Chapter 2 - THE BROTHER’S CONFESSION
The music in the grand ballroom had long since stopped, replaced by an oppressive, suffocating silence.
Two hundred wedding guests stood frozen in their seats, staring in horror as seven-year-old Lily’s innocent words hung in the air like a guillotine blade.
“Uncle Dominic showed me that ring yesterday. He said Claire was going to wear it today.”
I slowly turned my head away from my daughter. My eyes locked onto my younger brother, Dominic.
For thirty years, we had shared everything. We had bled together in turf wars, built an empire from the ashes of our father’s mistakes, and held each other as we buried our dead. When Amelia died ten years ago, Dominic had been the one to cradle my shaking shoulders at the graveside. He had been the one to arrange the funeral, to comfort me in my darkest hours, to help me raise a surrogate daughter when my world was entirely hollowed out.
And now, standing before me with his hand hovering inside his jacket, he looked like a complete stranger.
“Dominic,” I said, my voice dropping into a register so dangerously low it made the security guards flanking him step back. “Is that true? Did you give Claire Amelia’s ring yesterday?”
Dominic’s hand slowly slid out from his jacket. He wasn't holding a gun. He was holding a small, silver velvet box—the exact twin to the one Claire had pulled the ring from minutes ago.
He didn't look at me. He looked at Claire, his eyes narrowing into a hard, venomous slit.
“You missed a step, nurse,” Dominic spat out, his voice laced with pure malice. “I told you to wait until we left the reception before you dropped the ring.”
Claire didn't flinch. She stepped forward, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with me, her chin held high. “I never agreed to your timeline, Dominic. You wanted to drag this out, to play cat-and-mouse with Richard’s sanity. I am done playing games.”
My brain hammered against my skull. You wanted to drag this out?
“What are you talking about?” I demanded, grabbing Dominic by the lapels of his custom Armani suit and slamming him against the marble pillar. “What is going on between the two of you? Talk to me right now, or I swear to God I will put a bullet in your knee!”
Dominic didn't struggle. He just stared at me, a bitter, twisted smile touching his lips.
“Ask her, Richard,” Dominic sneered, coughing as my grip tightened on his chest. “Ask your precious new bride who really hired her to work at the hospital ten years ago. Ask her who paid off the coroner to fake Amelia’s autopsy report.”
I spun around, staring at Claire. My heart felt like it was tearing directly out of my ribs.
“Claire?” I whispered, my voice cracking. “Tell me he’s lying. Tell me you didn't know Dominic ten years ago.”
Claire’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears, but she met my gaze with unwavering resolve. “I didn't lie about Amelia, Richard. Your wife was alive when she reached my trauma bay. She gave me that ring with her dying breath. She told me Dominic’s men were the ones who tampered with the brakes on your car.”
The world tilted on its axis.
“The brakes…” I breathed, the memory of that rainy night flashing violently behind my eyes. I had been scheduled to drive to the docks at midnight to meet with a rival syndicate. At the last minute, Amelia had taken my car to pick up medicine for her ailing mother. The brakes had failed completely on the winding cliffside road, plunging the vehicle two hundred feet into the rocky ravine.
The police had ruled it a tragic, mechanical failure.
Because Dominic had headed the internal vehicle inspection team.
I slowly released Dominic’s jacket. I turned back to look at my brother, feeling an emptiness so profound it chilled my blood to absolute zero.
“You,” I whispered. “You wanted me dead.”
Dominic straightened his lapel, his face hardening into a mask of cold, unapologetic ambition. “You were getting soft, Richard. You wanted to negotiate peace treaties with the North Side families. You wanted to step down, to play domestic house with a dead woman’s memory and a surrogate child. If you took the fall that night, I would inherit the syndicate and secure our future. But Amelia took your place. She ruined everything.”
“Uncle Dominic?” Lily tugged timidly on my pant leg, her big brown eyes filled with tears. “Why is Uncle Dominic saying mean things about Mommy?”
I picked Lily up, burying her face against my shoulder so she couldn't see the monster standing across from us.
“Guards,” I called out, my voice cutting through the silent ballroom like a razor.
May you like
Four heavily armed men stepped forward from the shadows, raising their weapons. But they didn't point them at Dominic.
They pointed them at me.
