Chapter 6 - WHAT ELENA HID INSIDE THE MOON
“Alex signs everything.”
I replayed Damian’s words until they stopped sounding like language.
I had been planning several changes after the wedding.
Nothing unusual for a man with my assets.
Chloe would receive authority over certain household trusts.
She would become emergency guardian for my daughters if anything happened to me.
I had also planned to reorganize several legitimate Vance companies and remove myself from daily management.
Damian knew that.
If Chloe became my wife and I signed those papers, two people would gain more access to my family than anyone else alive.
Chloe.
And Damian.
For the first time, I understood that the marriage itself might never have been the final goal.
It was a door.
I returned to the monitoring room.
Chloe remained in the pool area under quiet surveillance.
She still did not know I had seen the recordings.
Marisol sat across from me.
“Elena’s promise,” I said. “Tell me all of it.”
Marisol folded her hands.
“Three nights before the crash, she came home late.”
“From where?”
“The foundation.”
“What did she say?”
“That she had made a terrible mistake.”
I waited.
“She said she had discovered money disappearing through charities and shell vendors connected to your legitimate companies.”
“Damian.”
“She didn’t say his name.”
“Why not?”
“Because she said if you knew before she had proof, you would confront the person immediately.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“She believed that confrontation would put you and the girls in danger.”
I looked down.
For years, part of me had resented Elena for keeping something from me in her final days.
Now I understood.
She hadn’t doubted my love.
She had doubted my restraint.
And at thirty-nine years old, I couldn’t say she had been unfair.
“What exactly did she make you promise?”
Marisol looked toward the ceiling, toward the girls’ rooms.
“If something happened to her, I was to stay close to Valeria and Sofia.”
“And?”
“If the same person ever came near them, or if your life brought violence into this house, I was to take them somewhere safe until you were thinking clearly.”
I felt anger rise.
Then shame followed it.
“Why didn’t you tell me after she died?”
“Because you weren’t thinking clearly.”
The truth hurt.
I had spent the year after Elena’s death destroying every threat I could identify.
Men disappeared from my organization.
Businesses closed.
Families moved.
I called it protecting my daughters.
Perhaps Elena would have called it proving her point.
“You thought I would hurt them?”
“No.”
Marisol’s answer was immediate.
“I thought you would burn Los Angeles down for them.”
I looked away.
“And sometimes children get burned standing next to the fire.”
For a housekeeper supposedly beneath Chloe’s notice, Marisol had just told me something none of my powerful advisers ever dared say.
I nodded once.
“Thank you.”
She looked surprised.
“For what?”
“For keeping a promise I made difficult to keep.”
Her eyes filled.
Neither of us said anything more.
Hector entered carrying Sofia’s rabbit.
“We found something.”
He placed it on the table.
Under magnification, the blue stitches inside the right ear were different from the rest.
Mariana had hidden the drawing there.
But deeper inside the head was a second repair.
Much older.
Marisol touched it.
“Elena.”
We carefully opened the seam.
This time I reached between layers of fabric instead of into the stuffing.
My fingers touched metal.
I pulled out a tiny silver moon.
Another one.
Not the hollow charm Damian had stolen.
The real charm.
For five years, everyone searching for Elena’s bracelet had assumed the moon hanging from it was the important object.
Elena had created a duplicate.
A decoy.
The real moon had been stitched inside the stuffed rabbit she later gave Sofia.
I turned it over.
A hairline opening ran around its edge.
Hector used a precision tool.
The moon separated.
Inside was a microSD card.
For the first time that day, nobody spoke.
We copied the contents onto an isolated computer.
Folders appeared.
Bank transfers.
Photographs.
Audio files.
Scanned invoices.
Names I recognized.
Companies I recognized.
Money had been siphoned from Vance businesses for almost three years before Elena died.
Damian’s name wasn’t on the transactions.
He was smarter than that.
But the companies eventually led toward people loyal to him.
Then we opened a folder labeled E.
There were eleven audio files.
The first ten were Elena dictating notes.
The eleventh was recorded two days before her death.
I pressed play.
My wife’s voice filled the room.
Five years vanished.
“Elena,” Damian said in the recording, sounding annoyed. “You’re making this bigger than it is.”
“You stole from Alexander.”
“I moved money.”
“You used my foundation.”
“I used an inefficient system.”
“Don’t joke.”
A chair scraped.
Elena’s voice hardened.
“I copied everything.”
Silence.
Then Damian laughed.
“No, you didn’t.”
“You want to find out?”
Another voice spoke.
Female.
Younger.
Terrified.
“Can I go?”
Chloe.
My hand tightened around the edge of the desk.
Elena said, “Not yet.”
Chloe began crying.
“I didn’t know what he was doing.”
“What did you give him?”
“Schedules.”
“Mine?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“My brother owed money.”
Damian interrupted.
“Enough.”
Elena ignored him.
“What else?”
“Car service times.”
My blood stopped moving.
In the monitoring room, Hector slowly stood.
Elena’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“You gave him access to my car?”
“I thought he wanted to put a tracker on it.”
Damian laughed again.
Chloe started pleading.
“I swear to God, Elena, he said nobody would get hurt.”
My wife spoke one final sentence before the recording ended.
“If anything happens to me, Alexander will know.”
Static.
Then another sound.
Damian’s voice, farther from the recorder.
“You think your husband scares me?”
A pause.
“My brother has always been too sentimental to do what needs to be done.”
Chloe answered him.
“I gave you her schedule.”
May you like
Her voice broke.
“You said no one would get hurt.”
