When we hang up, that anticipatory energy morphs into anger as I think about the seven years I’ve lost.
Apparently, because someone needed a scapegoat.
I breathe through the rage, forcing myself to focus. Anger clouds judgment, and I need clarity now more than ever.
I dress quickly, my mind mapping out the next move.
Elena will have to wait.
Instead, I grab my keys and drive over to my father’s home.
Some mornings he's sharp as ever, the cunning strategist who built our empire.
Other days, he stares through me like I’m a stranger. Fingers crossed I meet the former when I arrive.
I find him in the breakfast nook, having toast and coffee as he watches a bird hovering around the bird feeder.
“Luca.” He nods toward the bird. “They don’t all fly south.”
“Who wants to leave New York?”
“Indeed.” His eyes turn to me, and I’m happy to see they recognize me. "It's early for a Saturday visit."
"I need to ask you something." I sit across from him, resting my forearms on the table. "About Umberto Vitale's arrest."
His expression shifts subtly. "Ancient history."
“That’s easy for you to say. The stench of accusation still hangs over me.”
“Sometimes, it's better to let sleeping dogs lie.” He sips his coffee.
My jaw tightens. “You know I didn’t do this, right, Dad?” For a moment, I wonder if his effort to get me away from the Vitales wasn’t to protect me because I was innocent, but to hide me because he thought I was guilty.
“I know, but Aldo is dead. La Corona is strong. Bringing this all up again can cause unnecessary problems.”
I sit back, annoyed that he can’t see how much it bothers me for La Corona men to look at me sideways, like I’d betrayed one of their own. “You don’t think Aldo’s got loyalists who’d be happy to kill me if the opportunity arose?”
“Dominic wouldn’t?—”
“Dammit, Dad, I’m not going to continue to go through life with this accusation over me,” I snap.
He flinches but quickly recovers. “Don’t forget who you’re talking to.”
“I can’t run this business… can’t have a seat at the La Corona table if everyone thinks I’m a snitch. My name isn’t even in the fucking FBI file. Just a ‘Monti associate,’ and they’re not even listed as an informant. Why did Aldo blame me?”
Dad's gaze sharpens, a flash of the calculating man he once was. “Because it was easy.”
My jaw drops. “What the fuck?”
“You were late… as if you knew what was going to happen. It looked suspicious,” he says with a shrug. “I would have likely thought the same.”
“You know I didn’t betray Umberto, right?”
My father looks at me pointedly. “If you’d betrayed Umberto… well… let’s just say that I know you didn’t.”
Holy fuck, is he saying he’d have killed me if I’d done what Aldo accused me of?
“I know you didn’t because I know you. And” —he holds up his index finger— “Aldo wouldn’t have let me send you away.”
