Chapter 3 - My Father Came Back From the Dead
I wanted to laugh.
Not because anything was funny.
Because sometimes the mind reaches for laughter when reality becomes too impossible to accept.
“My family?”
Dominic stood near the security console.
“My mother sold handmade jewelry at street fairs.”
“No.”
“My father repaired elevators.”
“No.”
“I grew up in a two-bedroom apartment in Cicero.”
“That part may be true.”
I stared at him.
“You don’t get to rewrite my childhood because some stranger looks like my dead father.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“He isn’t a stranger.”
“Then who is he?”
Before Dominic could answer, Carlo spoke.
“His name is Gabriel Venturi.”
Dominic gave him a warning look.
Too late.
The name meant nothing to me.
“That’s not my father’s name.”
“No,” Carlo said. “Not the name you knew.”
Dominic stepped between us.
“That’s enough.”
“No, it isn’t.”
I grabbed my coat.
“I’m leaving.”
Dominic blocked the elevator.
“Move.”
“No.”
“You said someone followed me. Fine. Call the police.”
Carlo coughed.
Dominic looked almost offended.
“You want me to call the Chicago Police Department and explain that Gabriel Venturi is downstairs?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“They arrest him.”
“For standing beside a car?”
I hated that he had a point.
“Then I go home.”
“You cannot go home.”
“Watch me.”
I reached for the elevator panel.
Dominic caught my wrist.
Not painfully.
But firmly enough to stop me.
I looked at his hand.
Then at him.
“Let go.”
He released me instantly.
That surprised me.
Dominic stepped back.
“You’re right.”
“About what?”
“You aren’t my prisoner.”
“Great.”
“But if you leave, they’ll take you.”
I stopped.
“Who?”
“The Venturi family.”
“That name means nothing to me.”
“It should.”
Dominic crossed to a locked drawer and removed an old photograph.
He handed it to me.
A younger Dominic stood beside another man at what appeared to be a charity gala.
Behind them was a beautiful brunette woman in a red dress.
My heart stopped.
My mother.
Not resembling her.
Her.
Younger.
Alive.
Wearing diamonds I had never seen.
I gripped the photograph.
“When?”
“Twenty-seven years ago.”
“That’s impossible.”
“You’re twenty-five.”
“I can count.”
“She disappeared two years after this was taken.”
My eyes moved to the man beside Dominic.
Even younger, I recognized my father.
The dead man outside.
Except his suit probably cost more than my yearly income.
“Who were they?”
Dominic answered.
“Your mother was Isabella Venturi.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“Venturi?”
“The only daughter of Salvatore Venturi.”
I stared blankly.
Carlo supplied what Dominic seemed reluctant to say.
“One of the most powerful crime families Chicago ever had.”
My fingers went numb.
“No.”
“Your father worked for them,” Dominic said.
“Fixing elevators?”
“He was an accountant.”
A laugh escaped me.
“That’s absurd.”
“He handled money.”
“For criminals?”
“Yes.”
I looked again at the photograph.
My mother looked happy.
Too happy.
Nothing like the frightened woman from my childhood who checked the locks three times every night.
Suddenly memories took on different meanings.
Never tell strangers your last name.
Never answer questions about where Mommy grew up.
If anyone ever asks about Grandpa, run.
I had believed she was paranoid.
“What happened?”
Dominic took the photograph.
“Your parents fell in love.”
“That sounds normal.”
“For ordinary families.”
“And mine wasn’t.”
“No.”
“What did my grandfather do?”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“He promised your mother to another family.”
“Like some arranged marriage?”
“A business alliance.”
“And she refused.”
“She ran.”
“With my father.”
“Yes.”
For a moment, something strangely beautiful existed inside the horror.
My parents had chosen each other.
They had chosen me.
“What happened when she was found?”
Dominic didn’t answer quickly enough.
My hope disappeared.
“She wasn’t sick when she died, was she?”
Dominic looked at Carlo.
“Leave.”
Carlo obeyed.
When we were alone, Dominic spoke.
“I don’t know exactly what happened.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I know she died. I know your father disappeared two years later. I know the Venturis believed you had been placed somewhere they would never find.”
I swallowed.
“Foster care.”
Dominic nodded.
After my father’s supposed death, I had spent seven years bouncing between temporary homes until I aged out.
No relatives had ever claimed me.
I had spent sixteen years believing no one remained.
Now apparently people had been searching.
“Why?”
“For something your mother took.”
“What?”
“We don’t know.”
“Money?”
“Possibly.”
“That message said she should have kept running.”
“Yes.”
I looked toward the skyline.
“And now my father appears on my birthday?”
“That isn’t coincidence.”
My phone rang.
Maya.
I grabbed it.
Dominic shook his head.
I ignored him.
“Maya?”
“Eliza!”
Her voice exploded through the speaker.
“Where are you? I’ve been calling all morning!”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you?”
She sounded terrified.
“The police were at your apartment.”
My heart lurched.
“What?”
“They said someone broke in.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
I put the call on speaker.
