Chapter 5 - Eleven Months of Lies
The next morning, I asked Vivian what flowers she wanted at my funeral.
She laughed.
“What kind of question is that?”
We were eating breakfast.
Lucia sat across from us.
Sophie poured coffee.
Damian was reading messages.
I buttered toast.
“Hypothetical.”
Vivian smiled.
“White roses.”
“Why?”
“Elegant.”
Damian looked up.
Sophie nearly dropped the coffee pot.
I continued eating.
“Good to know.”
Vivian touched my hand.
“You're morbid today.”
“Wedding nerves.”
“You? Nervous?”
“Everyone has something they're afraid to lose.”
Her smile softened.
For a moment, she looked exactly like the woman I had believed I loved.
That was the strangest part of betrayal.
The face didn't change.
Only your understanding of it did.
After breakfast, Marco intercepted a message from Damian.
MIDNIGHT AFTER REHEARSAL.
Attached was a location.
An abandoned Moretti warehouse in Yonkers.
We prepared surveillance.
Sophie wanted to come.
“No.”
“You keep saying no like it works on me.”
“This isn't a bedroom camera.”
“My father's death is connected.”
“Which is why you stay here.”
She stepped closer.
“You don't get to decide which truths I'm allowed to hear.”
I stared at her.
“You're right.”
She blinked.
Apparently she had prepared for an argument.
“But you're still not coming.”
“There it is.”
I almost smiled.
At midnight, Damian arrived at the warehouse.
Vivian came next.
Then Detective Keane.
The fourth person surprised me.
Dr. Adrian Cole.
Lucia's cardiologist.
My hands went cold.
Cole had managed my mother's recovery.
He knew every medication.
Every dosage.
Every weakness.
Hidden microphones captured Vivian.
“Lucia still won't sign.”
Cole replied, “Then we don't need her signature.”
Damian frowned.
“The trust requires it.”
“Not if she's medically incompetent.”
Vivian smiled.
“And if she dies?”
Cole shrugged.
“Even cleaner.”
Marco looked at me.
I didn't move.
Keane asked, “What about Sophie?”
Damian answered.
“She takes the fall.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
Then he laughed.
“My father used the same trick on hers.”
There it was.
Twenty-two years reduced to one sentence.
Sophie had been right to demand the truth.
Damian continued.
“Thomas Bennett found the account. Dad planted evidence. Thomas panicked. Then the brakes on his car solved the rest.”
My vision narrowed.
Carlo had murdered Sophie's father.
And Damian knew.
Marco whispered, “We have him.”
“Not all of them.”
Cole opened a medical case.
Inside were syringes.
“One injection for Lucia. One for Massimo.”
Vivian looked at him.
“How fast?”
“Massimo's will resemble cardiac arrest.”
“Before or after the wedding?”
“After.”
Vivian smiled.
“I'd like one night as Mrs. Moretti.”
I felt nothing.
That frightened me more than anger.
Then Keane asked the question that changed everything.
“And Sophie?”
Damian answered.
“She finds the bodies.”
Vivian laughed.
“With the murder weapon in her hand.”
The meeting ended at 12:47.
We had enough evidence for conspiracy.
Enough for attempted fraud.
Enough to reopen Thomas Bennett's murder.
But I wanted the final chain.
The money.
The orders.
Every participant.
When I returned to the estate, Sophie was awake.
She saw my face.
“You heard something.”
“Yes.”
“About Dad?”
I nodded.
She sat slowly.
I told her.
All of it.
She didn't cry at first.
She simply stared at her hands.
“My mother spent twenty years thinking he fell asleep at the wheel.”
“He didn't.”
“Carlo killed him.”
“According to Damian.”
“And Damian knew.”
“Yes.”
Then the tears came.
Quietly.
I sat beside her.
I didn't touch her until she reached for my hand.
Her fingers closed around mine.
“They took his name,” she whispered.
“I'll give it back.”
She looked at me.
“Don't promise things because you're angry.”
“I'm not.”
That surprised both of us.
I wasn't angry.
I was certain.
At 2:30 a.m., Marco called.
“Massimo, we found another transfer.”
“From whom?”
“Vivian.”
“To?”
“Keane.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred thousand.”
“Good.”
“No. There's something else.”
He sent me a photograph.
A bank withdrawal authorization.
It carried Lucia's signature.
Except Lucia had never signed it.
At the bottom was a witness signature.
Sophie Bennett.
Also forged.
Then Marco sent the security image of the person who had submitted it.
I opened the photograph.
For the first time that night, I stopped breathing.
The person standing at the bank counter wasn't Vivian.
It wasn't Damian.
May you like
It was someone who had eaten at my table for twenty years.
And the camera showed his face clearly.
