Chapter 5 - The Account That Shouldn't Exist
“Don't open the gate,” Rafael said.
Victor smiled at the camera.
Dominic Moretti didn't.
He was older than Rafael by nearly twenty years, but the family resemblance was unmistakable.
“Your uncle?” I asked.
“Unfortunately.”
My father held the torn paper higher.
“June needs to hear what her mother actually wrote.”
I wanted that paper.
He knew it.
Rafael knew it too.
“No.”
I turned.
“No?”
“You're not meeting them alone.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“Good.”
We met them in a secured reception room.
Victor looked at Serena first.
“You've caused enough trouble.”
She moved closer to me.
I had spent my life believing Serena was Dad's favorite.
Watching her shrink beneath his gaze made me wonder whether being favored had simply meant being controlled differently.
Victor turned to me.
“That dress looked better on Serena.”
I smiled.
“Hello to you too.”
Dominic watched Rafael.
“You always did collect strays.”
Rafael's voice remained quiet.
“Be careful.”
Two words.
Dominic stopped smiling.
Dad placed the torn letter on the table.
I reached for it.
He covered it with his hand.
“First, the flash drive.”
“No.”
“June.”
“You already traded me once this week. Your bargaining privileges are suspended.”
Rafael looked down.
I suspected he was hiding a smile.
Victor wasn't.
“You have no idea what you're involved in.”
“Then educate me.”
He removed his hand.
I took the letter.
The missing sentence continued:
...not believe that my accident was random if Victor ever gains control of Account 17.
My vision blurred.
Below it:
The money belongs to June because the seed capital came from the trust my father left her. Victor used it without permission. I created Account 17 to document every dollar. If anything happens to me, June must take these records to federal investigators.
I looked up.
“You stole my trust.”
Victor's face tightened.
“I invested it.”
“You stole it.”
“I built a company with it.”
“Mom caught you.”
“She didn't understand what was necessary.”
My heart went cold.
“What happened to her?”
“I did not kill your mother.”
Not the answer I asked for.
Rafael heard it too.
“Who did?”
Dominic stood.
“This conversation is over.”
Rafael didn't move.
“No. Now it's beginning.”
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
For one second, the room felt dangerous in a way nothing before it had.
Then Victor said something I didn't expect.
“Laura was meeting Rafael's father the night she died.”
Rafael froze.
“What?”
Dad looked at him.
“Ask yourself why.”
Dominic moved toward the door.
Rafael blocked him.
“Sit down.”
Dominic smiled.
“You still think your father died believing I betrayed him?”
Silence.
Rafael's father had died six years ago.
Heart attack, according to public records.
Dominic leaned closer.
“He knew exactly what Laura Callow discovered.”
Then alarms erupted throughout the estate.
Rafael grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the windows.
His security chief rushed in.
“Fire in the archive room.”
The flash drive.
We ran.
Smoke filled the corridor.
Sprinklers activated.
Someone had entered the estate while all of us were distracted.
When we reached the archive room, the computer was burning.
But that wasn't what stopped me.
Written across the wall in black marker were five words:
LAURA CALLOW IS STILL ALIVE.
Then Serena screamed from behind us.
May you like
We turned.
My father was gone...
