Chapter 8 - The Account Under My Name
Vanessa hadn't kidnapped Isabella.
She had helped her disappear.
That distinction mattered.
Barely.
We found them inside a church basement.
Isabella was furious.
Vanessa was terrified.
"My mother wasn't running everything," Vanessa said.
"Then who was?"
She placed financial records on the table.
The fake Amelia account had received money after Celeste's arrest.
Someone else still controlled it.
The transfers originated from Moretti Holdings.
Adrian went still.
Someone inside his own organization had financed the identity theft.
His adviser, Marcus Vale, had worked for the family for twenty-two years.
He controlled legal structures, trusts, property transactions.
Including mine.
Adrian didn't defend him.
He investigated him.
That impressed me more than any threat could have.
Marcus disappeared before we reached his office.
But he left behind a contract.
My forged signature.
Vanessa's signature.
And Adrian's.
Adrian stared at it.
"I never signed this."
Neither had Vanessa.
Marcus had been forging everyone.
He wasn't protecting Celeste.
He was using her.
My trust wasn't the prize.
It was one piece of a much larger laundering network.
My identity gave Marcus access to assets he couldn't touch under the Moretti name.
Celeste had built the machinery.
Marcus had industrialized it.
Vanessa finally admitted she had known Marcus for years.
"He promised to protect me from my mother."
Instead, he'd trapped her.
Every crime Vanessa committed gave him leverage.
I didn't forgive her.
But I believed her.
There is a difference.
Ramirez froze the fake accounts.
The next morning, someone unfroze them.
An authorization had been submitted using biometric verification.
Mine.
Video verification.
My face.
I watched the bank recording.
A woman looked into the camera.
My hair.
My approximate features.
My voice generated almost perfectly.
The fake Amelia.
For the first time, we saw her clearly.
I recognized her.
Not from the boutique.
Not from photographs.
From childhood.
A woman who used to babysit me.
Her name was Claire.
She had disappeared when I was twelve.
Daniel saw the image and whispered:
"That's Celeste's daughter."
Vanessa shook her head.
"No. I'm Celeste's only daughter."
Daniel looked at her.
"That's what she told you."
The room froze.
Then Claire's recorded face smiled into the bank camera.
May you like
And said my childhood nickname.
"Hello, Millie."
