Chapter 3 - NORAH HAD NOT BEEN RAISED TO KILL; SHE HAD BEEN TAUGHT HOW TO SURVIVE PEOPLE WHO DID
Dominic moved the conversation to his private office.
No phones.
Leo swept the room twice.
The estate security chief had been placed under temporary restriction until access logs could be verified.
Rafael had not answered three calls.
That alone meant nothing.
Dominic’s uncle ignored phones whenever he felt powerful enough to make other people wait.
Tonight, the habit looked different.
Norah sat across from Dominic’s desk with her injured hand wrapped.
She had finally allowed the paramedic to clean the cut along her arm.
Dominic stayed standing.
He did not trust himself to sit.
“Start at the beginning.”
Norah nodded.
“My father was Samuel Bellini.”
“I know the name.”
“Most of what you know is wrong.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Then correct it.”
Norah looked toward the dark window.
“My father kept books for people who didn’t want books kept.”
“Gallow?”
“Sometimes.”
“Vescari.”
“Sometimes.”
“Others.”
“He was good at moving money between legitimate companies and the kind nobody admitted existed.”
Dominic knew that world.
Too well.
Norah continued.
“He wanted out after my mother became pregnant with me.”
“But there is no retirement plan for someone who knows where everybody’s bodies are buried.”
“Literal?”
Dominic asked.
“Sometimes.”
He almost smiled grimly.
Norah did not.
“My father started copying records.”
“Not to blackmail anyone.”
“At least that’s what my mother believed.”
“He wanted insurance.”
“A way to prove what people had done if someone came after us.”
“The Bellini ledger.”
“It wasn’t one ledger.”
Dominic frowned.
“It was dozens of files.”
“Account books.”
“Photographs.”
“Copies of letters.”
“Tape recordings.”
“Bank records.”
“Names.”
“Dates.”
“He called the collection the archive.”
“The newspapers later called it the Bellini ledger because that sounded better.”
Dominic leaned against the desk.
“What happened?”
“My father made one mistake.”
“What?”
“He told Victor Gallow he wanted out.”
Dominic’s father.
The name tightened his chest.
“What did my father do?”
“He told him to disappear.”
Dominic became still.
“That doesn’t sound like Victor.”
“You didn’t know him at thirty-eight.”
Fair.
Norah continued.
“Victor offered money.”
“A house overseas.”
“New identities.”
“My father refused.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t trust him enough.”
That sounded more like Dominic’s father.
“Then?”
“Someone found out my father had copied records.”
“Who?”
“Rafael.”
Dominic stared.
Norah looked at him.
“Your uncle was not as powerful then.”
“He handled collections.”
“Enforcement.”
“Things Victor didn’t want attached directly to his name.”
Dominic knew.
Nobody said it aloud now.
Rafael had spent the last decade playing respectable elder statesman.
He had not started that way.
Norah continued.
“My father believed Rafael had been stealing from Victor.”
“Small amounts at first.”
“Then more.”
“Using shell companies.”
“False payments.”
“If my father left and took records, Rafael was exposed.”
Dominic felt cold.
“What did Rafael do?”
“He met with Carlo Vescari.”
Vivien’s father.
“Why?”
“Carlo believed my father had stolen from him too.”
“Rafael convinced him Samuel Bellini planned to sell information to federal prosecutors.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
Norah’s voice broke.
“He wanted to run.”
“That was all.”
“What was Saint Agnes?”
Norah closed her eyes.
“A church school outside the city.”
“Closed by then.”
“There was an old convent building behind it.”
“My father used it as a meeting place because nobody paid attention to an abandoned Catholic school.”
“The basement had a records room.”
“He moved part of the archive there.”
Dominic saw where this was going.
“The night your family died…”
Norah nodded.
“My parents took me and my brother Gabriel.”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Gabriel?”
“Twenty-three.”
“What happened?”
“Dad thought Victor was coming.”
“Instead, Rafael came.”
“With Vescari men.”
Dominic’s stomach tightened.
“How many?”
“Seven.”
Norah stared at her wrapped hand.
“I remember because Gabriel made me count.”
Dominic waited.
Norah’s voice became quieter.
“My brother was different from me.”
“People think surviving violence means someone trained you to enjoy it.”
“Gabriel hated fighting.”
“He just understood it.”
“He had been in the Marines for four years.”
“He came home when Dad said we were in trouble.”
“Three months before Saint Agnes, he started teaching me.”
“How to get out of holds.”
“How to move around someone bigger.”
“How to use walls.”
“Doors.”
“Furniture.”
“What to do when a weapon enters the room.”
Dominic thought of Vivien.
Knife on rug.
Curtain tie.
Iron poker never used after she stopped.
Norah continued.
“Gabriel’s first rule was that you run if there’s an exit.”
“Second rule?”
“If you can’t run, make an exit.”
“Third?”
“Once you have one, stop fighting.”
Dominic looked at her.
Exactly what she had done.
Norah seemed to understand.
“I didn’t become some assassin after my family died.”
“I never worked for anyone.”
“I never hunted people.”
“I survived one night.”
“That’s all.”
“What happened that night?”
Her eyes filled.
