Chapter 4 - The Marriage That Was Planned
The name was Elena Marchetti.
Isabelle's mother.
“No.”
Marco took the letter.
His expression changed as he read it.
Their mother had introduced Isabelle to Damien at a charity dinner five years earlier.
Isabelle remembered Elena smiling afterward.
He's charming.
Give him a chance.
Had it all been arranged?
They drove to Elena's house before dawn.
She was awake when they arrived.
That frightened Isabelle more than anything.
Elena opened the door.
She saw the ledger.
Then the letter.
Her shoulders sank.
“You found it.”
Marco's voice was cold.
“You knew?”
Elena stepped aside.
“Come in.”
“No,” Isabelle said. “Answer me here.”
Her mother looked at the red mark on her face.
“What happened?”
“Damien slapped me.”
Elena's eyes flashed toward him.
Damien stood several feet away.
“I have no excuse.”
“No,” Elena said. “You don't.”
Isabelle held up the letter.
“Did you arrange my marriage?”
“I arranged your introduction.”
“Because of our fathers?”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt.
“Why?”
“Because Antonio believed the two families could repair what they had broken.”
“What did they break?”
Elena looked at Marco.
“Their companies were laundering money.”
Silence.
“Your father discovered it after he inherited the business. Damien's father discovered the same thing. Neither man created the scheme.”
“Who did?”
“A third partner.”
“Name.”
Elena hesitated.
“Victor Hale.”
Damien looked up.
“Hale?”
Vanessa.
Elena nodded.
“Vanessa is his daughter.”
Everything snapped into place.
Vanessa had not randomly entered Damien's life.
She had been sent.
“Victor disappeared before authorities could arrest him,” Elena continued. “Your fathers spent years collecting evidence.”
“Why didn't they go to the police?”
“They did. Someone warned Victor.”
The ledger.
The corrupt officer.
Marco opened it.
Names.
Dates.
Transfers.
Decades of payments.
Isabelle felt sick.
“Why did Dad die?”
Elena's eyes filled.
“Officially? Heart attack.”
“And actually?”
“I don't know.”
That answer was worse.
Damien stared at the ledger.
“My father died in a car accident.”
Elena nodded.
“Three months after Antonio.”
Damien went pale.
Isabelle watched him absorb the possibility that his father's death had not been accidental either.
It did not excuse him.
But for the first time, she saw a different kind of fear in his eyes.
Not fear for his money.
Fear that his entire life had been built on a lie.
“Where is Vanessa?” Isabelle asked.
“I don't know,” Elena said.
Isabelle's phone buzzed.
A message.
VANESSA: I NEED HELP.
Then an address.
Marco immediately stood.
“No.”
Isabelle looked at him.
“She warned us.”
“She also manipulated Damien for eight months.”
“She may know who killed Dad.”
Marco hated that she was right.
They drove to the address.
An abandoned office building.
Vanessa waited inside.
Her red gala dress was covered by a borrowed coat.
Her makeup had streaked.
When Damien entered, she backed away.
“Don't.”
He stopped.
“You used me.”
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“You used your wife.”
Damien had no answer.
Isabelle stepped between them.
“Why did your father send you?”
Vanessa looked at her.
“He didn't.”
“Then who?”
“My father is dead.”
Everyone froze.
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
“That doesn't match the records.”
“Because someone has been using his identity.”
“Who?”
Vanessa reached inside her coat.
The brothers tensed.
She pulled out a flash drive.
“Everything I found.”
Marco took it.
“Why help us?”
Vanessa looked at Isabelle's cheek.
“Because whatever I came here to do, I never asked him to hit you.”
Damien looked away.
Vanessa continued.
“I was supposed to get the ledger and disappear. Then I discovered someone was watching me too.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
She handed Isabelle a photograph.
A man entering the anniversary gala.
Older.
Gray hair.
Black tuxedo.
Isabelle recognized him.
“That's Robert Kane.”
Damien's chief financial officer.
Vanessa nodded.
“He worked for Victor Hale.”
Damien stared.
“Robert has worked for my family for twenty years.”
“Exactly.”
A sound came from upstairs.
Footsteps.
Marco killed the lights.
Someone was inside the building.
Luca moved Isabelle behind a concrete column.
Enzo watched the stairwell.
The footsteps stopped.
A phone rang upstairs.
Then Robert Kane's voice drifted through the darkness.
“Isabelle?”
Nobody answered.
“I know you have the ledger.”
Damien's face hardened.
Robert continued.
“Give it to me and this ends.”
Marco whispered, “Police?”
Luca shook his head.
“No signal.”
Robert laughed from upstairs.
“You really should have listened to Vanessa.”
Then a second set of footsteps sounded behind them.
Isabelle turned.
The rear door slowly opened.
May you like
A silhouette stepped inside.
And Isabelle heard her dead father's nickname spoken by a voice she hadn't heard since childhood...
