Chapter 25 - THE ACCOUNT NOBODY WANTED HIM TO OPEN
Gabriel refused.
Immediately.
“Good,” Dante said.
Gabriel glared.
“Don't agree that fast.”
Dante almost smiled.
The dormant reserve had once funded emergency movement of Rosselli families.
Cash.
Gold certificates.
Bearer instruments.
Nobody knew its current value.
Perhaps nothing.
Perhaps millions.
The institution holding it was a private Swiss fiduciary bank with legitimate modern operations.
The account was frozen.
Nobody could withdraw without establishing lawful ownership and source of funds.
That was fine with Gabriel.
Until investigators explained something else.
The account might contain payment records connected to the Pier 14 deaths.
Opening it could reveal who else participated.
Gabriel stared.
“So you need my blood to open evidence.”
“Possibly,” the federal investigator said.
“That's disgusting.”
“Yes.”
At least she did not pretend otherwise.
Gabriel had a choice.
Nobody could force him without legal process.
Paolo said:
“You don't have to.”
Gabriel turned on him.
“If I don't, three families might never know what happened.”
“That responsibility isn't yours.”
“Easy for you.”
Paolo flinched.
Gabriel continued.
“Everybody keeps building choices around me and then saying I don't have to fix them.”
Alina understood.
She sat beside him.
“You don't.”
He looked angry.
“That isn't comforting.”
“I know.”
He eventually agreed under conditions.
Independent counsel.
No Rosselli representative controlling the process.
No funds distributed until judicial review.
No secrecy agreements.
Dante accepted every term.
The bank opened the archive layer.
Money remained.
Twenty-seven million dollars.
Gabriel laughed when told.
“Of course.”
But the financial records mattered more.
Payments connected Adrian Renwick to the Pier 14 cover-up.
Also Dante’s father.
Two port supervisors.
A police officer now dead.
Then one living recipient.
Celeste Renwick.
Jonathan stared.
“No.”
The payments began when Celeste was seventeen.
Small at first.
Then annual.
She had received money from the dormant account for twenty-three years.
Celeste did not deny it.
She arrived with a lawyer.
“My father created an education arrangement.”
“With murder money,” Jonathan said.
“I didn't know.”
“Until when?”
Celeste remained silent.
There it was.
She learned the source eleven years earlier.
Yet continued accepting payments.
Why?
Because her father was dying.
Because the money funded his private medical care.
Because she convinced herself the victims were already dead and refusing money would help nobody.
Gabriel stared at her.
“You warned Mara about the bodies.”
“Yes.”
“Why now?”
“Because Jonathan wanted the property.”
Jonathan turned.
“What?”
Celeste looked at her brother.
“If Renwick bought Pier 14, environmental excavation would eventually expose everything.”
“So you burned it?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Celeste shook her head.
“I leaked Gabriel’s proposal hoping the Rossellis would buy first.”
Gabriel stood.
“You used me.”
“I thought Dante would investigate.”
“So you used me.”
“Yes.”
Another adult choosing for him.
Then the fire investigator entered.
They had finally identified accelerant traces and camera footage.
Celeste had not started the fire.
Paolo had not.
Jonathan had not.
The person caught entering the warehouse wore a maintenance uniform.
Facial recognition returned a name.
May you like
Elias Rosselli.
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