Chapter 2 - My Mother’s Envelope
Lorenzo moved before the door opened.
One second he was beside me.
The next, he had positioned himself between the doorway and my body.
I caught his wrist.
“No guns.”
“I don't have one.”
I looked at him.
He looked back.
“On me.”
The door opened.
Camille Rhodes stumbled inside.
Her perfect ponytail had come loose. Her red top was hidden beneath a coat she'd thrown over herself. The woman who had laughed beside Ethan less than an hour earlier now looked like she had been running.
“Lock it,” she whispered.
I didn't move.
“Please.”
Lorenzo closed the door.
Camille stared at him.
“You're really Lorenzo Vitali.”
“My wife tells me that frequently.”
Under different circumstances, I might have laughed.
Camille didn't.
She saw the envelope in my hand.
Her face collapsed.
“You found it.”
“You knew it was here?”
“No.”
“Then how did you know what I found?”
She swallowed.
“Because Ethan has been looking for it for six months.”
I unfolded my mother's letter.
The first page wasn't a letter.
It was a property document.
The address belonged to the abandoned school that would become Haven House.
The deed was dated twenty-one years earlier.
Owner:
THE BENNETT WOMEN'S TRUST.
My mother's signature appeared beneath it.
I stared at the page.
“That school belongs to the city.”
“No,” Camille said. “The city thinks it does.”
She explained quickly.
Years earlier, my mother and several women from the shelter had formed a trust. A developer had donated the abandoned school after discovering that his sister had been one of the women living there.
The transfer was never properly entered into the city's digital records.
When the developer died, the property became legally tangled.
Ethan discovered the discrepancy.
“How?”
Camille looked at the floor.
“Through your files.”
My stomach turned.
“When we were together?”
“Yes.”
“You knew him then?”
“No. I met him later.”
She wrapped both arms around herself.
“He wasn't interested in your shelter because it was beautiful, Maya. He wanted the property.”
“Why?”
Lorenzo answered before she did.
“Riverfront expansion.”
Camille nodded.
The school sat four blocks from the river.
Cole Development had quietly acquired surrounding lots.
If Ethan controlled the school parcel, he could combine the properties into a redevelopment district worth hundreds of millions.
Haven House wasn't merely a forty-million-dollar contract.
It was the key to the entire neighborhood.
I read my mother's letter.
Maya,
If you're reading this, someone has discovered what we protected.
Haven House was never supposed to make anyone rich.
The trust exists because women without money still deserve a door they can lock.
Do not let anyone convince you the property belongs to them.
The original deed is not here.
I gave it to someone I trusted.
Find Rosa.
My eyes stopped.
Aunt Rosa.
My mother's younger sister.
The woman who had stood beside me at my wedding.
I called her.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Nothing.
Lorenzo was already dialing someone.
“Check Rosa Bennett's house. Quietly.”
I shot him a look.
“Quietly,” he repeated into the phone. “Nobody enters unless Maya says so.”
Camille stared at him.
“You really ask her first?”
Lorenzo lowered the phone.
“Yes.”
Something painful crossed Camille's face.
Ethan had probably never asked her permission for anything.
I turned toward her.
“Why did you come here?”
She hesitated.
Then removed her bracelet.
Purple fingerprints circled her wrist.
“Because tonight I finally understood what happens when I'm no longer useful.”
She placed a small flash drive on the desk.
“I copied this from Ethan's laptop.”
“What is it?”
“Payments.”
“To whom?”
“I don't know all of them.”
Lorenzo inserted the drive into an old offline computer.
A spreadsheet appeared.
Shell corporations.
Consultants.
Planning officials.
Security contractors.
Then one name caught my attention.
BENNETT, ROSA — $250,000.
My chair scraped backward.
“No.”
Camille whispered, “I'm sorry.”
“Rosa wouldn't take his money.”
“There are four payments.”
“No.”
Lorenzo enlarged the transaction details.
The receiving account didn't belong to Rosa.
The name had been attached to an account registered through a holding company.
Someone had created a false trail.
“She's being framed,” I said.
“Probably,” Lorenzo replied.
“Why?”
“To discredit the trustee.”
My phone rang.
Aunt Rosa.
I answered instantly.
“Where are you?”
For several seconds, I heard only breathing.
Then her voice.
“Maya, don't come to my house.”
“Why?”
“Because Ethan knows.”
“Knows what?”
A crash sounded.
“Aunt Rosa?”
Her voice dropped.
“Your mother didn't give me the deed.”
I gripped the phone.
“Then who has it?”
“She gave it to the man who paid for the school.”
“Who?”
Rosa began to answer.
The call ended.
Lorenzo looked at me.
I called back.
Nothing.
His phone vibrated.
He read the message.
His expression changed.
“What?”
“My people reached Rosa's house.”
“And?”
“The front door is open.”
I grabbed my coat.
Lorenzo caught my hand.
“Maya.”
“I am going.”
“I know.”
His fingers tightened around mine.
“But we're not going blind.”
Camille stepped forward.
“I know how Ethan tracks people.”
We both turned.
She pulled a second phone from her bag.
“He installed software on mine months ago. I found it last week.”
She placed it on the table.
“He thinks I'm carrying this.”
Lorenzo understood first.
“You left it somewhere.”
“At the gala.”
“Then he thinks you're still there.”
“For now.”
I looked again at the spreadsheet.
One company appeared repeatedly.
VITALI MARITIME HOLDINGS.
I stared at Lorenzo.
“Why is your company in Ethan's payments?”
His expression went completely still.
“That isn't my company.”
“It has your name.”
“Exactly.”
He enlarged the registration number.
His eyes narrowed.
“Someone built a shell corporation to look like mine.”
Camille whispered, “Ethan said if anything went wrong, the Vitalis would take the fall.”
Lorenzo turned toward me.
This wasn't theft anymore.
Someone was trying to connect my husband to Ethan's crimes.
We drove to Rosa's house.
Her porch light was on.
The front door stood open.
Inside, a lamp had been smashed.
Drawers hung from cabinets.
Photographs covered the floor.
“Aunt Rosa?”
No answer.
I found her purse.
Her medication.
Her shoes.
But not her.
Then Lorenzo crouched beside the overturned kitchen table.
A photograph lay underneath.
My mother.
Rosa.
And a much younger man standing outside the abandoned school.
Lorenzo picked it up.
His face changed.
I had never seen fear on my husband's face.
Not until then.
“You know him.”
Lorenzo didn't answer.
I turned the photograph over.
My mother had written three words on the back.
TRUST ANTONIO VITALI.
I stared at Lorenzo.
“Antonio?”
“My father.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
We both looked toward the ceiling.
Then a woman's voice called softly from Rosa's bedroom.
“Maya?”
I ran toward the stairs.
Lorenzo followed.
The bedroom door was closed.
Something scraped behind it.
May you like
I reached for the handle.
Before I touched it, the door slowly opened from the inside...
