Chapter 2 - The Man Who Refused to Punish Her
Victor Russo had faced angry businessmen, hostile investors, and federal investigators without revealing the slightest trace of fear.
But the moment Eleanor Gallagher spoke through that door, Penelope saw something she had never imagined seeing on his face.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For her.
"Don't open it," Victor whispered.
Penelope stared at him.
"That's my mother."
"I know."
"Then why are you looking at the door like that?"
Victor didn't answer.
Another knock echoed through the bridal suite.
"Penelope?" Eleanor called. "Sweetheart, I know you're upset. Please open the door."
Penelope looked down at the photograph in her hand.
Her father.
Victor.
Herself as a little girl.
And those four terrible words.
Protect her from Eleanor.
She had spent nineteen years believing that her father had died of natural causes.
Nineteen years listening to her mother describe their marriage as happy.
Nineteen years wondering why she could barely remember the last few weeks of his life.
Now a man she barely knew was telling her that everything had been a lie.
"Open the door, Penelope," her mother repeated.
Victor reached for his phone.
"Dominic. I need you outside the bridal suite. Immediately."
Penelope stepped away from him.
"No."
Victor looked at her.
"No more secrets," she said. "Not from you. Not from my mother. Not from anyone."
Before he could respond, she crossed the room and opened the door.
Eleanor Gallagher stood in the hallway wearing an elegant pale-blue designer dress.
Her blonde hair was perfectly arranged.
Her makeup was flawless.
And her expression was precisely what Penelope would have expected from a concerned mother whose daughter had just been abandoned at the altar.
"Oh, sweetheart."
Eleanor reached forward.
Penelope stepped back.
Her mother's hands froze.
Then Eleanor noticed Victor.
The transformation was immediate.
Her sympathetic expression vanished.
"What is he doing here?"
Victor remained silent.
Penelope held up the photograph.
"That's exactly what I want to know."
Eleanor stared at it.
For a moment, she looked genuinely shocked.
Then she recovered.
"Where did you find that?"
"Victor gave it to me."
Her mother's eyes shifted toward him.
"You had no right."
Victor's voice was quiet.
"Thomas gave me every right."
Eleanor's expression hardened.
"Thomas is dead."
"Yes," Victor replied. "And I've spent nineteen years regretting what happened to him."
Penelope felt the floor shift beneath her.
"Will somebody please tell me what happened to my father?"
Neither answered.
She looked from one to the other.
Then she laughed.
It was a terrible sound.
"My fiancé stole four million dollars. My sister ran away with him. I'm wearing a wedding dress in a room full of people who apparently know more about my life than I do."
She pulled off her veil.
The delicate fabric fell onto the marble floor.
"And now you're both standing here discussing my dead father like I'm not even in the room."
Eleanor approached.
"Penelope, you're emotional."
"Don't."
"Sweetheart—"
"Don't call me that."
Her mother stopped.
Penelope held up the photograph again.
"Why did Dad write that Victor needed to protect me from you?"
Eleanor's face became unnaturally still.
Then she turned toward Victor.
"You promised me."
Victor's jaw tightened.
"I promised Thomas."
"That's not what we agreed."
"No," Victor said. "It isn't."
Penelope felt suddenly sick.
"What agreement?"
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Victor stepped toward the table.
"Your father and I were business partners."
Penelope stared at him.
"What?"
"Long before the Russo family became what it is today, Thomas Gallagher helped me establish my first legitimate investment company."
"My father worked for an accounting firm."
"He did. He also understood international finance better than anyone I ever met."
Eleanor interrupted.
"Victor, stop."
He ignored her.
"Thomas discovered financial irregularities involving several people who were very close to me."
Penelope's stomach tightened.
"Who?"
Victor looked directly at Eleanor.
Her mother turned pale.
"You're making a mistake," she whispered.
Victor continued.
"Your father collected evidence. He believed that someone was stealing from our company and using his financial credentials to conceal the transactions."
Penelope's heart began pounding.
Her credentials.
Her father's credentials.
The similarity was impossible to ignore.
"Just like Damian did to me?"
Victor nodded slowly.
"Almost exactly."
Penelope stared at him.
A terrible possibility entered her mind.
"Was my father accused of stealing money?"
Victor didn't answer immediately.
Then he said, "Yes."
Eleanor moved toward the door.
"This conversation is over."
Penelope stepped into her path.
"No, Mother. It's just beginning."
For the first time in her life, Eleanor seemed uncertain about how to handle her eldest daughter.
She had always known what to say.
When Penelope was thirteen and cried because a boy had called her fat, Eleanor had told her to lose weight.
When Penelope graduated at the top of her university class, Eleanor had suggested that she should spend less time studying and more time finding a husband.
When Melanie became engaged for the first time, Eleanor had organized an enormous celebration.
When Penelope announced her engagement to Damian, her mother had asked whether she was certain he wasn't interested in her salary.
Penelope had mistaken those comments for concern.
Now she wondered how many of them had been deliberate attempts to make her doubt herself.
"Did you know about Damian and Melanie?" she asked suddenly.
Eleanor blinked.
"What?"
"Did you know they were together?"
"Of course not."
Penelope watched her face.
She had spent years auditing people who thought they could lie their way through financial investigations.
Her mother was making a familiar mistake.
She was answering too quickly.
"Look at me," Penelope said.
Eleanor hesitated.
"Did you know?"
"Penelope, this is ridiculous."
"Answer me."
Her mother's lips tightened.
"I suspected they were close."
Penelope felt something break inside her.
"How close?"
Eleanor looked away.
Victor remained motionless.
"Mother."
