't want military school. So he walked into the FBI field office in Chicago and offered them his father's personal ledger in exchange for immunity and a trust fund when he turned twenty-one."
Dominic let out a long, slow breath. The pieces of his life—the unexplainable losses, the mysterious federal leaks over the past decade, the sudden rise of the Moretti family in the Midwest—all clicked together into a horrific, flawless picture.
"He's been working for them his entire life," Dominic murmured.
"He never stopped," Clara said. "When my father died, he left that USB drive in a secure vault. I retrieved it last week because I started noticing the same accounting anomalies in your books that my father noted in your father's books twenty years ago. Vincent realized I was digging into the old files. That's why he targeted me."
"He didn't just target you," Dominic said, turning his head to look at her. "He used you to get close enough to put the final nail in my coffin."
He looked down at where her hand was resting on his sleeve. Despite the horror of what she had discovered, despite the danger he represented, she hadn't run. She had brought the truth directly to him, putting her life on the line in a room full of federal agents and killers.
"Why didn't you run, Clara?" Dominic asked softly. "You had the key. You had the drive. You could have gone to the authorities. You could have gone to Boston, to Europe... anywhere far away from me."
Clara looked up, her green eyes fiercely bright against the dark interior of the car. "Because I spent two months watching you, Dominic. I watched you protect your workers. I watched you pay the medical bills for your truck drivers' families. I watched you carry the weight of an entire city on your shoulders while everyone around you took piece after piece of your soul."
She paused, her breath hitching slightly. "And because... I knew if I left, he would kill you. And I couldn't live in a world where you were gone."
Dominic stared at her. The icy barrier he had built around his heart for fifteen years—the walls he had constructed to keep himself cold, unyielding, and safe from emotional leverage—crumbled into dust. He reached out, his long fingers cupping her jawline, gently pulling her toward him.
"You are the most dangerous thing that has ever walked into my life, Clara Jenkins," he whispered.
"Good," she whispered back, leaning into his touch. "Because you're going to need someone dangerous tonight."
The SUV suddenly veered sharply to the left, tires squealing against the wet pavement as Tommy slammed his foot on the brakes. Dominic's arm immediately slammed across Clara's chest, pinning her safely against the back seat as the heavy vehicle came to a sudden halt.
"Tommy!" Dominic barked, his eyes snapping to the front windshield. "Report!"
"Headlights ahead, Boss," Tommy said, his hand already drawing his weapon. "Two black sedans blocking the bridge to the safehouse. Detroit plates."
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Dominic looked out through the rain-slicked glass. Blocking the narrow two-lane bridge over the Des Plaines River were two full-sized luxury sedans. Four men in dark raincoats were stepping out into the storm, carrying short-barreled submachine guns.
The Morettis had arrived.