“Did they take anything?”
“I don’t know. Your landlord called me because I’m your emergency contact. Eliza, where are you?”
I looked at Dominic.
“At a friend’s.”
His eyebrow lifted.
It was obviously the first time anyone had described him that way.
“Stay there,” I told Maya.
“What happened last night?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Do you remember that guy?”
“What guy?”
“The one watching you.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“Older. Gray coat. He kept staring at you from the upstairs balcony.”
My throat tightened.
“Did he talk to me?”
“No. But he talked to Ryan.”
Maya’s boyfriend.
“What did he say?”
“I don’t know. Ryan disappeared after that.”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
“Where is Ryan now?”
Maya hesitated.
“I thought he was with you.”
Dominic took the phone.
“Maya, this is Dominic.”
Silence.
Then—
“Oh my God.”
Despite everything, I nearly laughed.
Dominic continued.
“When did you last see Ryan?”
“Maybe one-thirty?”
“Did he drive you home?”
“No. One of your drivers did.”
Dominic looked at me.
Exactly as he had described.
“Do not leave your apartment,” he told Maya. “Someone will come get you.”
“Wait, who—”
He ended the call.
I stared.
“You cannot command everyone.”
“Today I can.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“And you’re alive.”
The words silenced me.
Dominic summoned Carlo.
“Get Maya. Quietly.”
Carlo nodded.
“And find Ryan.”
“Yes, boss.”
I stepped between them.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Dominic looked tired now.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
“I knew your mother better than I told you.”
“How?”
His gaze moved toward the photograph.
“I was nineteen when she disappeared.”
“So?”
“She saved my life.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“My father and Salvatore Venturi were at war. I was young enough to believe being reckless meant being brave.”
His voice changed as he spoke.
Less like the feared Dominic Romano.
More like a man remembering who he had once been.
“I walked into a meeting I shouldn’t have survived.”
“My mother was there?”
“She warned me.”
“Why?”
“I never knew.”
“What did she say?”
“That powerful men often mistake obedience for loyalty.”
I looked down.
That sounded like something my mother would say.
“She gave me ten minutes to leave before her father’s people arrived.”
“You escaped?”
“Yes.”
“And you owed her.”
Dominic looked at me.
“For twenty-seven years.”
Suddenly his behavior made sense.
The club.
The doctor.
The penthouse.
“You recognized me.”
“Immediately.”
“At Obsidian?”
“Yes.”
My anger returned.
“So all of this—”
“I saw Isabella’s face the second you walked beneath the lights.”
I looked away.
“You could have told me.”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“Until?”
“Until someone drugged you.”
My phone buzzed again.
Unknown number.
This time Dominic did not stop me from looking.
There was no message.
Only a video.
My apartment.
Someone walked through my tiny kitchen, filming every room.
The camera stopped on a photograph of my mother and me.
A male voice whispered:
“Ask Isabella’s daughter where she hid the key.”
The video ended.
I stared at the screen.
“What key?”
Dominic said nothing.
“I don’t have a key.”
He paced toward the window.
“Think.”
“About what?”
“Anything your mother gave you before she died.”
I shook my head.
“I was nine.”
“Jewelry?”
“No.”
“Box?”
“No.”
“Something she told you never to lose?”
I almost answered no.
Then remembered.
On the night before she died, my mother had sat beside my bed holding a battered children’s book.
The Velveteen Rabbit.
She had opened the cover and written something inside.
Not a message.
Three numbers.
17.
18.
19.
I hadn’t understood.
After she died, social services packed my belongings.
The book had traveled with me through every foster home.
I still owned it.
My eyes widened.
Dominic saw it.
“What?”
“There was a book.”
“Where?”
“My apartment.”
We looked at the video again.
My apartment had already been searched.
I whispered, “It’s not there.”
“Where is it?”
I remembered moving three months earlier.
My studio had been too small for all my boxes.
I had stored two of them somewhere else.
“At the coffee shop.”
Dominic grabbed his jacket.
“Carlo.”
His lieutenant appeared almost immediately.
“Car.”
I followed.
Dominic turned.
“You’re staying here.”
“No.”
“Eliza.”
“It’s my book.”
“It may be a trap.”
“Then whoever wants it expects me.”
“That is exactly why you’re not going.”
I walked until only a few inches separated us.
“If this started with my mother, I’m done letting everyone else decide what I’m allowed to know.”
Something shifted in Dominic’s eyes.
Respect, maybe.
Or frustration.
Probably both.
He finally said, “You stay beside me.”
“I can agree to that.”
For the first time, I had chosen to stay near Dominic Romano.
Not because he commanded it.
Because I wanted answers.
Twenty minutes later, our SUV stopped across from the coffee shop where I had worked for three years.
The front door stood open.
Glass covered the sidewalk.
Police lights flashed against the windows.
My manager stood outside talking to an officer.
And across the street, beside a gray sedan, stood my supposedly dead father.
He looked directly at me through the windshield.
Then he raised one finger to his lips.
May you like
Before turning and disappearing into the crowd.
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