Chapter 4 - THE LETTER HER MOTHER DIED PROTECTING
Grant stepped between the weapon and Vittorio.
“Put it down.”
Elias Holloway’s face tightened.
“Move.”
“No.”
“Grant.”
“You don’t get to say my name like you were here yesterday.”
Elias lowered the gun slightly.
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“You had twenty-two years to do that.”
“I did.”
Grant laughed.
The sound was sharp and wounded.
“By letting me think you were dead?”
“Yes.”
That answer silenced him.
Elias looked beyond Grant toward Amara.
“The letter.”
Amara folded it and put it inside her uniform pocket.
“No.”
Sebastian almost smiled.
Elias stared at her.
“You have no idea what you’re holding.”
“My mother wrote my name on it. That makes it mine.”
“Your mother was trying to protect you.”
“So are a lot of people tonight.”
She looked from Vittorio to Elias.
“And apparently lying is everybody’s favorite method.”
Sebastian moved to Amara’s side.
“You want the letter, explain why.”
Elias glanced at Vittorio.
“Because he hasn’t told you everything.”
Vittorio sighed.
“Elias.”
“No.”
Elias’s voice hardened.
“We spent two decades protecting Romano secrets. Look what it cost our children.”
Grant’s face went still.
Sebastian said, “What hasn’t he told me?”
Elias lowered the weapon.
“Evelyn Cole didn’t die because Dominic discovered she had evidence.”
Amara felt the room tilt.
“Then why?”
Elias looked at her.
“Because she identified someone else in the records.”
“Who?”
“A person Vittorio refused to believe was involved.”
Sebastian turned to his father.
“Who?”
Vittorio’s silence answered before his mouth did.
Elias said it.
“Sebastian’s mother.”
Nobody moved.
Sebastian stared at him.
“My mother?”
Elias nodded.
“Isabella Romano’s authorization appeared on several transfers.”
Sebastian’s face hardened.
“My mother spent half her life running hospitals and shelters.”
“Exactly,” Elias said. “She had access.”
Vittorio stepped forward.
“She was being used.”
“You never proved that.”
“I knew my wife.”
“You also knew Dominic.”
Vittorio stopped.
That landed.
Amara’s mind raced.
Her mother had uncovered fraudulent medical accounts.
Sebastian’s mother had overseen charitable healthcare programs.
If Isabella’s signature appeared in the records, the connection could have destroyed both families.
Sebastian turned toward Vittorio.
“Was my mother under investigation?”
“Yes.”
“You told me she died from cancer without knowing any of this.”
“She did die from cancer.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Vittorio looked older than ever.
“She discovered the forged authorizations two months before she died.”
Sebastian closed his eyes briefly.
“What did she do?”
“She started helping us.”
Elias laughed bitterly.
“After denying it for weeks.”
“She was dying.”
“And Evelyn was already dead.”
Amara flinched.
Vittorio snapped, “Enough.”
“No,” Amara said.
Both men looked at her.
“Not enough.”
Her voice shook, but she continued.
“My mother has been dead twelve years. I spent twelve years believing some drunk driver hit her on the way home from work.”
She looked at Vittorio.
“You knew that wasn’t true.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew someone connected to this family was responsible.”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me everything.”
Vittorio lowered his eyes.
“Evelyn discovered that one patient assistance account had been used repeatedly to approve transfers Isabella never signed.”
“Who had access?”
“Three people.”
“Who?”
“Isabella. Dominic.”
He paused.
“And me.”
Amara stared.
Sebastian’s gaze sharpened.
“You?”
Vittorio nodded.
“That’s why Dominic was able to turn everyone against each other. Any transfer could be made to look like it came from one of us.”
Elias said, “Evelyn found an audit trail showing the access came from a private terminal at the Romano estate.”
Sebastian looked around the cellar.
“This house?”
“The old house,” Vittorio said. “Before this wing was rebuilt.”
“Who was there that night?”
Vittorio hesitated.
“Your mother. Dominic. Me.”
Elias’s expression hardened.
“And Celeste’s father.”
That was new.
Sebastian frowned.
“Richard Warren?”
Amara remembered Celeste’s words upstairs.
My father spent twenty years telling us Vittorio destroyed ours.
Elias nodded.
“Richard handled outside legal work for the Foundation.”
“What happened to him?”
“Prison,” Sebastian said. “Financial fraud. He died there.”
Vittorio shook his head.
“Another lie.”
Sebastian stared.
Amara almost laughed from disbelief.
“How many dead people in this family are actually dead?”
“Nobody knows,” Grant muttered.
Elias continued.
“Richard Warren took the fall for Dominic.”
Sebastian’s expression changed.
“Celeste thinks my father framed hers.”
“Yes.”
“And Dominic used that.”
“Yes.”
Everything began fitting together.
