Dominic had survived betrayal, ambushes, and wars between criminal families.

But nothing prepared him for the six-second recording hidden inside Elena’s flash drive.

The video showed a dimly lit parking garage.

A black sedan waited beside a concrete pillar.

Then a familiar voice spoke.

“Make sure the woman doesn’t leave that street alive.”

Dominic recognized the voice immediately.

Luca Bellandi.

His closest adviser.

The man who had stood beside him at his father’s funeral.

The man who had helped arrange his wedding.

The man Dominic had trusted with his life.

Dominic played the recording again.

And again.

Elena sat motionless beside him.

“You see?” she whispered. “He wasn’t trying to kill you.”

Dominic’s hands curled into fists.

“Why would Luca want you dead?”

Elena lowered her eyes.

“Because I found something.”

“What?”

“Your father’s original will.”

Dominic stared at her.

“My father’s will was settled seven years ago.”

“No,” Elena said. “The one you saw was altered.”

She explained that three months before the accident, she had been searching the estate’s old storage rooms for her bakery’s original business records.

Anthony Rainer had helped finance her first bakery before she married Dominic.

She wanted to find the handwritten note he had once given her.

Instead, she discovered a sealed envelope hidden inside an old cookbook.

Inside were legal documents bearing Anthony’s signature.

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A second will.

A private trust.

And a letter addressed to Elena.

Dominic felt the room grow colder.

“Why would my father leave you a letter?”

“I asked myself the same thing.”

“What did it say?”

Elena hesitated.

“That he trusted me to protect something if anything happened to him.”

“Protect what?”

“A child.”

Dominic stared at her.

“What child?”

Before she could answer, the lights went out.

The entire mansion plunged into darkness.

A moment later, the security alarm began screaming.

Dominic moved instantly.

He lifted Elena carefully from the bed, supporting her torso without twisting her injured back.

“Don’t fight me,” he whispered. “We’re leaving.”

He carried her toward the private elevator.

But when the doors opened, someone was already standing inside.

A woman in a dark coat.

Her face was bruised.

A bandage covered her forehead.

Elena gasped.

“Miriam!”

Dr. Miriam Vale stepped forward.

“There’s no time. Luca knows you opened the drive.”

Dominic moved protectively in front of Elena.

“How did you get inside my house?”

“Your father gave me the emergency access code seven years ago.”

Dominic froze.

“My father?”

Miriam looked at him.

“Dominic, your father knew someone inside his organization was stealing money, selling information, and arranging disappearances.”

“Luca?”

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t he stop him?”

“Because Luca had something Anthony couldn’t risk losing.”

Miriam looked toward Elena.

“The child.”

Dominic’s voice hardened.

“Stop talking in riddles. Whose child?”

Miriam took a breath.

“Your father’s daughter.”

Silence.

Dominic stared at her.

“My father didn’t have a daughter.”

“He did. She was born eleven years after you.”

Dominic shook his head.

“No.”

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“Her mother was a woman Anthony protected after she escaped one of Luca’s trafficking operations. Anthony helped her disappear and later became involved with her. The child was born in secret.”

Dominic felt sick.

“My father had another family?”

“A daughter,” Miriam corrected. “And when Luca discovered her existence, he used her to control Anthony.”

Dominic looked at Elena.

“You knew?”

“I found out three months before the accident.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I was trying to find her first.”

Dominic stepped backward.

His father had lied.

His closest friend had betrayed him.

And his wife had been risking her life to protect a sister he never knew existed.

Miriam suddenly reached into her coat.

She removed a photograph.

A young woman stood outside a small bakery, smiling beside Elena.

Dominic stared.

The young woman had his father’s gray eyes.

“Her name is Sofia,” Miriam said.

Dominic looked closer.

Then his stomach dropped.

He recognized her.

Sofia had worked in Elena’s bakery for nearly two years.

She had attended their wedding.

She had even brought Dominic a birthday cake once.

He remembered calling her a good kid.

Never knowing she was his sister.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

Miriam’s expression changed.

“That’s why I’m here.”

She handed him a phone.

On the screen was a live video feed.

Sofia sat in a windowless room, her wrists bound to a chair.

Standing behind her was Luca Bellandi.

Luca smiled into the camera.

“Hello, Dominic.”

Dominic’s blood went cold.

Luca leaned toward the microphone.

“Bring me the original will, the flash drive, and your wife.”

He paused.

“Or your little sister will never see another sunrise.”

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Then he said something that made Elena begin to cry.

“And Dominic… ask Elena why she really married you.”

The screen went black.