Chapter 3 - The Missing Maid
The name was SALVATORE.
Harper stared at it.
Victor took the photograph upstairs.
Caleb was treated by a doctor Victor trusted.
By eight o’clock, the estate was locked down.
Nobody left.
Nobody entered.
And Evelyn was missing.
Victor summoned Harper to his study.
The poisoned glass sat inside an evidence bag.
“You found it.”
“My men did.”
“You knew where I hid it?”
“I watched the furnace corridor footage.”
Harper folded her arms.
“So you really do have cameras everywhere.”
“Apparently I needed better people watching them.”
Victor placed her father’s photograph on the desk.
“Your father’s name?”
“Thomas Carter.”
“What did he do?”
“Accountant.”
“For whom?”
“He told us he worked for shipping companies.”
Victor opened a drawer and removed an older photograph.
Harper’s breath caught.
Thomas Carter stood in the background.
Victor’s father stood beside him.
“They knew each other,” Victor said.
“That doesn’t mean my father was involved with your family.”
“No.”
Victor opened the black ledger.
“But this might.”
He turned to an old entry.
THOMAS CARTER — TRUST ACCOUNT.
Harper sat down.
“No.”
“Your father managed money for mine.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I knew my father.”
Victor’s eyes stayed on her.
“I thought I knew mine.”
That silenced her.
A guard entered.
“We found Evelyn’s phone.”
“Where?”
“Her room.”
“Evelyn?”
“No.”
The phone contained photographs of Victor’s ledger.
Messages with Arthur.
And one unsent draft.
Victor read it aloud.
“Harper doesn’t know why she’s here.”
Harper’s skin prickled.
There was more.
“When she finds Salvatore’s account, everything changes.”
Victor looked at her.
“What account?”
“I have no idea.”
They searched the ledger.
No Salvatore.
They searched Victor’s digital records.
Nothing.
Then Harper remembered something.
“The book Evelyn photographed.”
Victor frowned.
“This one?”
“No. She photographed this one, but she kept moving her phone toward the lower corner.”
Harper pointed toward the desk.
“There was something underneath.”
Victor pulled open the bottom drawer.
Empty.
Harper crouched.
A scratch ran along the interior wood.
She pressed it.
The false bottom released.
Inside was a thin red ledger.
Victor went still.
“I’ve never seen this.”
Harper opened it.
The first pages contained coded transactions dating back twenty years.
Then she found Thomas Carter.
Her father had not been stealing money.
He had been tracing it.
Millions had disappeared through shell companies.
Someone had been draining the Romano organization for decades.
Beside several transfers were initials.
A.R.
Arthur Rossi.
But the oldest transactions began before Arthur had power.
The initials were S.R.
“Salvatore Rossi,” Victor whispered.
“Arthur’s father?”
Victor nodded.
“My father’s closest friend.”
Harper turned another page.
A folded letter slipped out.
It was addressed to Victor’s father.
Harper recognized the handwriting.
Her father’s.
Victor opened it.
If anything happens to me, Salvatore knows I discovered the second account.
Harper’s hands began trembling.
“My father died in a car accident.”
Victor looked at her.
“So did mine.”
They stared at each other.
Two dead fathers.
One hidden ledger.
One family of traitors.
A knock came.
Daniel entered.
“We found Evelyn.”
“Where?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Not where you’re going to expect.”
He handed Victor a security photograph.
Harper looked.
Evelyn was standing inside a room beneath the estate.
A room Harper had never known existed.
May you like
And beside her stood a man Harper had buried twelve years earlier.
Her father.