Eleanor exhaled.
"Melanie told me that she and Damian had developed feelings for each other."
The silence that followed was devastating.
Penelope stared at the woman who had raised her.
"When?"
Eleanor didn't answer.
"When did she tell you?"
"About three months ago."
Penelope stepped backward.
Three months.
Three months of wedding preparations.
Three months of dress fittings.
Three months of discussing flowers, invitations, and seating arrangements.
Three months during which her own mother had watched her plan a marriage to a man who was secretly involved with her sister.
"You knew?"
Eleanor reached for her.
"I didn't want to hurt you."
Penelope recoiled.
"You let me stand in front of a mirror and tell you how happy I was."
"I hoped Melanie would come to her senses."
"You helped me choose my wedding dress!"
Eleanor's expression hardened.
"Lower your voice."
Something inside Penelope finally snapped.
"No."
Her mother stared at her.
Penelope pointed toward the door.
"Get out."
"Penelope!"
"Get out of my wedding suite."
Eleanor's face flushed.
"You have no idea what you're doing."
"For once, I think I do."
Eleanor turned toward Victor.
"Are you going to stand there and allow her to speak to me this way?"
Victor looked at Penelope.
Then he looked at Eleanor.
"She asked you to leave."
Eleanor's mouth fell open.
"You can't be serious."
"Very."
Her mother stared at him for several seconds.
Then her expression changed.
Something cold appeared behind her eyes.
"You've always had a weakness for the Gallagher family, haven't you, Victor?"
Victor didn't respond.
Eleanor picked up her handbag.
"Be careful, Penelope. Men like Victor Russo never give anything without expecting something in return."
She walked toward the door.
Then she stopped.
"And ask him what happened to your father's original will."
The door slammed behind her.
Penelope stood completely still.
Her father's will?
She turned toward Victor.
But before she could speak, her knees weakened.
Victor caught her arm.
"Sit down."
She shook her head.
"I can't."
"Penelope."
"I can't sit here anymore."
He guided her toward the sofa.
She collapsed onto it.
For several minutes, she cried.
Not gracefully.
Not quietly.
She cried for the wedding that would never happen.
For the sister who had betrayed her.
For the mother who had allowed it.
And for the father whose death had suddenly become a mystery.
Victor sat beside her.
He didn't touch her.
He didn't offer meaningless reassurance.
He simply waited.
Eventually, Penelope wiped her face.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Victor looked down at his hands.
"Because I made a promise."
"To my father?"
"Yes."
"What promise?"
He hesitated.
"That I would protect you until you were old enough to understand what happened."
Penelope laughed bitterly.
"I'm thirty years old."
"I know."
"How much older did you expect me to get?"
Victor accepted the accusation without defending himself.
"You're right."
She looked at him.
The simple admission surprised her.
Damian had never admitted being wrong.
Neither had her mother.
Victor continued.
"Thomas trusted me with something extremely important. Something I failed to protect when he was alive."
"What?"
Victor reached into his jacket.
He removed a small brass key.
It was old.
Its surface was scratched.
A tiny number had been engraved near its base.
Seventeen.
Penelope stared at it.
"What's that?"
"A key your father gave me three days before he died."
"To what?"
"A private storage compartment."
"Where?"
Victor looked toward the photograph.
"That's what we need to find out."
Penelope frowned.
"You don't know?"
"I knew where it was nineteen years ago. But the company that maintained the facility was dissolved shortly after Thomas died."
She studied the key.
"Why haven't you looked for it?"
"I did."
"And?"
Victor's expression darkened.
"Someone got there before me."
Penelope felt another wave of dread.
"Who?"
"I don't know."
She looked at him.
"Do you think my mother was involved?"
Victor remained silent.
His silence was becoming an answer she hated.
Before she could question him further, his phone rang.
Dominic.
Victor answered.
"Yes?"
His expression changed as he listened.
"Are you certain?"
He stood.
"Send it to me."
He ended the call.
Penelope watched him.
"What happened?"
Victor looked at her.
"We found the private jet."
Her heart stopped.
"Damian?"
"The aircraft landed in the Bahamas forty minutes ago."
"And Melanie?"
"They were both aboard."
Penelope closed her eyes.
Of course they were.
Together.
Happy.
Probably celebrating their escape.
Victor's phone vibrated again.
He opened a photograph.
Penelope saw Damian stepping off the aircraft.
Melanie walked beside him.
But there was someone else.
An older man.
Tall.
Silver-haired.
Wearing a light-colored suit.
Victor enlarged the image.
His face hardened.
Penelope leaned closer.
"Who is that?"
Victor didn't answer.
She looked again.
Something about the man seemed familiar.
Then she realized why.
His face resembled someone she had seen in an old photograph.
Someone from her childhood.
Someone who had supposedly died almost twenty years earlier.
"Victor?"
He slowly lowered the phone.
"That's impossible."
Penelope grabbed his wrist.
"Who is he?"
Victor looked at her.
And for the first time since entering her bridal suite, his voice trembled.
"Penelope, that's the man who told me your father was dead."
His phone vibrated again.
Another photograph arrived.
This one showed the mysterious man standing beside Damian.
In his hand was a familiar silver music box.
Penelope recognized it immediately.
She had left it on her bedroom dresser that morning.
Then a final message appeared.
Tell Penelope to stop asking questions.
Or she'll learn what really happened to Thomas Gallagher.
Victor stared at the screen.
Penelope reached for the brass key.
And suddenly, from somewhere inside the old photograph, she noticed a tiny handwritten number that matched the engraving.
Seventeen.
May you like
Beneath it were three words.
Ask your mother.
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