Chapter 6 - Adrian’s Mother
The elevator indicator climbed.
Forty-one.
Forty-two.
Forty-three.
Adrian stood motionless.
Emily had never seen him afraid.
Angry, yes.
Cold.
Viciously calm.
Wounded.
But never afraid.
“Adrian.”
He didn’t respond.
Margaret rose.
“We need to leave.”
Adrian finally looked at her.
“No.”
“Isabella didn’t come here to talk.”
“She’s my mother.”
“She stopped being your mother a long time ago.”
Emily glanced between them.
“You knew she was alive.”
“I suspected.”
“You just said—”
“I knew someone survived the crash. I never confirmed it was Isabella.”
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“Everyone in this room apparently attended my family meetings except me.”
The elevator reached forty-six.
His floor.
Ding.
The doors opened.
Isabella Romano stepped out.
She was in her late sixties.
Elegant.
Composed.
Dark eyes identical to Adrian’s.
Two men followed her.
Unarmed, at least visibly.
Adrian’s security waited at the other end.
Nobody moved.
Isabella walked into the office.
Her gaze landed on Adrian.
“My son.”
Adrian’s expression became stone.
“Don’t.”
A flicker of pain crossed Isabella’s face.
Then disappeared.
Emily almost believed it.
“Twenty-five years,” Adrian said. “You were alive.”
“Yes.”
“You let me bury you.”
“Yes.”
“You let my father raise me alone.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because staying would have killed you.”
Adrian laughed without humor.
“I’ve heard that excuse several times tonight.”
Isabella noticed Emily.
“So you’re Emily.”
Emily straightened.
“You forged my signature.”
“No.”
“Everyone appears remarkably innocent.”
Isabella placed the contract on the desk.
“I came because whoever forged it made a mistake.”
She pointed to the authorization block.
Emily moved closer.
“Which?”
“The corporate seal.”
Adrian looked.
“It’s current.”
“Exactly.”
Isabella removed a magnifying lens.
“The Harbor authorization system never used current Romano seals. It uses Salvatore’s original mark.”
Emily frowned.
“So this document was created recently.”
“Within the last month.”
“By whom?”
Isabella looked at Margaret.
“That is what I came to ask.”
Margaret bristled.
“Don’t perform innocence for me.”
“I’m not.”
“You built Harbor.”
“I built a financial network.”
“That destroyed lives.”
“Yes.”
The blunt admission shocked Emily.
Isabella continued.
“I spent twenty-five years undoing what I created.”
Adrian’s voice was ice.
“From hiding?”
“From inside.”
“You expect me to believe you became some secret guardian?”
“No. I expect you to hate me.”
That answer stopped him.
Isabella looked at Emily.
“But hatred does not make your forged signature less dangerous.”
“Why use me?”
“Because you can decode Daniel’s ledger.”
“And Adrian?”
“Because he controls the company.”
Margaret shook her head.
“No. There’s another reason.”
Isabella looked at her.
Margaret continued.
“Someone wants Emily and Adrian to turn on each other.”
Emily’s chest tightened.
“Why?”
“Together, you have everything needed to expose Harbor.”
Adrian frowned.
“What do we have?”
“Emily has the ledger.”
“And me?”
“Access.”
“To what?”
Isabella answered.
“The Romano family vault.”
Adrian stared.
“There is no family vault.”
“There is.”
“Where?”
“Under St. Matthew’s Hospital.”
Emily almost laughed.
“Of course it is.”
Everyone looked at her.
She raised both hands.
“Sorry. Secret fathers, secret mothers, secret ledgers. A secret vault under the hospital is honestly the least surprising thing tonight.”
Adrian’s mouth twitched.
Margaret gave her a disapproving maternal look.
The normality of it nearly broke Emily’s heart.
Isabella opened the red ledger.
“Salvatore moved the final Harbor archive before he died. He hid it beneath the hospital because Daniel’s room provided the access code.”
“117,” Emily whispered.
“Yes.”
Adrian looked at the forged contract.
“The number beside Emily’s name.”
“Someone is inviting us to find the archive.”
“Or trapping us.”
“Probably both.”
Adrian turned toward Isabella.
