Chapter 3 - The Woman Behind the Ledger
The photograph had been taken eighteen years earlier.
Meline knew immediately.
Her mother was standing beside her in front of a small bakery in Milwaukee.
Meline was twenty.
Her hair was shorter.
Her face rounder.
Her mother had one arm around her shoulders.
The photo had lived in a frame beside her mother’s bed.
Meline had not seen it since the funeral.
She took one step toward the bodyguard.
“Where did you get that?”
“Rafael’s pocket.”
“That photograph belonged to my mother.”
Lucian studied the image.
On the back, someone had written a date.
And beneath it:
ELENA ALLES — KEEP DAUGHTER OUT.
Meline’s knees nearly weakened.
“My mother’s name was Elena.”
Lucian looked at Dante.
Dante looked stunned.
Mateo had stopped speaking.
For once, his silence did not look calculated.
“What does that mean?” Meline asked.
Nobody answered.
Meline turned toward Lucian.
“You know.”
“I know the name.”
“How?”
Lucian’s jaw tightened.
Dante spoke first.
“Elena Alles worked for Bellini Financial.”
Meline stared at him.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“She worked at a bank.”
Dante nodded slowly.
“Bellini Financial was the holding company behind it.”
Meline felt suddenly cold.
“My mother never mentioned you.”
“She wouldn’t have,” Lucian said.
Meline turned toward him.
“Why?”
Lucian looked at the photograph again.
“Because she was a protected witness.”
The room seemed to move beneath Meline.
“That’s not possible.”
“It is.”
“She was an accountant.”
“Yes.”
“She lived in Milwaukee.”
“After she left Chicago.”
Meline shook her head.
“No. She grew up in Milwaukee.”
“So did many people.”
“You’re lying.”
Lucian accepted the accusation without reacting.
“I understand why you think that.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m something fragile you need to manage.”
Something shifted in his expression.
Respect.
Maybe.
“Fair.”
Meline pointed at the photograph.
“Tell me everything.”
Lucian glanced at the others.
“Not here.”
Mateo laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
Lucian looked at him.
“You’re still in this room because I haven’t decided whether you’re a thief, a fool, or bait.”
Mateo’s face hardened.
“Remember we’re family.”
“I remember everything.”
Carlo returned.
“Rafael’s secure downstairs.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Meline looked at him.
“Why good?”
Lucian answered.
“Because dead men don’t explain photographs.”
An hour later, Meline sat in Lucian’s private office.
No dining table.
No audience.
Only Lucian, Dante, and an old steel file box.
Lucian unlocked it.
Inside were documents faded with age.
Meline recognized her mother’s signature on the first page.
Her breath caught.
ELENA MARIE ALLES.
She touched the ink.
“She never told me.”
“She was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
Dante sat across from her.
“Victor Kane.”
The dead name again.
Meline looked up.
Dante continued.
“Victor was an accountant for Lucian’s father.”
“An accountant?”
“One who knew where everything moved.”
“What happened?”
Lucian answered.
“He sold information.”
“To police?”
“No.”
“To rivals.”
Meline looked between them.
“Your mother discovered it,” Dante said.
Elena had found irregular payments.
Exactly as Meline had.
She had followed them.
Exactly as Meline had.
Victor discovered she was investigating him.
Unlike Meline, Elena had been alone.
Lucian’s father arranged protection.
Moved her out of Chicago.
Created a new employment history.
Kept her daughter’s name out of all organization files.
Meline swallowed.
“Then why did she keep Alles?”
“It was already her married name,” Dante said.
“And my father?”
Silence.
Meline looked up.
“My father left when I was six. That’s what she told me.”
Lucian’s gaze shifted toward Dante.
Meline saw it.
“What?”
Dante rubbed his hands together.
“Elena asked that this part never be told unless there was danger.”
“My mother is dead.”
“Yes.”
“Danger is sitting downstairs with my childhood photograph.”
Dante closed his eyes briefly.
“Your father didn’t leave.”
Meline stopped breathing.
“He died.”
Her voice cracked.
“When?”
“When you were six.”
“How?”
Lucian spoke softly.
“Victor Kane ordered it.”
Meline stood so suddenly the chair scraped backward.
“No.”
Nobody moved.
“You’re lying.”
Dante’s voice was gentle.
“I wish we were.”
“My mother told me he walked out.”
“She chose a story that wouldn’t make you search for answers.”
Meline pressed both hands against the desk.
Her father.
For thirty years, she had carried one version of him.
A coward.
A man who had abandoned them.
A man she refused to miss.
Now these strangers were telling her he had never left.
That her mother had lied to protect her.
Tears burned her eyes.
She hated crying in front of them.
She turned toward the window.
Lucian did not touch her.
Did not tell her to calm down.
Did not fill the silence.
That, strangely, helped.
After a minute, Meline asked, “How did he die?”
“Car accident,” Dante said.
She looked back.
“That’s what the report said.”
“And what actually happened?”
No one answered immediately.
Meline understood.
“Victor.”
“Yes.”
She wiped one tear away.
“So Victor killed my father, tried to silence my mother, supposedly died three years ago, and now his access code is moving money through your companies.”
Lucian nodded.
“That’s what it looks like.”
“And someone hired me through a fake recruiting agency.”
“Yes.”
“Someone wanted me to find this.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That,” Lucian said, “is what worries me.”
Dante opened another folder.
“There’s one more thing.”
Meline almost laughed.
“Of course there is.”
He slid a photograph toward her.
Victor Kane.
Late fifties in the image.
Thin face.
Gray hair.
A scar beside his chin.
