Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WHO WANTED ME DEADBy the next morning, my face was on the security monitors throughout the Moretti estate.
Not a photograph from the lounge.
A photograph taken outside my apartment three days earlier.
Someone had been following me long before Madison offered me five hundred dollars.
Nico summoned his security team to the dining room. I sat at the end of the table in borrowed clothes, trying to process the fact that my ordinary life had been turned into a criminal investigation overnight.
Marco placed a folder before Nico.
“We traced the payment to a shell company connected to Sterling Holdings.”
“Who owns it?” Nico asked.
“Officially, nobody. But the money passed through accounts managed by Vincent's shipping division.”
Nico's jaw tightened.
“And the woman who ordered the pickup?”
Marco hesitated.
“Camille Foster.”
I recognized the name from the society pages.
Camille was a glamorous philanthropist who appeared beside Vincent at charity galas. She had also been engaged to Nico's cousin before his mysterious death.
“What does she want with me?” I asked.
Nico closed the folder.
“We'll find out.”
“You keep saying that as if my life is a puzzle you can solve by staring at paperwork.”
His eyes lifted.
“Would you prefer I tell you I know everything?”
“No. I'd prefer you stop making decisions about me without asking.”
The room fell silent.
Marco suddenly became fascinated by his shoes.
Nico leaned back.
“You're right.”
I blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“You're right. I should have explained what we found before calling everyone into this room.”
He turned to Marco.
“Give us ten minutes.”
When the others left, Nico moved the folder toward me.
Inside were photographs of Camille, Vincent, and several men entering a private warehouse.
The final photograph showed a woman standing outside my mother's apartment.
I recognized her instantly.
“She works at the hospital.”
“Her name is Patricia Wells,” Nico said. “She's a temporary nurse. She accessed your mother's records without authorization.”
“Did she hurt my mother?”
“We haven't established that.”
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I closed the folder.
“Then let's establish it.”
That afternoon, Nico arranged a meeting at a private restaurant overlooking the river. Camille had agreed to attend, apparently believing she was meeting a potential investor.
I went with Nico.
He insisted on placing two security guards outside, but he let me choose where to sit.
Camille arrived in a cream-colored designer suit, her blond hair falling in perfect waves. She looked at Nico with a smile that disappeared the moment she noticed me.
“So this is the waitress.”
“Hannah Bennett,” I said before Nico could answer.
Camille laughed softly.
“I'm sorry. I didn't realize Nico had started collecting charity cases.”
Nico's expression turned dangerous.
“Choose your next words carefully.”
She lifted her hands.
“I'm only curious. What makes her so special?”
“That's none of your business.”
Camille studied me.
Then her smile changed.
“You really don't know, do you?”
“Know what?”
She leaned forward.
“Your father didn't disappear because he was an innocent man. He stole something from the Moretti family. Something worth killing for.”
Nico's hand tightened around his glass.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Vincent told me.”
“And you believed him?”
“Why wouldn't I? Your family has spent twenty years burying secrets.”
She rose, smoothing her jacket.
“Enjoy your little romance, Nico. But when Hannah learns what her father actually did, she'll understand why no one in your family wants her alive.”
She walked out before either of us could stop her.
I turned toward Nico.
“What did she mean?”
He didn't answer immediately.
Then his phone vibrated.
Marco's voice came through the speaker.
“Boss, we have a problem. Someone entered Hannah's apartment.”
My blood turned cold.
“Was anything stolen?”
“Only one thing.”
“What?”
Marco paused.
“An old photograph of Hannah's parents.”
That evening, I returned to the estate with a feeling that something was slipping away from me.
My mother had always said my father loved me. I remembered his laugh, his rough hands, and the way he used to lift me onto his shoulders when we walked beside the lake.
What if those memories were all I had left of a man who had lied to everyone?
Nico found me sitting on the terrace.
“You don't have to figure it out tonight.”
“Easy for you to say. You have a whole security team and a family name that makes people afraid.”
“I also have a dead father whose killer may have been sitting at my dinner table for twenty years.”
I looked at him.
“Do you ever get tired of being angry?”
His expression softened.
“Every day.”
For a while, we sat in silence.
Then I asked the question I had been avoiding.
“Why did you let me kiss you?”
He looked genuinely surprised.
“Because you asked.”
“You could have laughed at me.”
“I could have.”
“Or called security.”
“I could have done that, too.”
“Then why didn't you?”
Nico turned toward me.
“Because you looked terrified, and you still found the courage to ask for what you wanted.”
My throat tightened.
“That's a very generous interpretation of a woman trying to pay her rent.”
“Maybe.” His gaze dropped briefly to my lips. “But I don't think the money was the only reason you walked over.”
I felt my cheeks warm.
“Don't flatter yourself, Moretti.”
His smile was small and genuine.
“Wouldn't dream of it, Bennett.”
For a moment, he looked less like a mafia boss and more like a man who had forgotten how to let anyone close.
I almost reached for his hand.
Then a gunshot echoed from beyond the gates.
Nico pulled me down behind the stone railing.
His body covered mine as glass shattered somewhere inside the house.
“Stay here,” he ordered.
He rose and drew his weapon.
I caught his wrist.
“Nico.”
He looked down at me.
“Come back.”
Something shifted in his eyes.
“I will.”
He disappeared into the darkness.
Minutes later, Marco returned alone.
Nico was nowhere to be seen.
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And the only message left behind by the attacker was written on a sheet of paper beneath the shattered terrace window:
THE LEDGER FOR THE GIRL. MIDNIGHT TOMORROW.
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