Chapter 3 - WHAT MADELINE WAS PROTECTING
Dominic moved between Madeline and Emily.
It was instinctive.
Madeline noticed.
Pain flashed across her face before anger replaced it.
“You followed me?” Dominic asked.
“I’m your fiancée.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No. You disappeared from our dinner to interrogate a waitress.”
Emily stiffened.
Madeline looked at her.
For the first time, there was no superiority in her expression.
There was fear.
Dominic lifted the torn page.
“What is this?”
Madeline stared at it.
“I don’t know.”
“You just said she was never supposed to find it.”
Madeline closed her eyes.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Then explain what you meant.”
“I meant this room.”
Dominic waited.
Madeline folded her arms.
“Your father used it. You told me that once.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Her eyes flickered.
Emily saw it.
Another lie.
Dominic did too.
“Who gave you the key?”
“I don’t have a key.”
Emily stepped forward.
“Someone stole it from my locker tonight.”
Madeline looked at her.
“You think I search waitresses’ lockers?”
“I think you had Ray’s master key yesterday.”
Madeline turned sharply toward Ray.
He looked away.
Her face changed.
“You told her?”
Dominic’s voice dropped.
“So you did have it.”
“For an earring.”
“There was no earring,” Ray said.
Madeline stared at him.
Something in her expression cracked.
Not guilt.
Betrayal.
“You told me you wouldn’t get involved.”
Ray’s shoulders sagged.
“I already was.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Who was with you three nights ago?”
Madeline didn’t answer.
“The gray-haired man.”
Her silence was answer enough.
Dominic’s face hardened.
“Thomas Vale.”
Emily recognized the name.
Dominic’s attorney.
The second living person who had access to the Russo seal.
Madeline finally sat.
“Yes.”
Emily had expected Dominic to explode.
Instead, he became frighteningly calm.
“Why?”
Madeline looked up.
“Because Thomas came to me.”
“With what?”
“A warning.”
“About Emily?”
“No.”
She glanced at Emily.
“About you.”
Dominic laughed quietly.
“What warning?”
“That your father had structured his trust so control of Russo Holdings could be challenged.”
Dominic’s expression didn’t move.
“By whom?”
“Thomas wouldn’t tell me.”
Emily held up the bracelet.
“Me?”
Madeline shook her head.
“I didn’t know who you were until three nights ago.”
Emily remembered breakfast.
The smile.
The accusations.
“The pills?”
Madeline looked ashamed.
“I didn’t plant them.”
“The missing money?”
“No.”
“The complaint about drinking?”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I poured the wine.”
Madeline’s voice hardened with embarrassment.
“I wanted you frightened. I wanted you to quit.”
“That’s supposed to make it better?”
“No.”
Madeline looked at her directly.
“It makes me responsible for what I actually did.”
The answer unsettled Emily because it sounded true.
Dominic looked at Madeline.
“Why did you want her gone?”
“Because Thomas saw her listening outside Room Seven.”
Emily’s stomach dropped.
“He told me she had stolen the key and might have seen the document.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“What document?”
“The original amendment to your father’s trust.”
The room went silent.
Madeline pointed toward the torn paper.
“Thomas said Vittorio made changes before he died. He said the amendment could break apart everything your father built.”
“And you believed him.”
“My father lost his company when I was seventeen because his partner hid debt from him. We lost our house in six weeks.”
Her voice trembled.
“I watched my mother sell her wedding ring to pay the electric bill. So yes, Dominic. When someone told me the life we were building could disappear because of a hidden document, I panicked.”
Emily finally understood part of Madeline.
Not cruelty without reason.
Fear wearing expensive clothes.
It didn’t excuse what she had done.
But it explained why she had done it.
Dominic’s gaze stayed cold.
“You humiliated an innocent woman because you were afraid of losing money.”
“I was afraid of losing you.”
“No. You were afraid of what losing me would cost.”
Madeline flinched.
Then Emily noticed something.
“You said Thomas saw me outside Room Seven.”
Madeline nodded.
“But the man never came to the door.”
Madeline’s brow furrowed.
“What?”
“He couldn’t have seen my face.”
Dominic looked at Emily.
She continued.
“I was behind the door. When the tray scraped, I ran toward the service stairs. If Thomas stayed by the fireplace, he couldn’t have known who was listening.”
Madeline went pale.
“Then how did he know?”
Ray answered.
“Cameras.”
Everyone turned.
“There’s a security camera in the upstairs hallway.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Show me the footage.”
Ray hesitated.
“It’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Someone deleted that entire hour.”
Dominic stared at Madeline.
She shook her head immediately.
“Not me.”
Emily believed her.
Which meant someone else had identified Emily.
Someone with access to Bellucci’s security system.
Ray suddenly looked toward the hidden cabinet.
“The key.”
“What about it?” Emily asked.
“If someone stole it tonight, why is the compartment empty?”
Dominic understood first.
“Because whatever was inside had already been removed.”
Madeline nodded.
“Thomas had the document three nights ago.”
“No,” Emily said.
They looked at her.
“The envelope was too thick.”
She remembered the table.
Cream paper.
Red wax.
“But that cabinet is small. There could have been more.”
Dominic searched the compartment again.
His fingers pressed the metal floor.
Click.
A false bottom lifted.
Underneath lay an old gold pocket watch.
Dominic froze.
“My father’s.”
He picked it up.
The watch had stopped at 4:17.
Emily noticed initials engraved inside the lid.
V.R. — M.C.
Vittorio Russo.
Margaret Carter.
Madeline stared.
“What were they to each other?”
Emily’s face burned.
“My mother wasn’t having an affair with him.”
“I didn’t say she was.”
“You thought it.”
Dominic closed the watch.
“My father wore this every day until I was twelve. Then it disappeared.”
Emily calculated.
She had been six.
The same age she lost the bracelet.
Dominic looked at the initials again.
“My father told me he lost it.”
Ray spoke quietly.
“Maybe he gave it away.”
“To Margaret?”
Nobody answered.
Then Dominic noticed a narrow strip of paper folded inside the watch case.
He removed it carefully.
A date.
An address in Worcester.
And four words written in Vittorio Russo’s handwriting.
Margaret knows about Daniel.
Dominic’s face changed.
Emily had never seen a man become so pale so quickly.
“Who’s Daniel?” she asked.
Dominic didn’t answer.
Madeline whispered:
“Dominic?”
He stared at the paper.
Then finally looked at Emily.
“My brother.”
Emily frowned.
“I thought you were an only child.”
May you like
“So did I.”
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