Chapter 6 - The Wife He Could No Longer Command
Nadine ran.
Carver reached the stairs beside her.
“Stay behind me.”
“No.”
“Nadine—”
“My daughter.”
They reached the nursery together.
Ada was safe.
Sleeping.
The voice had come through the monitor remotely.
Beside the crib lay an envelope.
Nadine opened it.
A handwritten letter.
Her father’s handwriting.
Nadine,
If you are reading this, I failed to tell you the truth myself.
She sat down.
Carver remained several feet away.
The letter explained that Nadine’s father had discovered Elias’s theft.
But Elias had not acted alone.
Dominic’s father had ordered the transfers.
Carver’s father discovered them.
Nadine’s father intended to expose both families.
Then Carver’s father died.
Two years later, Nadine’s father died in what police called a highway accident.
The final paragraph was unfinished.
If anything happens to me, the evidence is beneath—
Nothing followed.
Nadine looked at Carver.
“Did you know my father?”
“Yes.”
“How well?”
“He saved my life.”
The answer stunned her.
Carver explained.
After his father’s death, twenty-year-old Carver had gone looking for Elias.
Nadine’s father found him first.
“He told me revenge without evidence would turn me into the men I hated.”
“And you listened?”
“Eventually.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because your father asked me never to involve you.”
Nadine looked at Ada.
“Everyone keeps protecting me by deciding what I’m allowed to know.”
Carver lowered his eyes.
“You’re right.”
That was all.
No defense.
No excuse.
It disarmed her.
Later, Amber finally contacted Nadine through a secure channel.
“I need to see you.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
At least that sounded honest.
Amber explained the kiss.
Dominic had become suspicious that Amber knew about his financial network.
She needed his keycard.
She believed seduction was the only opportunity.
“Did you sleep with him?”
Silence.
Nadine’s heart sank.
“Amber.”
“Once.”
Nadine closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“Were you protecting me then too?”
“No.”
Amber’s voice broke.
“That time I was selfish.”
Nadine appreciated the truth.
It still hurt.
“Why?”
“I hated being invisible next to you.”
Nadine said nothing.
“You had Dad’s respect. The career. Dominic. Then the baby. I wanted something that was yours.”
“And after?”
“I realized what he was.”
Amber began crying.
“I also realized what I had become.”
Nadine did not forgive her.
Not then.
But she listened.
Amber had spent months collecting evidence.
The keycard opened a vault beneath the Castellano estate.
Inside was the archive Nadine’s father had built.
“Dominic doesn’t know where it is,” Amber said.
“Elias does?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s coming for it.”
“Yes.”
Nadine stood.
“Then so am I.”
Carver objected when she told him.
Not because she was a woman.
Not because she was his wife.
Because she had given birth six days earlier.
“You can barely walk without pain.”
“I can sit in a car.”
“This is dangerous.”
“My entire life is dangerous.”
“And Ada?”
Nadine hesitated.
That was the question.
She arranged for Ada to remain with Carver’s physician and two security officers Nadine selected herself.
Then she turned to Carver.
“I’m going.”
He exhaled.
“Then I’m going with you.”
They drove through the night.
At 4:16 a.m., Nadine saw the Castellano estate again.
The same windows.
The same staircase.
The same house she had fled.
They entered through the old servant passage.
Nadine remembered every turn.
At the bottom, they found a steel door.
She inserted AC-0714.
Green light.
Click.
Carver looked at her.
Nadine pulled the door open.
Inside stood Amber.
May you like
Blood covered the front of her dress.
And behind her, someone was lying motionless on the floor.
