Chapter 5 - What Adrian Was Really Running From
For the first time since Dante entered the church, his composure cracked.
“Elena is dead.”
Ava watched him.
“Did you identify her body?”
His silence answered.
“The accident?”
“Fire.”
Ava understood.
“Then you never actually saw her.”
“I saw enough.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
Dante turned away.
Six years of grief were suddenly being challenged by one passenger manifest.
They drove to DeLuca Holdings.
The building was nearly empty because most executives had attended the wedding.
Security footage confirmed Richard had entered at 7:42 that morning.
He left at 10:03.
Adrian arrived at 8:51.
Left at 11:20.
They overlapped.
Ava pulled access logs.
Both men had entered the executive archive.
Then Vanessa’s temporary visitor badge appeared.
9:48.
Ava stared.
“Vanessa was here too.”
Three people.
One archive.
One morning.
The betrayal video had been theater.
The theft was the real event.
Dante retrieved Elena’s old archive directory.
E-17 existed.
Description:
CONTINGENCY—MONROE/H.
Ava’s pulse accelerated.
“Monroe.”
Her father.
The file itself had been deleted six years earlier.
On the day Elena supposedly died.
Ava searched backup records.
One copy existed offline.
Location unknown.
Then a message arrived from Vanessa.
This time, a photograph.
Vanessa sat alone in a room.
She looked frightened.
In her hand was a handwritten note.
Ava enlarged it.
I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THE MONEY.
Another message.
I THOUGHT ADRIAN LOVED ME.
Ava’s jaw tightened.
It hurt.
Of course it hurt.
But the anger was changing.
Vanessa had betrayed her willingly.
That did not mean Vanessa deserved whatever Adrian was doing now.
Ava replied:
WHERE ARE YOU?
Vanessa sent coordinates.
Dante’s security team traced them.
An abandoned distribution warehouse once owned by one of Richard’s companies.
They contacted police.
Then Ava received another message.
DON’T BRING DANTE.
Ava looked at him.
“He expects us.”
“Then we don't give him what he expects.”
Dante's security chief coordinated with authorities while Ava and Dante remained at headquarters.
They weren't going to walk blindly into Adrian’s trap.
Instead, Ava kept searching.
If E-17 mattered enough for Adrian to threaten Vanessa, the file could destroy someone.
She searched Elena’s old correspondence.
One encrypted email remained.
Recipient:
Thomas Monroe.
Ava’s father.
Her hands went still.
She opened it.
The body had been erased.
But the attachment name remained:
E17_FINAL_LEDGER.
Dante stared.
“A ledger.”
“Of what?”
“The original theft.”
Twenty-three years earlier.
Ava realized something else.
“If Richard was stealing then, Adrian isn't the mastermind.”
Dante looked at her.
“He’s working for Richard.”
“Or trying to escape him.”
That possibility changed everything.
Ava searched Adrian’s recent company activity.
Three months of unusual access.
Archived contracts.
Old acquisition records.
Insurance documents relating to Elena’s crash.
Adrian had been investigating too.
“Why?”
Dante whispered, “Because I told him something six months ago.”
“What?”
“That I intended to remove Richard from the board.”
Ava looked at him.
“And put Adrian in charge?”
“No.”
Dante held her gaze.
“You.”
Ava stared.
“What?”
“I was planning to appoint you chief financial officer.”
Ava sat back.
Adrian knew.
Suddenly his resentment made sense.
His comments.
His increasing interest in her passwords.
His questions about corporate procedures.
Maybe Adrian hadn't only betrayed her romantically.
Maybe he had decided she was standing between him and something he believed belonged to him.
A call came from the police team.
The warehouse was empty.
But they found Vanessa’s phone.
And blood?
No.
Ava exhaled.
They found something else.
A laptop.
On it was a scheduled video.
Adrian.
They sent the file.
Ava played it.
Adrian appeared alone.
No confidence now.
No Vanessa.
“Ava,” he said.
“If you're seeing this, everything has gone wrong.”
Dante stepped closer.
Adrian continued.
“Vanessa thinks we were running away together. We weren’t.”
Ava felt sick.
“I needed her because Richard trusted her.”
Ava paused the video.
“Richard trusted Vanessa?”
Dante said nothing.
She continued.
Adrian looked directly into the camera.
“The money was supposed to force Richard into the open. But he changed the accounts. He changed everything.”
Adrian glanced over his shoulder.
Then said:
“E-17 proves who killed Thomas Monroe.”
Ava stopped breathing.
Her father.
Adrian leaned toward the camera.
“And it proves what really happened to my mother.”
The video glitched.
Then Adrian said the words that changed the entire investigation.
“Vanessa knows where Elena is.”
The video ended.
Ava immediately called Vanessa’s number.
A police officer answered.
They had the phone.
Ava looked at the last location history.
One address appeared repeatedly.
A house outside the city.
Dante recognized it.
He whispered:
“That was Elena’s childhood home.”
They drove there with police behind them.
The house appeared abandoned.
Dante approached the front door.
It was unlocked.
Inside, a lamp was burning.
Ava heard movement upstairs.
Then a woman’s voice drifted down through the dark house.
“Dante?”
He froze.
May you like
The woman appeared at the top of the staircase.
And Dante whispered the name of the wife he had buried six years earlier.
