Chapter 14
“That depends, Dominic.”
“On what?”
“On whether your father ever told you that Luca wasn’t his only son.”
# PART 3: The Secret My Father Took to His Grave — And the Family I Almost Lost Forever
The Final Chapter
Rachel's last words echoed through the abandoned warehouse.
“On whether your father ever told you that Luca wasn't his only son.”
For eleven years, I had mourned a brother who was still alive.
For four months, I had believed my wife had betrayed me when she had actually been protecting our unborn daughter.
And now a woman I had never met was telling me that the family I thought I knew had been built on another lie.
I gripped the phone.
“Rachel, what exactly are you saying?”
Her answer came through tears.
“Gabriel is your son, Dominic.”
The world went silent.
Not quieter.
Silent.
I stared at the photograph of my father lying on the warehouse desk.
“No,” I whispered.
“Dominic, please listen—”
“That isn't possible.”
“I know what you believe. But there are things about eleven years ago that you don't remember correctly.”
I felt my pulse hammering against my throat.
Eleven years ago.
Before Sophia.
Before our marriage.
Before I became the man everyone in Chicago feared.
There had been a woman.
A woman named Rachel Bennett.
And suddenly, I remembered.
Eleven years earlier, Rachel had worked as a financial analyst for one of my father's companies.
She was twenty-five.
Brilliant.
Stubborn.
And completely unimpressed by the Rossi name.
We had spent one summer together.
Three months of late dinners, arguments about books, and mornings when I almost forgot what kind of family I belonged to.
Then Luca supposedly died.
My father became ill.
And Rachel disappeared from Chicago.
I had received one letter from her.
Dominic, there are things I cannot explain. Please don't look for me.
I thought she had abandoned me because she couldn't handle my world.
I had never known she was pregnant.
Now, standing in a dusty warehouse with my father's voice still trapped inside an old recorder, I understood how little I had actually known.
“Rachel,” I said, “why didn't you tell me?”
“I tried.”
Those two words nearly brought me to my knees.
“I wrote to you. I called your office. I even came to the house.”
“Then why didn't I know?”
“Because Mateo told me you had ordered him to keep me away.”