Chapter 4 - The Man Damian Called Family
Damian didn't sleep that night.
He sat outside Aurora's hospital examination room, staring at the photograph of Graham Vale standing across from her apartment.
For sixteen years, Graham had been more than an employee.
He had been the man who attended Damian's high-school graduation after Anthony Russo became too ill to travel.
The man who stood beside him at his father's funeral.
The man who taught him how to read a shipping contract and recognize a dishonest business partner.
And now Graham had been photographed watching a twenty-four-year-old waitress days before someone tried to murder them both.
Aurora found Damian sitting with his elbows on his knees.
“Are you going to confront him?”
Damian looked up.
“I want to.”
“That's not what I asked.”
He gave a tired smile.
“No. Not yet.”
She sat beside him.
Her cheek was scratched, and her hands still trembled whenever someone opened a door too quickly.
“Why would he want you dead?”
“I don't know.”
“Does he have a reason?”
Damian looked away.
“Everyone in my business has reasons.”
That answer frightened her more than she wanted to admit.
Detective Price approached with a folder.
“Graham Vale has already contacted our office.”
Damian stood.
“What did he say?”
“He claims he was near Miss Bennett's apartment because his company was conducting a routine security review of employees who interacted with you.”
Aurora stared.
“I'm not his employee.”
“We pointed that out.”
“And?”
“He said the restaurant routinely shares employee information with private security contractors.”
Damian's face hardened.
“That's not our policy.”
Price opened the folder.
“Then someone should explain these.”
Inside were copies of three payments totaling eighteen thousand dollars.
Each had supposedly been transferred to an account under Aurora Bennett's name.
The payment descriptions were identical.
Consulting services.
Aurora shook her head.
“I've never received that money.”
“The account was opened using your identification.”
“My identification?”
“Copies of your driver's license, Social Security information, and employment records.”
Aurora remembered the thick paperwork Frederick made every employee complete when the restaurant changed payroll companies.
Her stomach dropped.
“Frederick has copies.”
Price nodded.
“We're investigating.”
Damian turned toward the detective.
“Those payments were made by North Quay Logistics.”
“Correct.”
“That's one of my subsidiaries.”
Price studied him.
“Then you understand why we need your cooperation.”
Damian's answer came without hesitation.
“You'll have it.”
Aurora wasn't sure whether to believe him.
She knew what people said about the Russo organization.
She knew some of those stories were probably true.
And she couldn't forget that someone connected to Damian had stolen her identity.
“Mr. Russo,” Price continued, “if you have access to the original payment records, preserve them. Don't alter anything. Don't conduct your own raid.”
“I understand.”
Price left.
Aurora remained silent.
Finally, Damian said, “I can arrange somewhere safe for you to stay.”
She stood.
“I don't want anything that makes it look like you bought my silence.”
“That's not what I'm offering.”
“Maybe not. But someone already made fake payments to me. What happens when the police discover I'm living in one of your houses?”
He couldn't answer.
Aurora folded her arms.
“My mother spent years telling patients they deserved explanations, even when doctors were too busy to provide them. I'm not going to become another woman who gets moved around without being told why.”
Damian stood slowly.
“What do you want?”
“The truth.”
“I'm trying to find it.”
“Then stop deciding what I can handle.”
His expression changed.
He had spent years giving orders that nobody questioned.
Aurora's refusal unsettled him.
But after a moment, he nodded.
“Fair.”
They agreed she would remain under police-arranged protection while the investigation continued.
By noon, the story had reached the news.
The headline was everywhere.
WAITRESS QUESTIONED IN RUSSO ASSASSINATION PLOT.
Aurora read it on a hospital television while a reporter described her as a financially troubled restaurant worker with possible criminal connections.
Her mother's medical debts were mentioned.
So was the supposed eighteen-thousand-dollar payment.
Nia Ortiz, Aurora's closest friend at the restaurant, arrived carrying a clean sweater and a bag of toiletries.
“I don't believe a word of it,” Nia announced.
Aurora hugged her so tightly that Nia nearly dropped the bag.
Then Nia pulled away.
“Listen. Frederick told everyone you were fired.”
Aurora stepped back.
“What?”
“He said you violated restaurant security procedures and endangered customers.”
Aurora stared at her.
“I saved someone's life.”
“I know.”
“And he's blaming me?”
Nia's eyes filled.
“There's more.”
She removed a folded piece of paper from her purse.
It was a photocopy of Aurora's employee warning form.
The signature at the bottom looked like Aurora's.
But she had never seen the document.
It claimed she had been disciplined two weeks earlier for allowing unauthorized visitors into the service corridor.
Aurora examined the signature.
The first letter of her surname had a strange backward curve.
“My mother used to sign her B like that,” Aurora whispered.
Nia frowned.
“What?”
“Mine doesn't look like this.”
She showed Nia the signature on her driver's license.
The difference was obvious.
Someone had copied Aurora's signature from an older document.
Something that might have belonged to her mother.
Aurora looked at the bracelet on her wrist.
Her mother, Evelyn Bennett, had worked at St. Brigid Community Clinic before her final illness.
North Quay Logistics had once delivered medical supplies there.
It was probably a coincidence.
But suddenly Aurora wasn't willing to dismiss anything.
She brought the document to Detective Price.
Price examined the signature carefully.
“We'll obtain the original.”
“Please check whether the payroll company handled my mother's records too.”
Price looked up.
“Why?”
“Because my mother's signature is being used to imitate mine.”
Damian, who had accompanied her, went still.
“St. Brigid,” he said.
Aurora turned.
“What?”
“We've had delivery disputes with that clinic.”
“What kind?”
“Missing shipments. Billing complaints. Graham told me the issues were resolved.”
Price closed the folder.
“Apparently we have another place to investigate.”
That afternoon, police searched a storage locker rented under the name of one suspected gunman.
Inside were gloves, counterfeit identification, and copies of Aurora's employment documents.
There was also a small envelope marked BENNETT.
Price opened it in front of Aurora.
Inside lay a photograph of Evelyn Bennett taken during her final months at the clinic.
Someone had circled her face in red ink.
Across the bottom were four words.
HER DAUGHTER WILL COOPERATE.
Aurora covered her mouth.
Her mother had been dead for almost two years.
Yet someone had dragged her photograph into a murder conspiracy.
Damian reached for Aurora's hand.
This time, she didn't pull away.
Then Price turned the photograph over.
A date had been stamped on the back.
It was three months before the restaurant shooting.
Beneath it was a handwritten instruction.
USE THE MEDICAL DEBT FIRST.
Aurora looked up, her eyes burning.
“They didn't just plan to kill you, Damian.”
May you like
Her voice cracked.
“They planned to use my mother's suffering to make me help them.”
