Chapter 5 - The Letters Joseph Never Received
Dominic was waiting when we returned.
Joseph threw the folder onto the table.
Letters scattered across the polished wood.
Dominic’s face went pale.
Mom picked one up.
She recognized her handwriting immediately.
“No.”
Joseph’s voice was quiet.
“How many?”
Dominic said nothing.
“How many letters did she send?”
“Joseph—”
“How many?”
“Forty-seven.”
Mom sat down.
I stared at Dominic.
“You read them?”
“Yes.”
“And hid them?”
“Yes.”
Joseph picked up one envelope.
The postmark was from my fifth birthday.
“You let me believe my child was dead while Rose spent years trying to tell me she was alive.”
Dominic looked tired now.
“I thought eventually she would stop.”
Mom stood.
“I did.”
Dominic looked at her.
“That was the point.”
Joseph moved toward him.
I stepped between them.
“Dad.”
Again, the word stopped him.
Dominic stared at me.
I faced him.
“You want punishment?”
He frowned.
“You’re going to get something worse.”
“What?”
“You’re going to watch us become a family anyway.”
Silence.
Mom looked at me.
Joseph’s anger slowly changed into something else.
I continued.
“You stole twenty years. You don’t get another day.”
Joseph looked at Dominic.
“My daughter is right.”
Dominic laughed bitterly.
“You think this ends happily?”
“No,” Joseph said. “I think happiness takes work.”
He called his lieutenant.
“Dominic is finished.”
“With what?”
“Everything.”
Joseph removed his uncle from every legitimate company, every position of influence, every family trust he legally controlled.
There was no dramatic bloodshed.
No revenge spectacle.
Just consequences.
Dominic lost the thing he had valued most.
Power.
Carlo was dealt with differently.
Joseph made it clear that using me again would end every business relationship between their organizations.
Carlo agreed.
Mostly because he finally understood that Joseph wasn’t bluffing.
That evening, Mom and I sat with Joseph in his kitchen.
Not his formal dining room.
His kitchen.
Joseph attempted pasta.
It was terrible.
Mom took one bite.
“You still can’t cook.”
“I can cook.”
“You committed a crime against tomatoes.”
I laughed.
Joseph pointed at me.
“You’re supposed to support your father.”
“I met you yesterday.”
“That excuse has an expiration date.”
Mom looked at him.
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
She laughed.
For the first time, I saw them not as two people carrying twenty years of pain.
Just Joseph and Rose.
The people from that old Polaroid.
Joseph caught me staring.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s clearly something.”
I pointed at their wrists.
“Put them together.”
Mom understood first.
She smiled.
They placed their wrists side by side.
The constellations matched perfectly.
I took a picture.
Joseph looked at me.
“Why?”
“Because the old photograph needs an update.”
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Then Mom quietly said:
May you like
“I like that.”
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