“Rafael demanded the archive.”
“My father said he didn’t have it there.”
“They didn’t believe him.”
“They hit him.”
“My mother tried to reach him.”
“One of the men…”
Norah stopped.
Dominic’s fists tightened.
She did not need to finish every detail.
“What did Gabriel do?”
“He turned off the basement lights.”
“Pulled the fire alarm.”
“Everything became chaos.”
“He got me into a storage room.”
“Told me to stay.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“I heard my mother screaming.”
“I opened the door.”
“One man was outside.”
“He grabbed me.”
“I broke his knee with a metal chair.”
Dominic stared.
“He fell.”
“I ran.”
“Another caught me at the stairwell.”
“I used the railing.”
“He went down the stairs.”
“That is the story Vivien heard.”
“Two men bleeding.”
“Nora Bellini disappearing.”
Dominic leaned closer.
“Did you kill either?”
“No.”
“One died years later.”
“The other is alive.”
“Gabriel?”
Norah’s face collapsed.
“I don’t know.”
Dominic became still.
“What do you mean?”
“He came back for me near the sacristy.”
“Put me through a window.”
“Then went back.”
“For our parents.”
“I never saw him again.”
“Bodies?”
“My mother and father were found after the fire.”
“Gabriel wasn’t.”
“Why was there a fire?”
Norah looked toward Dominic.
“Rafael.”
“You saw him start it?”
“No.”
“I heard him say, ‘Burn what’s left.’”
Dominic’s blood went cold.
“Who got you out?”
“A woman named Evelyn Shaw.”
“Who?”
“Former federal investigator.”
“She had been helping my father prepare new identities.”
“She found me near a road six miles away.”
“Half frozen.”
“Covered in blood.”
“She hid me.”
“New name?”
“My mother’s middle name was Reed.”
“I used that.”
“Norah Reed.”
“Yes.”
“Why add the h?”
She gave a tiny, broken smile.
“My mother always wrote my name with one when she signed birthday cards.”
“Even though Dad forgot it on the birth certificate.”
Dominic sat for the first time.
Something in him had gone from anger to grief without permission.
“When did you come back?”
“Seven years later.”
“Why?”
“Evelyn died.”
“I had spent years moving.”
“Working under different names.”
“Studying art conservation.”
“My mother restored paintings before she married Dad.”
“I wanted one part of my life that belonged to her.”
Dominic swallowed.
“You met me after that.”
“Yes.”
“At the Bellworth Museum.”
“Yes.”
He remembered.
Norah standing beneath a damaged nineteenth-century landscape.
Gray sweater.
Hair pinned up.
He made a terrible joke about the painting looking better cracked.
She had looked horrified.
Then laughed.
He had wanted to hear the sound again.
“You knew I was Victor Gallow’s son.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
Norah’s expression softened.
“Because you weren’t Victor.”
“Or Rafael.”
“That took faith.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“It took observation.”
“You had museum security move a drunk donor away from me because you saw I was uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t ask for my number until the third time we met.”
“You never touched me without warning.”
“You got angry once when a waiter insulted me and still asked me whether I wanted you to do anything.”
Dominic almost smiled.
“I wanted to break his teeth.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
Norah looked down.
“That mattered.”
Then Dominic asked the question he had been avoiding.
“Did you marry me to get close to Rafael?”
Her eyes snapped upward.
“No.”
“To my father’s records?”
“No.”
“To the Gallow family?”
“No.”
“Then why hide it?”
Norah took a long breath.
“Because I was a coward.”
He did not expect that.
She continued.
“I told myself the past was dead.”
“Victor had died.”
“Rafael looked legitimate.”
“Carlo Vescari was aging.”
“Nobody had come looking for me in fifteen years.”
“And you…”
Her voice broke.
“You gave me a life I wanted.”
“I was afraid if I told you, you would stop seeing Norah and start seeing Bellini.”
Dominic looked away.
Because for the last hour, he had done exactly that.
Norah continued.
“I should have told you before we married.”
“Yes.”
“I know.”
“Before we even became serious.”
“Yes.”
“I know.”
“Did my father know you were alive?”
“No.”
“Rafael?”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Until tonight.”
She nodded.
Dominic stood.
“Where is the archive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Vivien thinks you do.”
“My father said one thing before Saint Agnes.”
“What?”
“If anything happened, Gabriel knew where the heart was buried.”
Dominic frowned.
“The heart?”
“I never understood it.”
“Could be a place.”
“Object.”
“Code.”
“Painting?”
Norah became still.
Dominic noticed.
“What?”
She looked toward the hallway.
“My mother painted one thing.”
“She wasn’t only a restorer.”
“A small Madonna.”
“Blue cloak.”
“Gold heart.”
“Where is it?”
Norah went pale.
“In our bedroom.”
Dominic stopped breathing.
For three years, an unsigned painting of a Madonna had hung above Norah’s reading chair.
He had seen it every night.
Norah whispered:
“Dominic.”
“What?”
“When Vivien came into the drawing room…”
“She didn’t ask me for the ledger first.”
“What did she ask?”
May you like
Norah’s expression tightened.
“She asked where I kept my mother’s painting.”
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