Meline stared.
She had seen him.
Not in Chicago.
At her mother’s funeral.
He had stood across the cemetery.
Far from the mourners.
She had assumed he was someone her mother knew.
“He was there.”
Lucian leaned forward.
“Where?”
“My mother’s funeral.”
Dante went pale.
“When?”
“Five months ago.”
Victor Kane had supposedly died three years ago.
Lucian rose.
“Describe exactly what you saw.”
Meline did.
The coat.
The distance.
The way he left before the service ended.
Lucian called Carlo.
“Pull every camera near Saint Agnes Cemetery from the day Elena Alles was buried.”
“That could take hours.”
“Then start now.”
Meline sat down again.
Her anger was replacing shock.
It felt better.
Cleaner.
“What happens to Mateo?”
Lucian watched her.
“You think he’s guilty?”
“I think his codes are being used.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Meline considered.
“No.”
Lucian seemed surprised.
“No?”
“If he were stealing four point eight million himself, he wouldn’t have humiliated me publicly.”
Dante frowned.
“Why not?”
“Because humiliating me made me stubborn.”
Lucian almost smiled.
“Is that a known problem?”
“Yes.”
Meline continued.
“Mateo wanted me gone. Badly. But if he knew exactly what I’d found, he would have destroyed the ledger before I showed Dante.”
“Unless he was confident enough to believe nobody would believe you,” Dante said.
“That’s possible.”
Lucian crossed his arms.
“What else?”
“Mateo knew the staffing agency had closed.”
Dante nodded.
“That bothered me.”
“It bothers me too.”
Meline looked toward the door.
“He investigated me before dinner.”
Lucian’s expression hardened.
“Why?”
“Maybe because he was scared.”
“Or?”
“Because he already knew I wasn’t hired normally.”
Lucian’s phone buzzed.
Carlo.
He answered.
“Yes?”
Carlo’s voice came through faintly.
“We pulled the first cemetery camera.”
Lucian turned on speaker.
“Go.”
“There’s a man matching Victor Kane.”
Dante cursed under his breath.
Meline’s heart hammered.
“He’s alive?”
“Looks like it.”
Carlo paused.
“But there’s more.”
“What?”
“He didn’t come alone.”
Lucian looked at Meline.
Carlo continued.
“A black SUV arrived seven minutes before him.”
“Plate?”
“Obscured.”
“Who got out?”
“We’re enhancing it.”
Lucian’s face remained still.
“How long?”
“Give me ten minutes.”
The call ended.
Meline looked at Lucian.
“If Victor is alive, why fake his death?”
“To disappear.”
“And why return now?”
Lucian’s gaze went to her mother’s photograph.
“Maybe he never left.”
Downstairs, Rafael finally agreed to talk.
Lucian wanted Meline to remain upstairs.
She refused.
“He carried my photograph.”
“He may be dangerous.”
“He’s tied to my family.”
Lucian looked at her for a long moment.
Then nodded.
“Stay behind me.”
“I don’t need—”
“Meline.”
His voice softened.
“Please.”
That stopped her.
Not the order.
The word.
Please.
She followed.
Rafael sat in a secure room with his hands restrained to a steel ring built into the table.
His expensive suit was torn at one shoulder.
A bruise darkened his cheek.
He looked at Meline and laughed.
“There she is.”
Lucian sat opposite him.
“Why did you have her photograph?”
Rafael smiled.
“Insurance.”
“Against what?”
“You.”
Lucian leaned back.
Rafael looked at Meline.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“Why they hired you.”
Lucian’s eyes hardened.
“Careful.”
Rafael laughed.
“You think you’re protecting her now?”
Meline stepped closer.
“Who hired me?”
Rafael’s smile disappeared.
“Victor.”
Dante inhaled sharply.
“Why?”
“Because he knew she’d find the money.”
Meline’s stomach tightened.
“He wanted me to expose it?”
“No.”
Rafael looked directly at her.
“He wanted you blamed for it.”
Silence.
Meline stared.
Rafael continued.
“The plan was simple. Bring in the dead accountant’s daughter. Give her access. Move money. Let her discover enough to look guilty. Then when the Bellinis found the losses, guess whose fingerprints would be everywhere?”
Meline felt sick.
“Mine.”
Rafael nodded.
“Victor wanted Lucian to think Elena’s daughter came back for revenge.”
Lucian’s jaw tightened.
“And Mateo?”
Rafael smiled again.
“That’s the funny part.”
“What?”
“Mateo wasn’t supposed to be accused.”
Meline looked at Lucian.
“Then why use his codes?”
Rafael leaned forward.
“Because somebody changed Victor’s plan.”
Lucian’s eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
Rafael opened his mouth.
A violent crash sounded in the corridor.
The lights went out.
Meline heard Carlo shout.
Lucian grabbed her arm and pulled her down.
A gunshot exploded beyond the door.
Rafael started laughing in the darkness.
Then a second shot came from inside the room.
When the emergency lights flickered on, Rafael was slumped over the table.
Blood spread across his shirt.
Dante stared at the open ventilation panel above him.
Someone had fired through it.
Lucian pushed Meline behind him.
Carlo burst through the door.
“Lock the building!”
Meline looked at Rafael.
His lips moved.
She stepped closer.
Lucian tried to stop her.
Rafael whispered two words.
“Ask Mateo.”
Then his head dropped.
At that exact moment, Meline’s phone buzzed.
A new message appeared.
I KNOW WHO KILLED YOUR FATHER.
Below it was an address.
May you like
And beneath the address were four words:
COME ALONE OR HE DIES.
