Z

Celeste stopped pretending at 2:13 in the morning.

Dominic placed the payment records on the conference-room table one page at a time.

A private investigator in Westchester.

A clerk at the New York Department of Motor Vehicles.

A receptionist at St. Matthew’s Women’s Clinic.

All paid through Arden Consulting.

Celeste stared at them.

Roman stood behind her.

Dominic sat opposite her.

“You tracked my wife.”

Celeste looked up.

“I found her.”

“That is not a correction.”

“You were looking for her too.”

“I was trying to bring her home.”

“And I was trying to understand why she disappeared.”

“You paid a medical employee.”

Celeste’s mouth tightened.

“I wanted to know if she was pregnant.”

“You already knew.”

“I suspected.”

“Stop making distinctions that only matter to you.”

She looked exhausted now.

Older.

The elegant socialite who had entered the hospital beside him was gone.

“I didn’t know Victor was going to hurt her.”

Dominic leaned back.

“So Victor was involved.”

Celeste closed her eyes.

Roman glanced at Dominic.

There it was.

The first real admission.

Dominic lowered his voice.

“Start talking.”

Celeste hugged herself.

“Victor approached me about a month after Mara left.”

“Approached you how?”

“He said you needed stability.”

Dominic laughed without amusement.

“He said the family needed someone beside you who understood the business. Someone from the right circles. Someone who wouldn’t run.”

“And you volunteered.”

“I cared about you.”

“You cared about becoming Mrs. Vascari.”

“That too.”

At least she had stopped lying about everything.

Celeste looked at the papers.

“He told me Mara was dangerous because she knew too much about your operations.”

“Mara never involved herself in the business.”

“Victor said she had taken documents.”

Dominic remembered Mara’s flash drive.

Perhaps she had.

But not eight months ago.

Not when Victor claimed.

“What did he ask you to do?”

“Stay close to you.”

“Spy on me?”

“Influence you.”

Roman’s expression darkened.

Dominic remained calm.

“What else?”

“Keep you angry at her.”

That landed harder than Dominic expected.

Celeste continued.

“Whenever you started talking about finding her, Victor would tell me where you were going. I’d show up. I’d remind you she left. I’d tell you she was probably with someone else.”

Dominic remembered every time.

Drinks poured when he hadn’t asked.

Celeste’s hand sliding onto his shoulder.

Soft poison delivered as sympathy.

Maybe she’s happier.

Maybe she never loved you the way you loved her.

Maybe a woman who disappears pregnant doesn’t want to be found.

Except Celeste had known about the pregnancy.

“You slept with me.”

Her face hardened defensively.

“You slept with me too.”

Dominic accepted the blow.

“Yes.”

For the first time that night, he did not have an answer that made him look less guilty.

“I did.”

Whatever manipulation Victor had used, Dominic had made that choice himself.

Mara had disappeared.

He had believed the marriage dead.

But legally, morally, emotionally, some part of him had known better.

Celeste looked surprised by the admission.

Dominic pushed the papers closer.

“You still haven’t explained the payments.”

“I was looking for her.”

“For Victor?”

“At first, for myself.”

“And later?”

Celeste stared down.

“Victor started asking for updates.”

“You gave them to him.”

“Yes.”

“Her addresses?”

“Sometimes.”

“Her doctors?”

“Yes.”

Dominic’s fingers curled against the table.

Roman stepped half an inch closer.

Celeste saw it.

“I didn’t know he wanted the child dead.”

“You received a message asking whether they were both dead.”

“Tonight.”

“Because whoever sent it believed you were part of this.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were part of enough.”

Her voice rose.

“I didn’t cut her brakes!”

Dominic froze.

Roman’s head turned sharply.

Nobody had told Celeste how Mara’s car crashed.

Police suspected mechanical failure.

But there had been no public statement.

Dominic leaned forward.

“Who told you her brakes were cut?”

Celeste’s face went empty.

She understood immediately.

“I guessed.”

“No.”

“I heard someone in the hallway.”

“No.”

“Dominic—”

He stood.

The chair legs scraped across the floor.

