The Sister First
Chapter 12 - The Sister First
Diana did not remember crossing the kitchen.
One second she was holding the photograph. The next she was halfway to the front door with Dominic's hand closing around her wrist—not hard, not imprisoning, just enough to keep panic from driving her into the snow.
"Let go."
"Look at me."
"They have Lina."
"We do not know that."
"The note says—"
"The note is designed to make you stop thinking. Do not give it what it wants."
She wanted to hate him for sounding calm.
Then she saw his face.
The calm was costing him.
Marcus had gone very still near the table. Vivian looked genuinely surprised, which told Diana the note had not been hers.
Dominic saw it too.
"Not you," he said.
Vivian's mouth tightened.
"I prefer leverage that can speak."
Rosa crossed herself, then picked up the phone on the wall.
"I'm calling Lina."
"Use my secure phone," Dominic said.
"I have used this phone since 1998. It has outlived three mayors and your father's mistress. It will manage."
She dialed.
Everyone listened.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
Lina answered.
"If this is about the toolbox, I'm already guilty."
Diana nearly collapsed.
"Lina."
"Di? Why are you crying?"
"Where are you?"
"Home. Marco's refrigerator friend is outside my door. He brought soup. Very confusing man."
Dominic looked at Marco, who spoke into his earpiece from the hallway.
"She's secure."
Diana covered her mouth.
Marcus exhaled in irritation.
That one sound betrayed him.
Dominic turned.
"You sent the note."
Marcus lifted his chin.
"No."
Diana looked at the photograph again. Lina leaving the clinic, yes—but not today. The scarf was wrong. It was the green one Lina lost last winter.
"This photo is old," Diana said.
Vivian looked at Marcus with disgust.
"You sentimental idiot."
Marcus's mask cracked.
"Do not."
Rosa's tape recorder kept turning.
Dominic stepped closer.
"You kept surveillance on Diana's sister for a year."
Marcus said nothing.
Diana understood then that Marcus had not merely found her weakness. He had lived with it, studied it, polished it until the right moment.
"Why me?" she asked.
Her voice was quiet enough to make everyone listen.
"Because of my father? Because of the toolbox? Or because I was close to Dominic?"
Marcus looked at her.
For the first time, he seemed tired.
"At first? The toolbox. Then Dominic."
"And then?"
He did not answer.
Rosa did.
"Then you liked being trusted by someone decent. Men like him hate that. It makes them remember what they sold."
Marcus's face twisted.
"You know nothing about what I sold."
"You sold every name you wore," Rosa said.
Vivian reached toward the toolbox again.
Diana was ready this time. She closed the lid and snapped the latch.
"No."
Vivian smiled.
"Little secretary. Do you understand what happens when files like that become public? People you think are good become dirty. People you think are victims become accomplices. There will be no clean hero for your story."
"Good," Diana said. "I'm tired of men needing to be clean before they do what's right."
Dominic looked at her.
Something passed between them then, not romance exactly, not yet, but recognition. Two people standing in wreckage and refusing to decorate it.
Marco entered from the hallway.
"Police liaison is outside. Federal contact is ten minutes away."
Vivian's face changed.
"You called federal authorities?"
Dominic said, "Diana did."
Diana blinked.
"I did?"
"You sent the files to Theo's cloud account. His old account has an automated dead-man forward to a federal evidence address."
Diana thought of her late brother-in-law and let out a shaky laugh.
"Theo, you paranoid angel."
Marcus moved suddenly toward the back door.
Dominic blocked him.
No shouting. No raised fists. Just Dominic Caruso standing between Marcus Vitelli-Santoro and the last exit he thought money had left him.
"It's over," Dominic said.
Marcus looked at him with pure hatred.
"For you too."
"Yes."
That answer quieted the room.
Dominic continued.
"For the parts of me that were built on my father's rot. Yes. It should be."
Sirens approached faintly in the snow.
Marcus looked at Diana one last time.
"He will disappoint you."
Diana held her father's letter against her chest.
"Probably."
Dominic's eyes moved to her.
She did not soften it.
"But I'm done choosing between men who disappoint me. I choose myself first now."
The sirens grew louder.
For a moment, it seemed the story had finally chosen daylight.
Then Lina's voice crackled through Rosa's forgotten kitchen phone.
"Diana?"
Diana snatched it up.
"I'm here."
Her sister's breathing was shallow.
"There is something Dad made me promise to tell you only when the Caruso woman gave you the toolbox."
Diana closed her eyes.
"What now?"
May you like
Lina whispered, "Henry Vale wasn't our biological father."
The kitchen fell away beneath Diana's feet.
