Chapter 12 - The Account That Shouldn’t Exist
Renzo ignored his wound.
They contacted federal protection.
The convoy changed routes with ninety seconds remaining.
At midnight, shots struck an empty decoy vehicle.
Elias survived.
The sniper was arrested.
He carried payment instructions.
Leora traced them.
The account belonged to a corporation dissolved twenty-one years earlier.
Ames Meridian.
Tarquin’s father.
But someone had reactivated it.
Three months ago.
Using Gianna’s electronic signature.
Gianna swore she had never seen the documents.
Leora believed her.
The signature had been copied from the engagement agreement.
The date matched the day Gianna and Renzo announced their engagement.
Someone had been planning this from the beginning.
Leora reconstructed every event.
Renzo’s engagement.
Gianna’s affair.
Tarquin’s manipulation.
The forty million.
The federal warrant.
Everything required knowledge of private conversations from both families.
Someone had been listening.
They searched the Priest estate.
Microphones.
Seven.
Matera offices.
Nine.
Renzo’s vehicles.
Two.
The surveillance equipment had been installed by the same security contractor.
Vale Strategic Protection.
Miriam’s company.
Renzo stared at her.
Miriam looked genuinely shocked.
“I sold that division five years ago.”
“To whom?”
She checked.
A holding company.
Leora traced it.
Three shells later, she reached the owner.
Conrad Priest.
They returned to the hospital.
His room was empty.
The bed was made.
No discharge record.
No security footage.
Gianna panicked.
“He can barely walk.”
Leora found a note beneath the pillow.
I’m finishing what Marisol and I started.
There was an address.
Pier 17.
Again.
They arrived after midnight.
Conrad stood inside the warehouse.
Across from him was Isabella.
She had escaped federal transport with help from compromised officers.
Both held guns.
Neither pointed them at the other.
Leora understood.
“You were working together.”
Gianna gasped.
Conrad shook his head.
“No.”
Isabella smiled.
“Sometimes.”
The truth was uglier.
Conrad had purchased the surveillance company to watch Isabella.
Isabella discovered it and used his own equipment against him.
Every side had been spying on every other.
But now Conrad had something Isabella needed.
The master account authentication device.
A small metal token.
“If I destroy this,” Conrad said, “the money stays frozen forever.”
Isabella raised her weapon.
Gianna screamed, “Dad!”
Leora stepped forward.
“Isabella.”
The older woman looked at her.
“You don’t need it.”
“Excuse me?”
“I already moved the money.”
Silence.
Even Renzo looked at Leora.
Isabella laughed.
“You couldn’t.”
“I didn’t.”
Leora held up her phone.
“The Treasury did.”
The master account had been frozen and transferred into evidentiary custody hours earlier.
Isabella’s empire was now numbers on a government server.
For the first time, she looked defeated.
Federal agents entered.
This time, none belonged to Pierce.
Isabella dropped her weapon.
Conrad dropped his.
It seemed finished.
Then Leora noticed something on the account statement.
One transaction had cleared before the freeze.
Ten million dollars.
Destination:
LV FOUNDATION.
Her initials.
Leora Vance.
She stared at the date.
The account had been created seventeen years ago.
By Elias.
Her father.
Renzo looked over her shoulder.
“Leora?”
She called Elias.
He answered.
“Dad.”
Silence.
“What is the LV Foundation?”
Another silence.
Then Elias said, “There’s something I never told you about why I disappeared.”
Leora gripped the phone.
“What?”
May you like
Her father took a breath.
And said, “I wasn’t hiding from Isabella. I was hiding from you...”