“Who told you?”

Celeste started crying.

Not elegantly now.

Actually crying.

“I can’t.”

Roman spoke.

“You can.”

“He’ll kill me.”

Dominic stared at her.

“Victor?”

Celeste shook her head.

Dominic stopped.

A different coldness entered the room.

“Then who?”

Celeste covered her face.

“There’s someone above him.”

Roman frowned.

Dominic did not.

There was no one above Dominic inside the Vascari organization.

Not officially.

“Name.”

“I never met him.”

“Name.”

“They call him Sarto.”

Roman went still.

Dominic turned toward him.

“You know it.”

Roman hesitated.

“My father used to.”

“Explain.”

“Sarto means tailor.”

“I know Italian.”

“It wasn’t a person originally. It was a nickname for a network. Old families. Men who decided which crews survived wars and which didn’t.”

Dominic stared.

“My father told me those stories were dead.”

Roman’s expression said otherwise.

Celeste lowered her hands.

“Victor said Dominic was never supposed to inherit alone.”

Dominic looked at her.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

“He said your father broke an agreement.”

“What agreement?”

Celeste shook her head.

“He never told me everything.”

“Then tell me what he did.”

She swallowed.

“He said if Mara had your child, the old agreement became permanent.”

“What agreement?”

“I don’t know!”

Her voice cracked.

“He just said the baby could destroy thirty years of work.”

Dominic stared at her.

His son was three hours old.

Four pounds.

Barely breathing without help.

And somehow people Dominic had never met believed the child threatened something built before Dominic was old enough to understand his last name.

His phone rang.

Roman looked at the display.

“Hospital.”

Dominic answered.

The NICU nurse spoke fast.

“Mr. Vascari, we need you upstairs.”

His chest tightened.

“My son?”

“He had an apnea episode. He’s stable now.”

Dominic was already moving.

“But there’s something else.”

“What?”

“Your wife is asking for you.”

He reached Mara’s room minutes later.

She was more awake now.

A nurse adjusted medication and left.

Dominic closed the door.

“You heard about the baby?”

Mara nodded.

“They said it happens with premature infants.”

“He’s stable.”

“I know.”

He sat beside her.

She looked at him for a long moment.

“You slept with Celeste.”

Not a question.

Dominic did not lie.

“Yes.”

Mara looked toward the window.

Rain streaked the glass.

“How long after I left?”

“Eleven weeks.”

She closed her eyes.

Dominic hated the numbers.

He had used them himself to justify everything.

Eleven weeks.

Almost three months.

As though grief expired on a schedule.

“I thought you were gone,” he said.

“I was.”

“I thought you chose it.”

“I did.”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

Mara looked at him.

“You want me to tell you I forgive you because someone manipulated both of us?”

“No.”

“Good.”

Her voice trembled.

“Because I don’t.”

Dominic nodded.

“I know.”

“I spent eight months alone.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

She turned toward him despite the pain.

“I slept with a chair beneath apartment doors. I switched grocery stores every week. I missed appointments because I saw the same car twice outside a clinic. I learned how to assemble a crib by myself because I was afraid hiring someone would leave a record.”

Dominic could not look away.

“And every night,” Mara whispered, “I wondered whether telling you would save us or kill us faster.”

“Mara—”

“I wanted you.”

The words silenced him.

“I wanted my husband.”

Her eyes overflowed.

“But I did not trust the world around you.”

He nodded slowly.

“You were right not to.”

She wiped her cheek.

“There’s something else I never put in the letter.”

Dominic waited.

“The night I left, before I found the photographs, I overheard Victor speaking in your study.”

“With who?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did he say?”

Mara’s face changed.

“He said your father made one mistake.”

Dominic leaned closer.

“What mistake?”

“He let the wrong baby live.”

Silence swallowed the room.

Dominic frowned.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

She reached for his hand before remembering herself.

Her fingers stopped.

Dominic turned his palm upward.

He did not touch her.

He let her choose.

After several seconds, Mara placed her hand in his.

“I think,” she whispered, “your son isn’t the first Vascari baby they tried to erase.”