Chapter 4 - My Sister Left More Than a Wedding Dress
The door opened.
Serena stood there.
Barefoot.
Dirty.
Alive.
I pushed past Rafael.
“Serena!”
She collapsed against me.
For several seconds, I forgot everything.
The wedding.
The debt.
The forged signatures.
I simply held my little sister.
Then she whispered, “Dad knows.”
I pulled back.
“Knows what?”
“That I found Mom's records.”
Rafael closed the door.
Serena flinched when she saw him.
“You married him?”
“You disappeared.”
“I was trying to stop the wedding.”
“By vanishing?”
“I thought Dad would cancel it.”
I laughed once.
“You seriously underestimated how replaceable he thinks daughters are.”
Her face crumpled.
“June—”
“Later. Who brought you here?”
“No one. I came myself.”
She explained.
Two weeks before the wedding, she had overheard Victor arguing with a former Callow accountant.
The accountant mentioned Parcel C.
Serena searched Victor's office and found the key.
She came here.
Found our mother's files.
Then somebody followed her.
“Who?”
“I never saw his face.”
She had escaped through a loading dock but dropped her phone.
She had spent the last three days hiding with a friend because she believed Victor was watching everyone she knew.
“Why didn't you call me?”
“I thought your phone was monitored.”
Rafael and I exchanged a glance.
Possible.
Serena reached into her coat.
“I took this.”
A flash drive.
Back at the estate, we opened it on an isolated computer.
My mother's files appeared.
Transactions.
Recorded conversations.
Scanned documents.
Then a video.
Laura Callow appeared on-screen.
My mother.
Alive again for seven impossible minutes.
“If June finds this,” she said, “Victor has failed to bury the truth.”
I stopped breathing.
She described fraudulent shipping contracts.
Money laundering.
False invoices.
And Victor's partnership with Dominic Moretti—Rafael's uncle.
Rafael went completely still.
The recording continued.
“Dominic believes Victor is loyal. Victor believes Dominic will protect him. Both are wrong.”
Then Mom looked directly into the camera.
“There is another account. Victor doesn't know I copied it.”
The video ended.
Serena pointed at the file list.
“There.”
ACCOUNT 17.
Password protected.
We tried dates.
Names.
Nothing.
Then I remembered the painting.
The fundraiser date.
Eight months ago.
Why had Victor been there?
I entered the date from Rafael's painting.
ACCESS GRANTED.
Rafael looked at me.
I opened the account.
$11.6 million had passed through it.
The beneficiary field contained my name.
June Elizabeth Callow.
I stared.
“I've never seen this.”
Rafael leaned closer.
“Look at the current balance.”
$3,800,000.
Exactly my father's debt.
Then another line appeared.
AUTHORIZED SUCCESSOR: JUNE CALLOW.
Serena covered her mouth.
The debt had never belonged to Victor.
The money legally traced back to me.
Before anyone could speak, Rafael's security system chimed.
Someone was at the estate gate.
The camera feed appeared.
My father stood outside.
Beside him was a gray-haired man I had never seen.
Rafael had.
His face turned to stone.
May you like
“Dominic.”
And my father looked directly into the security camera and held up the missing half of my mother's letter...
