Chapter 6 - THE PRICE MY BROTHER PUT ON OUR LIVES
“Bring Vincent inside.”
I didn't recognize my own voice.
Isabella closed the blue notebook.
“Dominic, please don't do anything foolish.”
I looked at her.
“For four years, I believed you were dead. I'm standing here looking at the man who let me believe it.”
“Then don't waste another minute becoming someone Sophie has to fear.”
Her words stopped me.
I glanced through the open doorway.
Sophie sat at a little table with Mrs. Whitaker.
She was arranging animal crackers into a crooked circle.
Happy.
Safe for the moment.
I took a slow breath.
“Fine.”
Vincent entered.
He saw the notebook immediately.
All the color disappeared from his face.
“Where did you find that?”
Isabella folded her arms.
“I kept copies of the records you thought Rafe destroyed.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
I pushed the notebook toward him.
“Explain the payments.”
He didn't sit.
“Some of that money paid for the cottage.”
“How much?”
“About a hundred thousand over four years.”
I stared.
“And the rest?”
“Rafe moved it through accounts I could access. He told me I'd be signing routine security expenses.”
“You believed him?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
Vincent looked ashamed.
“By the time I understood, my name was on too much of it.”
“So you continued.”
“Yes.”
The admission hung between us.
I wanted to shout.
Instead, I asked the question that mattered.
“Did you profit from any of it?”
“No.”
“Can you prove that?”
“I kept the receipts. Every payment I made for Isabella and Sophie came out of the same account. Whatever I didn't use remained untouched.”
Isabella looked stunned.
“You told me the money came from your savings.”
“I didn't want you to know what Rafe was doing.”
“Why?”
“Because you would have tried to stop him.”
She shook her head.
“Of course I would have.”
Vincent finally sat.
He looked smaller than I remembered.
“When Rafe first threatened Isabella, he told me men inside our organization were planning to kill Dominic.”
I stared at him.
“He said Isabella's investigation could expose them before he knew who was involved.”
“Rafe was the one involved,” I said.
Vincent nodded.
“I know that now.”
“You knew years ago.”
His voice cracked.
“I suspected. But I was afraid that if I moved her, he'd find Sophie first.”
Isabella stepped closer.
“And you never thought I deserved to make that decision?”
Vincent looked at her.
“You did.”
“Then why didn't you give me the choice?”
He couldn't answer.
That silence told us everything.
Mrs. Whitaker appeared at the doorway.
“Dominic? Someone should see this.”
She held an envelope.
Inside were photographs of several letters.
Isabella recognized them immediately.
“My letters.”
Mrs. Whitaker nodded.
“Isabella showed me copies after she escaped. She wanted me to understand why she was afraid to trust anyone from the Moretti family.”
I examined one.
Dominic, I don't know whether you chose this, but I need you to know our daughter was born healthy. She has your eyebrows. I wish you could see her.
I couldn't finish reading.
I lowered the page.
“Who took the originals?”
Isabella looked at Vincent.
He shook his head.
“I gave them to Rafe. He told me he'd deliver them when it was safe.”
I stood.
For a moment, I saw the past four years in an entirely different way.
Isabella writing by a window.
Sophie sleeping nearby.
My brother collecting the letters.
Rafe deciding which parts of my life I was permitted to know.
I turned to Isabella.
“I kept your yellow roses.”
She stared.
“What?”
“In the garden. I had them replanted every spring.”
Her lips parted.
“I thought you hated me.”
“I thought I had failed you.”
We stood in silence.
Then she whispered, “You should have questioned them.”
“Yes.”
“You should have looked harder.”
“Yes.”
“You should have known your own brother was lying.”
I swallowed.
“I should have.”
She began crying.
Not loudly.
Just tears slipping down a face that had spent too many years pretending to be strong.
I moved closer.
But I stopped before touching her.
“Bella, I can't give those years back.”
“I know.”
“I can spend the rest of my life showing you that none of this was what I wanted.”
She looked at me.
For one impossible second, I thought she might reach for my hand.
Then Vincent spoke.
“There's something you both need to understand.”
We turned.
He reached into his coat and placed a folded piece of paper on the table.
It was an old photocopy of a security instruction.
The same order Isabella had been shown.
But beneath the printed text was another marking.
A small stamped letter.
R.
Vincent pointed to it.
“Rafe used a private authorization stamp for orders he didn't want entered into the main system.”
I stared at the paper.
“Why keep this?”
“Because I knew one day you'd ask.”
“Then why wait four years?”
Vincent looked at Isabella.
“Because I was afraid he'd kill all three of us.”
Before I could respond, Isabella turned the page over.
On the back was a handwritten schedule.
A date.
A location.
The Moretti Foundation's annual benefit gala.
Tomorrow evening.
Beneath the schedule were three words.
Expose Isabella publicly.
My blood went cold.
Vincent looked between us.
“Rafe knows she's alive.”
Isabella gripped the table.
“How?”
May you like
Vincent's voice became barely audible.
“Because he isn't planning to kill you, Isabella. He's planning to make everyone believe you stole the money.”
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