Chapter 5 - THE MESSAGE ABOUT LUCIA
Detective Alvarez arrived at my apartment with another officer.
Dominic arrived twelve minutes later.
He was furious.
Not at me.
At the fact someone knew where I lived.
“You’re moving.”
I stared.
“No.”
His face hardened.
“Claire.”
“I called police.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“You don’t decide where I live.”
His jaw tightened.
Then he stopped.
Actually stopped.
Breathed.
“Okay.”
The detective looked amused.
Dominic noticed.
Didn’t comment.
Progress.
Alvarez photographed the messages.
The number was prepaid.
Unsurprising.
He asked:
“Anyone besides Moretti know you helped the baby?”
“Half Chicago probably does now.”
Bellavita staff talked.
Customers filmed parts of the ambulance response.
One gossip page had already posted:
MYSTERY WAITRESS SAVES MORETTI HEIR.
I hated every word.
I did not save him.
I noticed.
Then professionals treated him.
Important distinction nobody online cared about.
Alvarez asked:
“What do you think ‘last woman who tried to change Dominic’ means?”
I looked at Dominic.
His face had become unreadable.
“Lucia.”
He said it first.
The room quieted.
Alvarez asked:
“Any reason someone would frame her death as a warning?”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
Then:
“I don’t know.”
Better answer.
I folded my arms.
“What did Lucia try to change?”
He looked at me.
“Everything.”
That sounded dramatic.
Apparently accurate.
Lucia Moretti had not been born into the organization.
She was a public-school teacher from Oak Park.
Dominic met her at a charity fundraiser.
Caterina hated the match initially.
Antonio Moretti hated it longer.
Lucia did not care.
She married Dominic anyway.
Then spent six years asking questions nobody in his family enjoyed.
Why employees needed permission to quit.
Why restaurant owners paid cash envelopes.
Why Dominic’s men carried guns to family dinners.
Why he called fear “respect.”
Dominic looked embarrassed recounting it.
“She told you that?”
“Constantly.”
“Did you listen?”
“Sometimes.”
“Meaning?”
“Not enough.”
Honest.
Lucia convinced him to sell one illegal gambling operation.
Then another.
Started a scholarship for employees’ children.
Refused to let bodyguards follow her into classrooms.
Dominic’s father reportedly called her dangerous.
Not because she was violent.
Because Dominic loved her enough to reconsider things.
Alvarez listened carefully.
“Anyone resent her?”
Dominic laughed bitterly.
“Half the old organization.”
“Names?”
Many.
Too many.
But one stood out.
Rocco Vitale.
Former capo.
Sixty-two.
Worked directly under Antonio.
Lucia had openly pushed Dominic to remove him after discovering he threatened a restaurant owner’s family.
Dominic eventually did.
Rocco disappeared into semi-retirement.
Still in Chicago.
Still connected.
Alvarez wrote the name.
Dominic frowned.
“Rocco wouldn’t send a text.”
“How do you know?”
“He’d send a person.”
I stared.
“Comforting.”
Dominic almost smiled.
Then another possibility emerged.
Lucia’s former driver, Anthony Cole.
Fired six months before her death after she discovered he was reporting her movements to Caterina.
Caterina admitted it later.
She had wanted “security.”
Lucia called it surveillance.
Anthony blamed Lucia for losing a lucrative job.
Where was he now?
Nobody knew.
The threat suddenly felt less like random intimidation.
Someone knew Lucia had tried changing Dominic.
Someone knew enough about my involvement to compare me.
Alvarez arranged patrols around my building.
Dominic offered private security.
I accepted one thing.
A driver for the next week.
Not because he ordered.
Because Detective Alvarez said someone might be watching.
My choice.
Important.
Then I asked Dominic:
“Did Lucia ever get threats?”
His face changed.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
“What kind?”
“Anonymous letters.”
“Did you report them?”
Silence.
I already knew.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I handled it.”
Of course.
“How?”
“Security.”
“Did you identify who sent them?”
“No.”
“Then you didn’t handle it.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
I stared.
He corrected:
“You’re right.”
Better.
“What did the letters say?”
His expression darkened.
“Mostly that she should stay out of business.”
“Anything specific?”
He hesitated.
“One said she was making me weak.”
That fit.
“Another?”
Dominic looked away.
“What?”
“Tell me.”
He looked at me.
“‘Wives are temporary. Blood is permanent.’”
Cold moved through me.
Family language.
Maybe old organization.
Maybe actual family.
Alvarez asked:
“Who saw these letters?”
“Lucia.”
“Your security.”
“My mother.”
“Francesca?”
“Yes.”
“Your father?”
“He was alive then.”
“Did he know?”
Dominic stared.
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
His face became bitter.
“That Lucia should stop provoking people.”
There it was.
Classic.
Threatened woman told to behave better.
Dominic looked sick remembering it.
“I told him to shut up.”
“Good.”
“But I still didn’t call police.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“I thought involving police would show weakness.”
Alvarez leaned back.
“And now?”
Dominic gave a tired smile.
“Apparently I call you for everything.”
“Growth.”
The detective actually said it.
I laughed.
Then Dominic became serious.
“Could those threats connect to her death?”
