Chapter 3 - The Cold Judgment
At 2:30 AM, the grand drawing room was dark, saved for the low ember glow of the stone fireplace.
Lucia Moretti sat on a high-backed velvet sofa, her hands clutched tightly in her lap. The regal dignity she had worn like armor for thirty years was frayed at the edges. Her hair was slightly unraveled, and her blue velvet dress was stained with dried sherry.
Two armed guards stood silently by the door.
The heavy mahogany doors opened, and Dominic stepped into the room.
He had changed out of his blood-stained shirt into a plain black sweater and trousers. In his arms, wrapped in a thick white cashmere cardigan, he carried Lily.
The child was awake now. Her big brown eyes were wide, curious, scanning the vast, dark room with innocent wonder. Beside Dominic walked Elena, her posture straight, no longer hiding her face, wearing a simple gray wool dress that one of the housekeepers had provided.
Lucia looked up. When her eyes landed on the child, her lip curled in an instinctual reflex of disgust.
"So," Lucia said, her voice dripping with bitter irony. "You killed Jimmy Bernardi in your father's council room. Over this."
"I killed Jimmy because he was a traitor," Dominic said, walking over and standing four feet in front of his mother. "Just as you are."
Lucia gasped, standing up, her eyes flashing with fury. "Treason?! I am your mother, Dominic! I gave you life! I built the foundation that keeps you in this mansion! Your father—"
"My father is dead," Dominic cut her off, his voice like iron sliding over stone. "And if he were alive today, he would kill you himself for risking the bloodline."
He shifted Lily in his arms, turning her so she was facing the old woman.
"Look at her, Mother," Dominic commanded.
Lucia looked away, staring stubbornly at the fireplace. "I will not look at a street girl's bastard."
"Look at her!" Dominic roared, the sound echoing through the vast room, making the crystal chandelier above them chime softly.
Lucia winced. Reluctantly, agonized, her eyes shifted toward the child.
Lily looked at her grandmother. She didn't cry. She didn't shrink away. She simply looked at the old woman with those enormous, soul-piercing brown eyes—the exact same eyes that Old Don Lorenzo Moretti had carried until the day he died.
The same dimple in her left cheek. The same stubborn, high-arched brow.
For the first time, Lucia’s composure cracked. A sharp, gasping breath escaped her lips.
She saw her late husband’s face staring back at her from the three-year-old child.
"She... she..." Lucia stammered, her gloved fingers trembling against her throat.
"She is a Moretti," Dominic said softly. "She carries the blood you claim to protect. And you left her to starve in a rented room in Lake George. You forced her mother to die without medicine."
Lucia took a shaky step back, sinking back onto the velvet sofa, her face turning pale. "I... I didn't know she was pregnant, Dominic. I swear to God, I didn't know—"
"It wouldn't have mattered to you if you did," Elena spoke up, her voice ringing clear and steady in the dark room.
Lucia snapped her head toward Elena, her eyes filled with venom. "Shut your mouth, servant!"
"No," Dominic interjected, his gaze fixing on his mother with absolute coldness. "She will not shut her mouth. Elena is my daughter's aunt. She is the woman who raised my child when my own mother abandoned her. From this night forward, Elena Carter holds more authority in this house than you ever will."
Lucia looked at her son as if he had stabbed her through the heart. "Dominic... you cannot mean this. What are you going to do to me?"
Dominic looked at the small, frightened woman sitting on the sofa—a woman who had sacrificed everything, including her humanity, for the cold gods of power and status.
"You love this house, Mother," Dominic said softly. "You love Long Island. You love the galas, the diamonds, the tea parties with the senator's wives."
He took a step closer.
"Tomorrow morning at six o'clock, a car will take you to our estate in Palermo, Sicily."
Lucia gasped, her eyes opening wide in absolute terror. "Sicily?! That villa is isolated! It's in the mountains! There is nothing there!"
"There is peace there," Dominic replied coldly. "There are no galas. There are no politicians. There is only a small stone house, a garden, and four guards who will make sure you never step foot on an airplane again."
"Dominic! You are exiling your own mother?!" Lucia shrieked, tears of rage finally spilling down her wrinkled cheeks. "You are banishing me for a dead girl?!"
"I am banishing you to keep my daughter safe from your poison," Dominic said, turning his back on her. "You will live out the rest of your days in Sicily. You will never see New York again. You will never see me again. And you will never, ever touch my child."
He looked at the guards by the door.
"Take her to her room. Pack her bags. If she tries to use a phone, shoot the driver."
"Yes, Don Dominic," the guards replied in unison.
Lucia began to scream—a loud, pathetic, hysterical wail of pure fury and grief—as the guards pulled her up from the sofa and dragged her out of the drawing room. Her voice echoed down the long marble hallway until a heavy door slammed shut, cutting off the sound forever.
Dominic stood in the quiet room, breathing slowly.
He felt a soft, warm hand touch his arm.
He looked down. Elena was standing beside him, her brown eyes filled with a mixture of awe and gentle sadness.
"You didn't have to do that, Dominic," Elena whispered. "She's your mother."
Dominic looked down at Lily, who had rested her small head against his shoulder, her tiny thumb tucked into her mouth, looking at him with complete, absolute trust.
"A mother protects her children, Elena," Dominic murmured, bringing his daughter close against his chest. "Lucia failed at that a long time ago. I won't fail my daughter."
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He looked at Elena, his dark eyes softening.
"Come upstairs," Dominic said softly. "It's late. And tomorrow... we start building a real home."
