Chapter 10 - Leora’s Father Left One Warning
It was Celeste.
Leora’s aunt.
Not Marisol.
Anger replaced shock.
“How do you know that name?”
Celeste closed the door.
“Your mother told me.”
“You used her access.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To retrieve something Isabella hid here.”
Renzo’s expression hardened.
“You broke into my house.”
“I couldn’t risk asking permission.”
“Try me.”
Celeste produced a small cassette.
Marisol’s handwriting covered the label.
FOR LEORA ONLY.
They found an old player.
Leora pressed play.
Her mother’s voice returned.
“Little Lark, if Elias survived, then everything we feared has already happened.”
Leora gripped the table.
Marisol explained that the network had one final safeguard.
A list of beneficiaries.
Not criminals.
Children.
Families.
People whose inheritances had been quietly built from laundered money.
Many had no idea.
If authorities indiscriminately seized everything, innocent people would be destroyed.
That was why Elias had delayed releasing the complete ledger.
There was also one name that could not be exposed publicly.
Renzo Matera.
Renzo looked up.
Marisol continued.
“Renzo was a child when an account was created in his name. Isabella intended to make him the legal owner of the network if anything happened to her.”
Renzo understood.
“She built the evidence before I was old enough to know.”
“Yes,” Leora said.
The entire federal case suddenly made sense.
Isabella had not invented everything.
She had activated old documents.
Legally, Renzo appeared connected to accounts dating back decades.
To clear him permanently, they needed the original trust instrument.
Marisol had hidden it.
The cassette provided the location.
Conrad’s first law office.
Demolished ten years earlier.
But its records had been moved to a storage facility in Queens.
They found twelve boxes.
In the last one, Leora discovered the trust.
Renzo Matera, beneficiary.
Isabella Matera, settlor.
And a witness signature.
Conrad Priest.
Renzo stared at it.
“Conrad knew.”
Leora’s phone rang.
Hospital.
Conrad was awake.
They went immediately.
He confessed.
Years earlier, Isabella forced him to witness the trust.
Later he joined Marisol and Elias to destroy the network.
But he never told Renzo because Isabella threatened Gianna.
“You let me nearly go to prison,” Renzo said.
Conrad looked ashamed.
“I thought the trust had been destroyed.”
“You thought wrong.”
“Yes.”
Leora stood beside the bed.
“Who killed my mother?”
Conrad’s eyes filled.
“I don’t know.”
She almost walked away.
Then he said, “But I know who ordered it.”
Leora stopped.
Conrad reached beneath his pillow and produced a folded photograph.
A younger Marisol stood beside Isabella.
Between them was another woman.
Leora recognized her immediately.
Miriam Vale.
Renzo’s attorney.
Conrad whispered, “Your mother trusted the wrong person.”
Leora stared at the photograph.
At that exact moment, her phone vibrated.
A message from Miriam.
COME ALONE.
I KNOW WHO KILLED MARISOL.
Leora looked toward the hospital door.
May you like
It was already opening.
And Miriam Vale was standing on the other side...