Alvarez answered carefully.
“We have no evidence her death was anything but medical.”
Good.
No manufactured conspiracy.
Dominic nodded.
Disappointed maybe.
Relieved too.
Because grief wanted a murderer.
Truth did not owe one.
The new threat could simply be someone exploiting Lucia’s death to scare me.
Still dangerous.
Then Alvarez’s partner returned from checking building footage.
“We got the sender.”
Everyone stood.
Not the person.
The drop.
A man had left an envelope near the building’s side entrance containing a second prepaid phone apparently intended for future messages.
Security camera captured his face.
Dominic recognized him immediately.
“Anthony.”
Lucia’s former driver.
Alvarez looked at him.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Good.
They found Anthony two days later at his brother’s auto shop.
He did not run.
He asked for a lawyer.
Then confessed to sending the messages.
Why?
Money.
From whom?
That took longer.
Eventually:
Rocco Vitale.
Old capo.
The motive was not Lucia’s death.
It was Dominic’s recent decision-making.
Rocco believed my influence would push Dominic further toward legitimacy.
He wanted me scared off.
He used Lucia because he knew it would hurt.
Dominic’s reaction surprised me.
He did not order revenge.
He gave police evidence of Rocco’s extortion activities.
Real evidence.
Records he could have hidden.
That was not altruism.
Rocco was his enemy now.
But using law instead of violence mattered.
Rocco was arrested six weeks later on unrelated but supported charges.
No cinematic shootout.
Good.
The threat ended.
Mostly.
Then something else began.
I started thinking about nursing school.
Not obsessively.
Just enough.
One afternoon I walked past my old campus.
Stopped.
Stared at the building.
Then walked inside.
My former advisor, Dr. Evelyn Mason, still worked there.
She recognized me immediately.
“Claire?”
I nearly cried.
She hugged me.
No questions first.
Just hug.
Then coffee.
I told her about Bellavita.
Antonio.
Hospital.
Leo.
She listened.
At the end, she asked:
“Do you want to come back?”
I stared at my hands.
“I don’t know.”
She nodded.
“Then don’t decide today.”
Thank God.
She gave me information.
Re-entry requirements.
Credits still valid.
Clinical hours needed.
Options.
No inspirational speech.
I left with a folder.
Dominic called that evening.
“Dinner?”
I said yes.
By now, we had become something strange.
Friends?
Not exactly.
Two grieving people connected through one screaming baby.
At dinner he noticed the folder.
“What’s that?”
“Nursing school.”
His face changed.
“You’re going back?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You should.”
I stiffened.
He saw it.
Then immediately:
“Sorry.”
Good.
He corrected.
“Do you want to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then don’t know.”
I smiled.
“You’re learning.”
“Slowly.”
We ate.
Then he asked:
“Why did you quit?”
“You know.”
“Leo.”
“Yes.”
“But why completely?”
I looked at him.
Because after Leo died, I walked into clinical rotation three weeks later.
A baby cried.
I threw up.
Another child coded.
I froze.
My instructor gently told me to take leave.
I never returned.
“I thought if I couldn’t save my own son, I had no business helping anyone else’s.”
Dominic looked at me.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
I laughed.
“Grief rarely does.”
He nodded.
Then:
“Do you think Lucia failed Antonio because she died?”
My chest tightened.
“No.”
“Then why are you holding yourself to something you wouldn’t put on her?”
I stared.
That was irritatingly good.
“I hate when you make sense.”
He smiled.
Then his phone rang.
He looked.
Ignored it.
“Important?”
“Probably.”
“You can answer.”
“No.”
“Why?”
He looked at me.
“Because I’m at dinner.”
That simple.
Maybe he was learning presence too.
When dinner ended, he walked me outside.
Rain.
Of course.
Chicago apparently had one weather setting for emotional conversations.
Dominic stopped beside my car.
“Claire.”
“Yes?”
“I like you.”
I laughed.
“That sounded painful.”
“It was.”
Good.
He continued.
“I don’t want you confused about why I keep asking you to dinner.”
My heart shifted.
“I wasn’t confused.”
He almost smiled.
“Would you consider an actual date?”
I stared.
“Does this not count?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“You paid for your own dinner.”
“I prefer it.”
“That’s why.”
I laughed.
Then thought.
Dominic was still Dominic.
Past.
Power.
Complications.
A child.
A dead wife.
I had dead child grief.
No stable career yet.
Excellent romantic timing.
“One date.”
His expression softened.
“One.”
“No private restaurant.”
“Fine.”
“No men at the next table.”
“Security stays outside.”
“Compromise.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
He smiled.
Then leaned slightly closer.
Stopped.
“Can I kiss you?”
I looked at him.
The first night, this man threatened that I would have nowhere to hide if I hurt his baby.
Now he asked before touching me.
That mattered.
“Not yet.”
He nodded.
No sulking.
No pressure.
“Goodnight, Claire.”
“Goodnight.”
I drove home.
The nursing-school folder sat beside me.
For the first time, neither future frightened me completely.
Not Dominic.
Not nursing.
Both remained complicated.
But fear no longer meant no.
May you like
Sometimes it only meant something mattered.
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