Chapter 6 - One of UsI hated suspicion.
Once it enters a room, every ordinary thing becomes evidence.
Dominic taking a private phone call.
Matteo leaving unexpectedly.
Gabriel closing his laptop when I entered.
Nico refusing to explain one of his searches.
Luca meeting privately with investigators.
All normal.
All suddenly suspicious.
I said nothing.
Instead, I followed Dad’s rule.
Evidence.
The next afternoon, Nico approached me.
“Something’s wrong.”
My stomach tightened.
“With what?”
“Our communications.”
I studied his face.
“You think we have a leak too?”
His expression changed.
“Who told you?”
“Elliot.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted to see what you found independently.”
Nico stared at me.
Then slowly smiled.
“What?”
“That was extremely Dad of you.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
His smile disappeared.
“We have a leak.”
He placed three phones on the table.
“I gave three different people three different false updates.”
My heart beat faster.
“What updates?”
“I told Dominic we planned to move evidence to a bank vault. I told Matteo we planned to move it to Luca’s office. I told Gabriel we planned to give it to federal investigators this morning.”
“And?”
“None leaked.”
Relief came too quickly.
“Then who?”
“I gave the fourth version to Daniel Reed.”
I froze.
“What did you tell him?”
“That the Meridian evidence was being stored at the old Moretti warehouse.”
“And Richard reacted?”
“Private security arrived there forty minutes ago.”
I stood.
“Daniel.”
“Looks like it.”
It made sense.
Too much sense.
Daniel was the one who directed us to the townhouse.
He knew the records existed.
He could have been working for Richard all along.
“Where is Daniel now?”
Nico’s expression turned grim.
“Missing.”
Of course.
We informed Luca.
He informed investigators.
Then we waited.
At 5:30, another problem arrived.
News broke.
ELENA COLE ATTEMPTS CORPORATE TAKEOVER AFTER MARITAL DISPUTE.
The article portrayed Adrian as a troubled husband and me as an heiress using family money to punish him.
Photos showed black SUVs at the estate.
My brothers were described as “controversial business figures.”
No mention of the hospital records.
No mention of Meridian.
No mention of the voting agreement.
The comments were worse.
Gold digger.
Family feud.
Rich people drama.
She probably deserved whatever happened.
I closed the page.
Dominic stood behind me.
“Don’t read comments.”
“I know.”
“You’re reading comments.”
“I know.”
“What strangers believe doesn’t matter.”
I looked at him.
“That’s easy to say when strangers aren’t discussing whether you deserved to be hurt.”
His expression softened.
“You’re right.”
A few hours later, Adrian held a press conference.
Against his attorney’s advice.
I knew that because Luca received a message from Adrian’s lawyer apologizing in advance for whatever his client was about to do.
Adrian appeared outside a downtown hotel.
Cameras surrounded him.
He looked tired and solemn.
“I love my wife,” he began.
I nearly turned it off.
He admitted the birthday incident “went too far.”
Went too far.
As if cruelty had simply wandered beyond its intended destination.
He denied deliberate abuse.
He said alcohol had been involved.
He asked for privacy.
Then a reporter shouted about Vanessa.
Adrian froze.
Another asked whether he had an affair.
He walked away.
The internet decided his silence was an answer.
Vanessa’s name exploded across social media.
By midnight she sent me a message.
I deserve what people say about the affair. But Richard is using this distraction to move Meridian money tonight.
I called Gabriel.
Twenty minutes later, we were tracing transfers.
Fourteen million dollars had moved through three entities.
Then another nine.
Richard was accelerating.
“Can we stop it?”
“Some.”
Gabriel called bank counsel.
Luca sought emergency relief.
Matteo contacted logistics partners connected to several overseas holdings.
By 2:00 a.m., we had frozen part of the transfer chain.
But not all.
Then Nico burst into the room.
“We found Daniel.”
“Where?”
“Hospital.”
My stomach dropped.
“What happened?”
“Car accident.”
“Accident?”
Nico’s expression told me he did not believe it.
Daniel survived.
Barely.
Police restricted access.
But before surgery, he gave an officer one message for me.
Tell Elena I’m sorry. I thought I could control Richard.
Not “I work for Richard.”
Not “I betrayed you.”
I thought I could control Richard.
The next morning, Luca discovered why.
Daniel had been cooperating with federal investigators for eleven months.
Secretly.
The warehouse leak?
Intentional.
He had fed Richard false information to provoke him into sending people to retrieve evidence.
The arriving security team had been photographed.
Tracked.
Identified.
Daniel was not our leak.
He had been setting a trap.
“So who told Richard about the townhouse?” I asked.
Nobody answered.
Later that afternoon, I visited Dad’s grave.
Alone except for security waiting at a distance.
I sat on the grass.
“You could have made this easier,” I whispered.
Wind moved through the trees.
I almost laughed at myself.
Dad had been dead seven years.
Yet I still wanted an answer.
The place he trusted most.
Not where.
Who.
Mom.
The thought arrived so suddenly I stood.
Our mother, Isabella Moretti, had died twelve years earlier.
Before Dad.
Before Cole Development’s worst financial crisis.
But there had been one person Dad trusted with everything after Mom died.
A person none of us had considered.
Our aunt Sofia.
Dad’s younger sister.
She had left New York eight years ago and rarely spoke to the family after a fight with Dominic.
I called her.
She answered on the sixth ring.
“Elena?”
My throat tightened.
“Aunt Sofia.”
A pause.
“I wondered how long it would take you.”
My skin went cold.
“You know why I’m calling?”
“Yes.”
“Dad left something with you.”
Another pause.
“He left everything with me.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means your brothers only know half the story.”
I looked toward the cemetery gate.
“What story?”
Sofia sighed.
“Your father didn’t save Cole Development because he trusted Richard.”
“I know.”
“No, sweetheart.”
Her voice dropped.
“He saved it because Richard was blackmailing someone.”
“Who?”
“You.”
I stopped breathing.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It will.”
“What did Richard have on me?”
“Nothing.”
“Then how could he blackmail Dad?”
Sofia’s next sentence made the ground beneath me feel unstable.
“Because the secret wasn’t about what you had done.”
May you like
She paused.
“It was about who you really were.”
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