Chapter 7 - Adrian Moretti's Debt
I didn't go alone.
I also didn't give Celeste the real ledger.
Adrian made a copy convincing enough to survive a quick inspection.
Ramirez coordinated the police operation.
Vanessa gave us the location.
An abandoned printing warehouse on the South Side.
The irony wasn't lost on me.
A woman who manufactured lives had chosen a building once used to print things.
Celeste waited upstairs.
She was seventy, elegant, composed, and frighteningly ordinary.
My father sat beside her.
When I saw him, thirty-four years of imaginary conversations vanished.
I had no speech.
Neither did he.
He simply said, "Millie."
My mother had been the only person who called me that.
I knew.
I knew before any DNA test.
Celeste wanted the ledger because it connected her to decades of fraud.
She also wanted my signature transferring the trust.
"I've been Amelia Brooks longer than you have," she said.
I almost laughed.
"You picked the wrong profession, then. Florists don't have thirty-eight million dollars."
"Your father did."
She told me the fake Amelia had been created years earlier as insurance.
Vanessa had eventually become part of the operation.
But Vanessa had begun rebelling.
That was why Celeste ordered the boutique incident.
Vanessa was supposed to frame me.
Not create witnesses.
Not assault Isabella.
Not attract police.
Her arrogance had cracked the entire operation open.
Celeste realized too late that the ledger was fake.
She reached beneath her coat.
Adrian moved first.
So did Ramirez's team.
The next thirty seconds became noise.
Shouting.
Glass.
A gun sliding across concrete.
Daniel falling sideways.
Adrian covering me.
Then silence.
Celeste was arrested.
Daniel survived.
I thought that meant the nightmare was ending.
I was wrong.
At the hospital, DNA confirmed Daniel was my father.
We sat together awkwardly.
He told me he had stayed away because every time he tried to contact us, Celeste found him.
He believed distance kept me alive.
"Your mother hated me for leaving."
"She loved you."
"Those aren't opposites."
I understood that better than I wanted to.
Adrian stood in the doorway.
Daniel looked at him.
"My brother's son."
Adrian nodded.
Daniel's expression changed.
"Where's Isabella?"
"Home."
"No."
Daniel tried to rise.
"She can't be."
"What?"
"If Celeste has been arrested, Isabella is the next person they'll silence."
Adrian called security.
No answer.
He called Isabella.
Nothing.
Then my phone received a photograph.
Isabella's apartment.
Empty chair.
Broken teacup.
A message beneath it.
CELESTE WAS NEVER THE ONLY ONE.
Adrian stared at the screen.
May you like
Then Daniel whispered the name of the one person none of us had suspected.
"Vanessa."
