Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WEARING MY FACE
By sunrise, I had learned two important things.
First, somebody wanted Caruso Atlantic's internal systems to show that I had entered Terminal Nine.
Second, whoever that person was had prepared for the possibility that cameras would be reviewed.
The woman in the footage had my height.
My build.
My dark hair.
And a charcoal trench coat nearly identical to one hanging in my closet.
She kept her face turned slightly away from the camera, but at the only moment she looked up, oversized sunglasses covered half of it.
Enough resemblance for anyone who wanted to believe it.
Not enough for me.
“I don't walk like that,” I told Mia.
We were sitting in Dominic's study shortly after six in the morning.
Dominic stood near the windows with Marco.
Noah was downstairs eating pancakes under the supervision of two security officers and my mother, who had been brought to the house without explanation.
Mia froze the footage.
“What do you mean?”
“Watch her right foot.”
The woman walked through the secure corridor.
“She turns it inward slightly.”
Dominic stepped closer.
I replayed it.
Again.
Again.
There.
Subtle.
“Who does that?” he asked.
“I don't know.”
But someone did.
Mia enlarged another frame.
The woman held a document folder under her arm.
“No bag,” I said.
“What?”
“If she were actually me, entering a legal records room, I'd have a laptop case.”
Dominic almost smiled.
I looked at him.
The smile died.
Good.
I wasn't ready for familiar things.
“What was accessed?” I asked.
Mia glanced at Dominic.
He answered.
“Corporate trust records.”
My stomach tightened.
“Which trust?”
“The Atlantic Harbor Trust.”
I knew it.
Dominic's grandfather had created the structure decades earlier to hold several strategic properties that the family never wanted divided during inheritance disputes.
Terminal Nine sat inside it.
“So?”
Dominic rubbed his jaw.
“So someone pulled the original ownership schedules and consent documents.”
“Why use my identity?”
Nobody answered.
I already knew.
Because my signature mattered somewhere.
I walked to the shelves.
Years earlier, I had helped restructure part of Dominic's personal estate after Noah was born. Certain family holdings contained archaic provisions designed to prevent an heir from secretly transferring major assets without a spouse knowing.
At the time, I thought it was almost charming.
Old-world protection.
Family property could not disappear behind closed doors.
“Pull the trust agreement.”
Dominic didn't move.
“Now.”
Mia opened her laptop.
“I have an old version.”
She searched.
Page after page.
Then stopped.
Her expression changed.
“Elena.”
I crossed the room.
She turned the screen.
Section 14.3.
Any transfer exceeding thirty percent of designated waterfront holdings required written acknowledgment by the controlling beneficiary's spouse if the marriage predated the most recent trust amendment.
My name was specifically listed in the amendment.
Elena Sofia Caruso.
I looked at Dominic.
“You need my signature to transfer Terminal Nine.”
“We're not transferring Terminal Nine.”
“Someone is.”
Silence.
Mia continued scrolling.
Then she whispered, “Oh, hell.”
A document had been added to the electronic file three days earlier.
SPOUSAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MATERIAL ASSET TRANSFER.
My name appeared at the bottom.
My signature.
Not my signature.
A very good imitation.
My wedding anniversary date appeared beside it.
I touched the screen.
“I didn't sign this.”
Dominic came beside me.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
His eyes shifted toward mine.
“Because whoever filed it apparently believes you might.”
He looked at Marco.
“Find out who uploaded this.”
Marco left.
I stared at the signature.
Someone had practiced.
The E in Elena was almost perfect.
But my final a curved upward when I signed quickly.
This one curled down.
Tiny difference.
The kind only I would notice.
“Who notarized it?”
Mia read the name.
“Daniel Cross.”
Dominic swore.
“Who is he?”
“Rafael's outside attorney.”
There it was.
Rafael again.
The stadium.
The camera.
The forged signature.
I turned toward Dominic.
“You suspected him before last night.”
“Yes.”
“And instead of telling me someone inside your company might need my signature to steal one of your largest properties, you decided to investigate secretly with the woman you've been kissing.”
His voice was controlled.
“I was trying to keep you out of it.”
“By letting someone use my identity?”
“I didn't know about the forgery.”
“You knew someone was targeting the trust.”
“I knew information had been leaked.”
“And Sloan?”
He looked away.
I hated that he still needed time before answering questions about her.
“I brought Sloan in because she had contacts Rafael trusted.”
“Why did he trust your former crisis consultant?”
“Sloan has relationships everywhere.”
“I noticed.”
“Elena.”
“No. We're not skipping over this because there's a bigger crime. You don't get to hide adultery behind corporate espionage.”
His expression hardened at the word.
“Nothing happened beyond kissing.”
“How many times?”
He didn't answer immediately.
“How many?”
“Three.”
The room became very quiet.
Mia stared at her laptop.
Dominic's voice dropped.
“The first time was two months ago.”
Two months.
I thought backward.
Noah's school concert.
My father's memorial anniversary.
The weekend Dominic told me he needed space because work was crushing him.
“Where?”
“Elena, don't do this to yourself.”
I laughed.
“You are not allowed to protect me from the details of what you did.”
His face tightened.
“Her apartment.”
The answer entered my chest like glass.
“The second?”
“My office.”
Mia quietly stood.
“I'll give you two a minute.”
“No,” I said.
I didn't want privacy.
Privacy was where Dominic's lies had grown.
“The third?”
“Last night.”
“So the television kiss wasn't a performance.”
“No.”
“You wanted to kiss her.”
He didn't answer.
That was enough.
I took my wedding ring off.
Dominic went pale.
“Elena.”
I placed it on the desk between us.
“This isn't because of Sloan alone.”
“Please.”
“It is because someone installed a camera outside our son's bedroom while you were running secret operations with a woman you kissed in her apartment.”
“I can fix the security.”
“You cannot fix what Noah saw.”
“I know.”
“You cannot fix what I saw.”
His eyes were wet now.
Dominic Caruso did not cry.
Not at his father's funeral.
Not when a bullet had torn through his shoulder twelve years earlier.
Not when Noah spent three nights in a neonatal unit after birth.
But his eyes were wet.
I hated that part of me still loved him enough to notice.
“I don't want you leaving the property,” he said.
“That isn't your decision.”
“For safety.”
“You lost the right to confuse control with protection.”
The door opened.
Marco returned holding a printed access report.
He placed it on the desk.
“The forged acknowledgment was uploaded from an internal account.”
“Whose?” Dominic asked.
Marco looked at me first.
Then Dominic.
“Yours.”
Dominic went still.
“My account?”
“Your executive credentials.”
“Impossible.”
“And there's more.”
Marco laid down a second sheet.
The security camera device outside Noah's room had been purchased through a corporate vendor.
Caruso Atlantic.
Authorized by a member of senior management.
My skin prickled.
“Rafael?”
Marco shook his head.
“Not directly.”
“Then who?”
The doorbell rang downstairs.
Nobody in the room moved.
A security officer's voice came over Marco's radio.
“Mr. Caruso, there's a federal investigator at the gate.”
Dominic's expression darkened.
“Name?”
“Special Agent Erin Walsh.”
Mia looked at me.
I knew the name.
Everyone in Chicago corporate enforcement knew the name.
Walsh investigated organized financial crimes.
The radio crackled again.
“She says she has a warrant.”
Dominic turned toward the window.
“For what?”
A pause.
May you like
Then the answer.
“For Mrs. Caruso's arrest.”
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