“Who else knows?”
“Victor.”
“He says Daniel killed Father.”
“He did.”
Emily tensed.
Isabella added, “At Salvatore’s request.”
So Daniel had told the truth.
Adrian’s shoulders loosened by a fraction.
“And the person who poisoned him?”
Isabella became silent.
Adrian stepped closer.
“Who poisoned my father?”
She looked directly at him.
“I did.”
Emily stopped breathing.
Adrian didn’t move.
For several seconds, nobody did.
Then Adrian spoke.
Very quietly.
“Explain.”
Isabella’s eyes filled with tears.
“Salvatore was captured two days before the warehouse meeting. Harbor’s leadership forced a slow-acting poison into him. I tried to replace it with an antidote.”
“You just said you poisoned him.”
“I administered what I believed was the antidote.”
“But?”
“It wasn’t.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“You were betrayed.”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
Isabella looked at her.
“You.”
Margaret went pale.
Emily stepped between them.
“What?”
Isabella opened her bag.
She removed an old medical report.
“Margaret supplied the vial.”
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
“Your initials are on the transfer document.”
“My initials were copied.”
Isabella laughed bitterly.
“And now you understand Emily.”
Emily looked between them.
Forged signatures.
Again.
The same method.
Someone had been manipulating them for decades.
“Whoever forged mine has done this before.”
“Yes,” Isabella said.
“Then the point isn’t just money.”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“Control.”
Adrian looked toward the city.
“Make everyone suspect everyone.”
“Exactly.”
Emily picked up her resignation letter.
The first document she had brought tonight.
Suddenly she noticed something.
A faint indentation on the paper.
As if it had rested on top of another page while someone wrote.
She held it beneath the desk lamp.
Letters appeared.
Adrian moved beside her.
“What?”
Emily angled the paper.
A message.
Not typed.
Pressed into the sheet beneath.
She read slowly.
SHE WILL QUIT AT 10:40.
LOCK THE DOOR.
MAKE HER TRUST YOU.
Emily’s blood went cold.
Adrian stepped back.
“What is that?”
“You tell me.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
“But I quit at 10:40.”
He checked his watch.
She had.
Exactly.
Emily stared at the line.
Lock the door.
That was precisely what Adrian had done.
A coincidence?
Impossible.
“Someone knew what you would do,” Margaret whispered.
Isabella shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“They didn’t predict him.”
Everyone looked at her.
“They instructed him.”
Adrian’s face darkened.
“No one instructed me.”
Isabella pointed toward his phone.
“Did you receive any unusual message before Emily arrived?”
Adrian thought.
Then pulled up his encrypted messages.
One unknown sender.
10:32 p.m.
DO NOT LET HER LEAVE ALONE.
Adrian stared.
Emily felt the room shrink.
He had interpreted it as a warning.
Someone else had orchestrated the entire confrontation.
Her resignation.
His decision.
The locked door.
Even their distrust.
Emily whispered, “We’ve been following someone else’s script all night.”
Adrian looked furious.
“Not anymore.”
He ripped the resignation letter in half.
Emily stared at him.
“That was legally binding.”
“You can print another.”
Despite herself, she laughed.
For two seconds.
Then the lights went out.
Emergency lighting flickered red.
Security alarms sounded.
Vincent shouted from the hallway.
“Boss!”
Adrian moved toward the door.
“What?”
“The building’s been breached.”
“By whom?”
Vincent looked at Margaret.
Then Isabella.
“Not sure.”
Emily’s phone vibrated.
A new message.
Video.
St. Matthew’s Hospital.
A corridor.
Room 117.
The door stood open.
Inside sat Daniel Carter.
Tied to a chair.
A figure stood behind him.
The camera moved upward.
Emily saw a man’s face.
She recognized him instantly.
He had attended every Romano board meeting for three years.
He had approved Emily’s promotions.
He had signed Harbor compliance reports.
And he was the one person Adrian trusted more than Victor.
Vincent Moretti.
Emily slowly looked toward the hallway.
Vincent was standing there.
Exactly where he had been seconds ago.
May you like
But the man in the live video smiled into the camera and said:
“Adrian, ask the man beside you which one of us is real.”
