PART 2 — THE THINGS HE NEVER TOLD ME

By week three, Dominic could walk without touching the wall.

By week three, I knew which floorboard outside his bedroom creaked.

I knew he drank coffee black and forgot to eat when he worked.

I knew the men around him feared disappointing him more than they feared being yelled at.

I knew he never yelled.

And I knew the nightmares were getting worse.

They always began the same way.

A road.

Winter.

A bridge.

Sometimes he whispered numbers.

Sometimes a name.

One night, I finally understood it.

“Anna.”

My mother’s name.

I went completely still.

Dominic slept on.

My pulse roared in my ears.

“Anna,” he whispered again.

Then:

“I’m sorry.”

I left the room before sunrise.

Marco was sitting at my kitchen table when I got home.

He was holding a cup of coffee and looking far too awake for seven in the morning.

“You’re sleeping with him.”

I dropped my keys.

“What?”

“The criminal billionaire.”

“I am absolutely not sleeping with him.”

“You’re at his apartment seven nights a week.”

“I sit in a chair.”

“That is somehow stranger.”

I opened the refrigerator.

Marco watched me.

“Why do you look scared?”

“I don’t.”

“Claire.”

I closed the refrigerator.

“Did Mom know a man named Dominic?”

Marco frowned.

“Ashford?”

“Any Dominic.”

“I don’t know.”

“You were twelve too.”

“Yeah. I was busy being twelve.”

I looked at him.

Something shifted in his expression.

Too fast.

But I caught it.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Marco.”

He rubbed both hands over his face.

“There was a picture.”

Every muscle in my body tightened.

“What picture?”

“After Mom and Dad died, Aunt Elise packed up their bedroom before we came home.”

“I remember.”

“She missed a box.”

My throat went dry.

“What was in it?”

“Receipts. Old letters. Some photographs.”

“And?”

“One photo had Mom and Dad standing beside some kid.”

“What kid?”

Marco stared at me.

“Black hair. Maybe seventeen.”

I already knew.

Still, I asked.

“Who?”

“I didn’t know then.”

He swallowed.

“I saw Dominic Ashford on the news last year.”

The room became very quiet.

“It was him.”

I did not go to Dominic that night.

I went two hours early.

His head of security tried to stop me outside the study.

“Mr. Ashford is in a meeting.”

“Move.”

“Claire—”

The door opened.

Dominic stood behind it.

One look at my face, and he dismissed everyone else.

I walked into the study.

“Who was my mother to you?”

He went still.

No confusion.

No denial.

Just silence.

That hurt more.

“You knew her.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

His throat moved.

“Sit down.”

“No.”

“Claire.”

“Do not tell me to sit down.”

He closed his eyes briefly.

When they reopened, he looked older.

“Your mother was an emergency nurse.”

“I know what she did.”

“She worked nights at County before St. Mercy.”

I said nothing.

Dominic walked to the window.

“When I was seventeen, my father had a temper that people around him called discipline because they were afraid to call it anything else.”

My anger faltered.

“One night, I left.”

“Ran away?”

“Yes.”

“From this?”

“From him.”

Dominic stared out at the black water.

“I was found behind a closed pharmacy three neighborhoods away. Broken rib. Split eyebrow. Hypothermia.”

A strange ache entered my chest.

“Mom found you?”

“She was driving home after a shift.”

I could see it immediately.

My mother stopping.

She always stopped.

Stray dogs.

People with flat tires.

Teenagers crying at bus stops.

She had possessed the dangerous belief that if suffering appeared in front of her, it had become partially her responsibility.

“She took you to the hospital?”

“No.”

Dominic’s mouth tightened.

“I begged her not to.”

“Why?”

“My father’s people would check every emergency room in the city.”

My skin prickled.

“So what did she do?”

“She took me home.”

I stopped breathing.

Dominic looked at me.

“Your father reset two of my fingers at your kitchen table while your mother stitched my eyebrow.”

I could almost hear my father complaining.

Michael DeLuca had been an accountant.

But he had grown up with three brothers and believed first aid was something every adult should know.

“You were in our house?”

“You and Marco were asleep upstairs.”

My eyes burned.

“You saw us?”

“Only once.”

His voice softened.

“You came downstairs for water.”

Something inside me cracked.

I remembered fragments.

A dark-haired boy at our table.

Mom wrapping a blanket around someone.

Dad telling me to go back upstairs.

I had spent sixteen years assuming it was a dream.

Dominic continued.

“Your parents kept me hidden for two days.”

“Why?”

“Because my mother had died three years earlier, and your mother recognized something in me she refused to ignore.”

His jaw tightened.

“On the second night, I told your father why I had run.”

“What did you tell him?”

Dominic turned.

“That my father’s legitimate companies were fronts for things your father had unknowingly been helping hide.”

The room seemed to tilt.

“Dad worked for Ashford Construction.”

“For eight months.”

I remembered.

A job my father rarely discussed.

A job he quit shortly before the accident.

“He found something?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Enough financial records to destroy my father.”

