Chapter 2 - The Paper Trail
Books cascaded across the Persian rug in a chaotic avalanche, but nobody looked at them.
Dominic groaned, pinned against the heavy mahogany shelving by the bodyguard's forearm pressed hard against his throat. His silver-rimmed glasses were crooked, sliding down the bridge of his nose, and the cool, untouchable aura he had cultivated for a decade had completely dissolved into sheer panic.
“Get your hands off me, you brute,” Dominic choked out, his fingers clawing vainly at the leather sleeve pinning him. “Vincent, you're making a catastrophic mistake. This is private legal privilege—estate documents—you have no idea what liability you're opening yourself up to.”
Vincent didn't look at him. He remained kneeling on the floor in front of Isabella, his large, calloused hands hovering gently inches away from her small fingers, as if afraid that any sudden movement would shatter the fragile miracle of her voice.
“Bella,” Vincent murmured softly, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “Can I see what's in your hand, sweetheart?”
Isabella hesitated, her dark eyes darting once toward Dominic, who was struggling against the bodyguard's grip, before she slowly extended her small palm. Resting in her hand was the folded piece of yellow legal paper, along with a small, flat micro-cassette tape bearing a faded label handwritten in Sofia’s neat cursive: For Vincent Only.
My breath caught in my throat. I squeezed Ellie’s hand tighter, stepping back slightly toward the shadows near the doorway. I had cleaned Sofia’s private study hundreds of times. I knew her handwriting. I knew how meticulous she was. And I knew that Sofia Moretti had never, not once, trusted Dominic Vesceri.
Vincent reached out with shaking fingers and took the tape and the paper. He unfolded the legal sheet first. His eyes scanned the first two lines, and the color drained completely from his face, leaving his skin the shade of wet cement.
“What is this?” Vincent whispered, his voice trembling so violently the paper rustled loudly in the quiet room.
“It’s the truth about how my wife died, you magnificent idiot,” Dominic spat out, suddenly abandoning all pretense of innocence as he realized there was no way out. He stopped struggling against the bodyguard and laughed—a high, manic sound that echoed harshly off the clinic walls. “You thought it was a tragic accident on a rainy road in Winnetka, didn't you, Vincent? You wept at the funeral, you built her a monument, and you trusted me to manage your entire empire while you drowned your grief in whiskey.”
Vincent slowly rose to his feet. He was a head taller than Dominic, and as he turned around, the grief in his eyes was instantly incinerated by a cold, murderous fury.
“Repeat that,” Vincent said softly, taking a slow step toward his attorney.
“She found out,” Dominic sneered, his chin lifted in defiant arrogance. “Sofia was smarter than you gave her credit for. She audited the estate accounts behind your back. She found the siphon accounts routing Moretti capital into offshore accounts in the Caymans—accounts controlled by your late uncle Julian's secret syndicate. She was going to go to the federal prosecutor with the ledger.”
Vincent stopped dead in his tracks. The name hung in the air like a ghost.
Julian Moretti.
The uncle who had supposedly died in a fiery plane crash twelve years ago—the exact ghost from my past that haunted the very foundations of the Moretti fortune.
“She didn't die in a car crash,” Vincent said, the words dragging up from the absolute depths of his chest. It wasn't a question anymore.
“The brakes failed,” Dominic smiled coldly. “A simple mechanical adjustment performed by professionals while the car was parked in your own private garage. But the little girl...” Dominic flicked his gaze toward Isabella, who was now clutching her knees and burying her face against my skirt, having instinctively sought shelter near Ellie and me. “The little girl was in the back seat. She saw it happen through the rear window. And she heard every word I spoke to the driver on my cell phone before the police arrived.”
Dominic’s eyes locked onto mine for a fraction of a second, and a cold shiver raced down my spine.
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“And you,” Dominic whispered, his voice dropping to a venomous hiss as he stared at me. “You've been dusting that music box for five months, haven't you, cleaning lady? You've seen too much, and your little girl has too big a mouth.”
Before Dominic could finish the sentence, Vincent crossed the room in two massive strides and buried his fist directly into Dominic’s jaw.