Celeste had not entered Sebastian’s life by accident.
Her relationship with him had been built on a grievance Dominic carefully fed.
Amara said, “So he convinced her to spy on Sebastian.”
Vittorio nodded.
“Most likely.”
“Then why frame me?”
Elias looked at her.
“Because Celeste heard your name.”
Amara froze.
“What?”
“Dominic has been looking for Evelyn Cole’s daughter for years.”
Sebastian stepped closer to her.
“Why didn’t he find her?”
“She used her married name in most records.”
“My parents divorced when I was little,” Amara said slowly.
Elias nodded.
“After Evelyn died, you eventually returned to Cole.”
Amara’s stomach turned.
“And then I got a job here.”
“Which should have been impossible.”
Sebastian looked at Grant.
Grant immediately understood.
“Household applications are screened.”
“Yes.”
“Someone approved her.”
Sebastian’s eyes hardened.
“Celeste.”
Amara shook her head.
“She wasn’t involved in hiring me.”
“No,” Grant said.
“Who was?” Sebastian asked.
Grant looked disturbed.
“Your aunt.”
Sebastian went silent.
Aunt Helena Romano.
His father’s older sister.
The quietest member of the Romano family.
Widowed.
Charitable.
Almost invisible in business.
She had recommended Amara after meeting her briefly at a church fundraiser.
At least that was the story.
Sebastian looked at Vittorio.
“Is Helena involved?”
Vittorio did not answer.
Sebastian’s voice dropped.
“Father.”
“I don’t know.”
“That means yes is possible.”
“Yes.”
A noise came from upstairs.
A heavy impact.
Then Brooke screamed again.
This time close.
Elias turned toward the stairs.
“Dominic is moving her.”
Sebastian’s priorities snapped into place.
“Grant, with me.”
Amara stepped forward.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Sebastian—”
“You have the letter and the ledger.”
“And you have no idea whether the missing pages are in my childhood house.”
“That is exactly why you are not going near Dominic.”
Amara folded her arms.
“You know what Celeste did because I heard her upstairs.”
“Yes.”
“You know she was being watched because I noticed her hand.”
“Yes.”
“You know my mother is connected to the missing pages because I’m standing here.”
“Yes.”
“Then stop treating me like evidence you can put in a locked drawer.”
Sebastian stared at her.
Grant looked away, wisely hiding a smile.
Finally Sebastian said, “You stay behind me.”
Amara nodded.
“That I can accept.”
Elias led them through a second cellar exit opening behind the kitchen pantry.
The mansion felt wrong.
Too quiet.
Half the lights were out.
A dinner table prepared for thirty guests sat untouched beneath the chandeliers.
Brooke’s chair was empty.
So was Celeste’s.
On the table, a single wineglass stood beside a phone.
Sebastian approached it.
The phone rang.
Dominic.
Sebastian answered.
“Where is she?”
His uncle laughed.
“Which one?”
“Brooke.”
“Safe.”
“Celeste?”
“Less safe.”
Sebastian’s face did not move.
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
“The missing pages aren’t in the ledger.”
A pause.
Dominic’s voice changed.
“So Vittorio told you.”
“He told me enough.”
“Your father has always been excellent at telling half a truth.”
Sebastian glanced toward Vittorio.
“What half did he leave out?”
Dominic laughed softly.
“Ask him who ordered Evelyn Cole followed the night she died.”
Amara went cold.
Sebastian looked at Vittorio.
His father’s face lost color.
Dominic continued.
“Go ahead, Sebastian.”
“Ask him.”
Amara could barely breathe.
Sebastian covered the phone.
“Did you?”
Vittorio stared at Amara.
“I ordered someone to watch her.”
Her voice came out thin.
“Who?”
He did not answer.
Dominic did.
Even through the phone, everyone heard it.
“Isabella.”
Sebastian’s mother.
Amara stepped backward.
“No.”
Dominic’s voice was almost gentle.
“Your precious Isabella Romano was the last person seen following Evelyn Cole before the car hit her.”
Sebastian’s face went blank.
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
The phone chimed.
A video arrived.
Old security footage.
Grainy.
Timestamped twelve years earlier.
A younger Evelyn Cole crossed a hospital parking lot.
Behind her walked a dark-haired woman in an elegant coat.
Sebastian stared.
He recognized her immediately.
His mother.
Isabella Romano.
The footage continued.
Evelyn entered her car.
Isabella entered another.
Both vehicles drove away.
Twenty-six minutes later, Evelyn Cole was struck and killed.
Amara’s eyes filled.
Sebastian did not speak.
Dominic whispered through the phone.
“Now ask your father why he buried that footage.”
The call ended.
Amara turned toward Vittorio.
Sebastian did too.
May you like
And this time, neither of them looked at him like a survivor.
They looked at him like a suspect.
