Chapter 7 - DOMINIC’S SECOND SET OF BOOKS
The audit found two accounting systems.
The official household ledger matched Alessandro's financial statements.
The second existed in a password-protected spreadsheet on Dominic's office computer.
It tracked what staff were actually paid after unofficial deductions.
Francesca's name appeared beside most entries.
Dominic's appeared beside enough.
The total discrepancy over six years was just under $180,000.
For Alessandro, that number was financially insignificant.
For the people who lost twenty or fifty dollars at a time, it was groceries, prescriptions, school shoes, bus fare.
Scale depended on which side of the paycheck you occupied.
Julia Harper brought in forensic accountants.
Samuel Greco brought in criminal counsel.
Alessandro hated the phrase.
“I'm the victim.”
Sam looked at him.
“Are you?”
Alessandro's expression hardened.
“Money was stolen from my payroll.”
“And from your employees.”
“I know.”
“Then stop trying to own the victim position too.”
Only Sam could say that and remain in the room.
The records suggested Francesca had personally taken a substantial portion.
Dominic's benefit was harder to prove.
Some cash withdrawals covered legitimate expenses without receipts.
Others did not.
Then investigators found payments toward a private loan in Dominic's name.
He had gambling debts.
Not enormous by Moretti standards.
Enormous to him.
Dominic denied stealing staff wages.
He claimed Francesca offered him cash from unused household funds.
He chose not to ask where it came from.
Alessandro almost hit him when he admitted that.
Almost.
Instead he stood and walked to the window.
Dominic noticed.
“You've changed.”
“No.”
Alessandro looked back.
“I'm trying to.”
Dominic laughed bitterly.
“Because a little girl cried over your shirt?”
“Maybe.”
“That's all it takes now?”
Alessandro said nothing.
Dominic continued:
“You think you can become a good man because you don't break my jaw?”
“No.”
“Then what do you think this is?”
Alessandro looked at the employee records scattered across the table.
“I think I'm finding out what kind of man everybody had to become around me.”
Dominic's face shifted.
That was the first moment his anger disappeared.
Then he said:
“Francesca didn't invent those rules.”
Alessandro went still.
“What?”
Dominic leaned back.
“You want to know why people believed her when she said you hated absences? Why they believed she'd throw them out of housing?”
“Yes.”
“Because she had something with your signature.”
“What?”
Dominic looked toward Sam.
“A memo.”
“What memo?”
“After Marco died.”
Alessandro felt his chest tighten.
Marco had been dead eighteen years.
“What did my brother have to do with household staff?”
“Nothing.”
Dominic's voice softened.
“You wrote it afterward.”
Alessandro no longer remembered.
May you like
Dominic did.
And somewhere inside the estate archives was a piece of paper that, according to the man Alessandro now suspected of helping steal from him, explained why Francesca had been able to rule his household for more than a decade.
