Chapter 2 - The Sister Dominic Buried
Dominic did not use the ten seconds well.
He spent the first three staring at the carpet.
The next two breathing through his nose.
By the sixth, Vincent had already decided that whatever came next would be worse than the lie itself.
“Start,” Vincent said.
Dominic looked up.
“She ran away.”
Vincent’s face did not move.
“At fourteen?”
“Thirteen.”
“That improves nothing.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Dominic flinched.
Vincent had seen men beg him for mercy without feeling much.
This was different.
Dominic was not afraid of Vincent.
He was afraid of memory.
“Our father was bad,” Dominic said.
Vincent almost laughed.
Angelo Russo had been feared in Bridgeport long before Vincent understood why adults lowered their voices around certain men.
He ran collections for Vincent’s father.
He drank too much.
He believed obedience was the same thing as love.
Everybody knew he had a temper.
Nobody had ever described what that temper looked like inside his own house.
“How bad?” Vincent asked.
Dominic’s mouth tightened.
“Bad enough that I left at seventeen.”
“And left her.”
“Yes.”
The word hit harder because Dominic did not soften it.
Vincent folded his arms.
“Those scars?”
Dominic looked toward the closed door.
“I didn’t put them there.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.” Dominic’s voice roughened. “I didn’t know about all of them.”
“All?”
“I knew he hurt us. I knew he hit her. I knew she hid bruises. I knew enough.”
Vincent stared at him.
“You knew enough.”
Dominic nodded once.
“And you left.”
“I thought I was coming back.”
“That sentence has saved a lot of cowards from using the correct word.”
Dominic’s head snapped up.
Anger flashed, then died.
Because the insult landed where truth already lived.
“I was seventeen,” he said.
“She was thirteen.”
“I know how old she was.”
“Then stop using your age like it erases hers.”
Dominic turned away and walked to the window.
Below them, the front driveway curved through bare winter trees. One of the guards crossed toward the gate, unaware that the most dangerous thing in the house was currently a conversation.
“I got out,” Dominic said. “Your father gave me work. Then you and I started running together. I sent money home. Quinn sent it back once with a note that said she didn’t want his money touching hers.”
“Your money.”
“It didn’t feel like mine.”
Vincent understood that more than he wanted to.
Family money had a way of carrying fingerprints nobody could wash off.
“What happened the night of the fire?”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“Our father came home drunk. There was an argument. Quinn had been planning to leave. I’d promised to help.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
The answer came faster this time.
“I was supposed to meet her behind Saint Anthony’s at midnight. I didn’t go.”
“Why?”
“Your father sent us to Cicero. There was trouble.”
“You could have called.”
“She didn’t have a phone.”
“You could have sent someone.”
Dominic finally turned.
“I could have done a lot of things.”
That ended the argument because it was true.
He continued.
“The house burned before dawn. Angelo survived. Quinn was gone. They found blood upstairs and part of her coat near the back door. Everyone assumed she died in the fire or was taken by somebody who didn’t want to be found.”
“And you?”
“I searched.”
“How long?”
Dominic looked ashamed.
“Two weeks.”
Vincent’s stomach tightened.
Two weeks.
Then business returned.
Then survival.
Then years.
“Why tell me she was dead?”
“Because after the first month, that’s what I believed.”
“No. You told me they recovered her body.”
Dominic went still.
Vincent remembered clearly now.
A body too damaged to identify easily.
A closed casket.
A priest.
A brother too broken to speak.
“You lied about a body.”
Dominic sat down heavily on the edge of the guest-room chair.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t stand you asking me if I’d found her.”
The rawness of the answer startled Vincent.
Dominic looked up.
“Every time you asked, I heard what you meant. Did you fix it? Did you bring your sister home? Did you keep your promise? And the answer was no. So I ended the question.”
“With a funeral.”
“Yes.”
Vincent’s hands went numb.
Not from rage.
From the strange collapse of a memory he had believed was solid.
“So when did you learn she was alive?”
Dominic did not answer.
Vincent felt the air change.
“That’s the part, isn’t it?”
Dominic rubbed both hands over his face.
“Eight months ago.”
Vincent stared at him.
“Before she started working here.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“She made me promise.”
Vincent laughed once, coldly.
“Now you care about keeping promises to her?”
Dominic took that without defense.
“She found me,” he said. “Outside Holy Name after Sunday mass. I almost didn’t recognize her. She told me if I tried to follow her, send men after her, or tell anyone where she was, she would disappear again.”
“Why did she take a job in my house?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
Vincent’s phone vibrated.
He ignored it.
“What did you do when you saw her working here?”
“I asked her to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew sooner or later you would notice something.”
Vincent’s gaze hardened.
“So your solution was to send her away again.”
Dominic’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
The door opened without a knock.
Quinn stood there in her cardigan and black work skirt, a small overnight bag in one hand.
“I’m leaving,” she said.
Vincent looked at the bag.
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
Dominic rose.
“Quinn—”
She held up one hand.
“No.”
Not loud.
Final.
She looked at Vincent.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Mr. Moretti. But I can’t stay here now.”
Vincent wanted to tell her nobody would make her leave.
Then he understood how easily protection can sound like another man making a decision for you.
So he asked instead.
“Do you have somewhere safe to go?”
Quinn nodded.
“A friend.”
“Do you need a car?”
“No.”
“Money?”
“No.”
Dominic looked wrecked by every answer.
Quinn moved toward the hall.
Vincent stepped aside.
Before she passed him, he said, “One question.”
She paused.
“Did you come here because of Dominic?”
Her eyes moved to her brother.
“Yes.”
Dominic’s face changed.
Quinn tightened her hand around the bag.
“I wanted to see whether the man who buried me was capable of recognizing me while I was still alive.”
May you like
Then she walked away.