Cold spread through me.

“Did he?”

“No.”

I already knew why.

My voice came out thin.

“Because he died.”

Dominic said nothing.

My stomach turned.

“No.”

“Claire.”

“No.”

I backed away.

“The crash was ice.”

His face broke.

Just slightly.

But enough.

“The police said black ice.”

“There was ice.”

“Stop.”

“There was also another vehicle.”

“No.”

“Your father had agreed to give evidence to federal investigators.”

“Stop.”

“My father discovered it.”

I could barely hear him over the pounding in my ears.

“The night your parents died, they were going to meet someone outside the city.”

“No.”

“They were followed.”

I covered my mouth.

Dominic’s next words came quietly.

“Your parents’ accident was not an accident.”

For sixteen years, grief had possessed a shape.

Snow.

A highway.

Bad luck.

A state trooper at the door.

A frozen casserole someone from school brought the next afternoon.

Now Dominic was tearing that shape apart.

“Who?”

His eyes held mine.

“My father gave the order.”

I stared at him.

“And you knew?”

“Not until afterward.”

“How long afterward?”

“Three days.”

“And you never told us?”

“You were twelve.”

“We deserved the truth.”

“Yes.”

“You watched us struggle.”

Pain flashed across his face.

“Yes.”

“You knew who we were.”

“Yes.”

“And instead of telling me any of this, you investigated my debt and offered me fifty thousand dollars to sit beside you?”

“Yes.”

The slap happened before I decided to do it.

My palm struck his face.

Dominic did not move.

Did not grab my wrist.

Did not call his men.

A red mark slowly appeared across his cheek.

“I hate you.”

His voice was almost inaudible.

“I know.”

I grabbed my bag.

“Claire.”

I turned.

He looked devastated.

But I had no mercy left.

“Why did you say Mom’s name in your sleep?”

Dominic’s face changed.

For the first time, he looked truly frightened.

Not of me.

Of the answer.

“Tell me.”

He swallowed.

“Because I was there.”

The room disappeared.

“What?”

“The night they died.”

I could not breathe.

Dominic stepped toward me.

I stepped back.

“Don’t.”

He stopped.

“I was nineteen. I knew my father had discovered the meeting. I called your parents.”

“You called them?”

“I told them to change routes.”

His voice was breaking now.

“I told them the highway would be watched. I sent them toward Bellweather Bridge.”

The nightmares.

Don’t take the bridge.

Turn around.

Anna.

I’m sorry.

Dominic looked at me with sixteen years of punishment in his face.

“They died on the road I told them to take.”

I left.

For four days, I did not answer his calls.

The money stayed in my account.

I considered returning every dollar.

Instead, I paid Marco’s surgeon.

That made me feel worse.

On the fifth night, Marco came into my bedroom and sat on the floor.

We had done that as children.

When something was too terrible for chairs.

“I knew there was more,” he said.

I stared at him.

“What?”

He looked ashamed.

“Dad called me that night.”

I sat up.

“What?”

“He thought he was calling Aunt Elise. He pressed my number.”

My mouth went dry.

“What did he say?”

“I barely understood.”

Marco rubbed his eyes.

“He said they had to go somewhere. He said if anyone asked, we were never supposed to know anything.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was twelve.”

His voice cracked.

“I was twelve, Claire. Then a police officer told us they were dead. I thought if I told anyone Dad called, somebody would come kill us too.”

I reached for him.

Marco started crying before I touched him.

We sat there on my bedroom floor like children again.

Then he said something that changed everything.

“There’s more.”

Of course there was.

There was always more.

“Mom sent me a voicemail.”

My heart stopped.

“What?”

“I never deleted it.”

“Sixteen years?”

“I moved it from phone to phone. Then onto a hard drive.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because she sounded scared.”

He looked at me.

“And because she mentioned Dominic.”

The recording was forty-three seconds long.

At first there was only static.

Wind.

My mother breathing.

Then her voice.

Older than I remembered.

Younger than she should have been forever.

“Marco, honey, Mommy pressed the wrong number. Don’t worry. Everything’s okay.”

My eyes filled instantly.

Mom continued.

“Your father and I have to help someone tonight.”

A pause.

Then:

“His name is Dominic. He’s not dangerous to us. He’s scared, even if he pretends he isn’t.”

My entire body went cold.

Another breath.

“If anything happens and people tell you that boy caused it, don’t believe them.”

Marco reached for my hand.

The recording crackled.

My mother’s voice returned one final time.

“Sometimes helping someone costs more than we expect. That doesn’t make helping them a mistake.”

Then the message ended.

For a long time, neither of us moved.

Finally Marco whispered,

“You need to go back.”

I shook my head.

“He lied.”

“He was nineteen.”

“He kept lying for sixteen years.”

“Because he thinks he killed them.”

“He sent them onto that road.”

“And Mom knew him well enough to leave that message.”

I closed my eyes.

Marco squeezed my hand.

“Claire.”

“What?”

“What if the money wasn’t payment?”

I looked at him.

“What if it was penance?”