Chapter 8: The Truth No One Could Soften
Marco sat across from us in the library the next morning.
A federal investigator waited by the door, but I had asked to hear the rest with my daughters present.
“Why was Isabelle leaving me?” I asked.
Marco lowered his eyes.
“She was taking the girls to her sister’s house.”
Olivia gripped Grace’s hand.
“Because Daddy shouted?”
“Because she believed Vincent’s world had become Dominic’s world.”
I did not correct him.
Sophie looked at me.
“Would you have stopped us?”
The answer caught in my throat.
Grace did not rescue me from it.
“Yes,” I said.
“Back then, I might have.”
Nora climbed into my lap.
“That’s bad.”
“Yes.”
“Are you still bad?”
I pressed my face against her curls.
“I have done bad things, sweetheart.
I am going to tell the truth about them.”
Olivia began to cry.
“You’re going away.”
I reached for her, but she stepped back.
“You always leave.”
“I came home every night.”
“You came home, but you weren’t here.”
Her words bent me lower than any blow.
I dropped to my knees, and Grace moved beside Olivia without blocking her view of me.
“Tell him all of it,” Grace said gently.
Olivia wiped her cheeks.
“Mommy asked you to eat with us.
You answered your phone.
Sophie had a school song.
You sent flowers.
Nora was sick, and you sent a doctor.”
“I thought providing things was love.”
“We needed you.”
“I know.”
“No, you know now.”
I covered my mouth, but the sound still escaped.
Nora slid from my lap, Sophie knelt beside me, and then Olivia crossed the carpet.
She put her arms around my shoulders.
“You can cry, Daddy.”
All three daughters held me while I wept for the wife I had not listened to and the children I had tried to comfort with money.
Grace rested one hand between my shoulders.
“Do not promise them perfection,” she said.
“Promise them the next right thing.”
I lifted my head.
“The next right thing is the truth.”
The federal investigator opened his case.
“Mr.
Romano, that truth may cost you.”
“It already has.”
Three weeks later, I stood in federal court while Vincent and Mercer faced the judge.
Grace, Mrs.
Donnelly, Marco, and my daughters sat behind me.
Vincent turned as I approached the witness stand.
“You made deals too, Dominic.”
“I brought every ledger.”
“You will lose everything.”
“I nearly did.”
The prosecutor displayed the pension records, Mercer’s payments, Grace’s recording, and Isabelle’s files.
Vincent’s lawyer stood.
“These recordings were obtained improperly.”
Grace rose only when the judge called her name.
“The original file was mailed to me by Isabelle Romano before her passing.
The postal record confirms the date.”
Vincent looked at her for the first time.
“You were never supposed to receive it.”
The courtroom went silent.
His lawyer grabbed his sleeve.
“Do not say another word.”
Vincent pulled away.
“She promised to destroy it!”
The prosecutor stepped closer.
“Who promised?”
Vincent realized too late that the question had not come from his lawyer.
Mercer lowered his head at the defense table.
“He promised me immunity,” Mercer said.
“I want a separate attorney.”
Vincent stared at him.
“You coward.”
Mercer looked up.
“I followed your order.
I’m not carrying it alone.”
The judge ordered both men detained without bail.
Mercer faced charges for evidence tampering, corruption, kidnapping, and his role in Isabelle’s murd3r; Vincent faced those charges along with fraud, theft, conspiracy, and witness intimidation.
As officers approached, Vincent looked back at me.
“You traded an empire for three frightened girls.”
Olivia stood between her sisters.
“No,” she said.
“He chose his family.”
The officers led Vincent through the side door.
Outside the courtroom, the prosecutor handed me a document.
“This is your cooperation agreement.
You surrender the illegal businesses, testify against everyone named in the ledgers, and accept sentencing on the financial charges.”
“How long?” Grace asked.
“That depends on the judge.”
Olivia read my face.
“Are they taking you today?”
“No.”
“Then what happens now?”
The elevator doors opened.
A man in a dark suit stepped out carrying a sealed envelope addressed in Isabelle’s handwriting.
“I was her attorney,” he said.
“She instructed me to deliver this only after Dominic testified against Vincent.”
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On the front, Isabelle had written four words:
FOR MY DAUGHTERS’ FATHER.
