Chapter 7 - THE ACCOUNTANT'S FINAL RECORDING
Vanessa survived surgery.
The bullet had passed through her shoulder without striking a major artery, but the doctors warned that she would need time to recover.
Dominic remained outside her room until morning.
He didn't forgive her. He wasn't even sure he believed her. But her warning had changed everything.
Someone had impersonated Clara's sister.
Someone had controlled Vanessa.
And someone had used Marcus Hale to get close enough to shoot Dominic.
At dawn, Adrian arrived carrying a laptop.
“Arthur left another file.”
Dominic stood.
“Where?”
“On the prepaid phone from the locker. It was encrypted, but the account records gave me the password.”
He opened the laptop.
A video appeared.
Arthur Bennett sat in a bare room, his face bruised, his hands trembling. He looked directly into the camera.
“If you're watching this, I haven't returned to the office. I don't know whether I'll be alive when this reaches you.”
Dominic leaned closer.
Arthur continued.
“The $4.8 million transfer was only the beginning. Northbridge Holdings is being used to purchase debts, shell companies, and private security contracts. Someone is assembling a network designed to seize control of the Moretti organization without firing a shot.”
He paused and looked toward someone outside the frame.
“I found the original account holder. The money belongs to a trust created by your father. But the person authorized to access it isn't Dominic. It isn't Adrian.”
Arthur swallowed.
“It's the daughter he erased.”
Clara sat down slowly.
“Me?”
Arthur continued.
“Elizabeth, if you're seeing this, your mother left you something more valuable than money. She left you the authority to expose the network. But the documents are incomplete. You need the original ledger.”
He lifted a sheet of paper.
“The ledger is hidden beneath the place where your mother last sang to you.”
The video ended.
Clara stared at the screen.
“I don't remember her singing.”
Eleanor sat beside her.
“You were very young.”
“Where would she have sung?”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“The conservatory. Your mother loved the glass conservatory behind the old estate. She used to sing there when it rained.”
Dominic already knew the location.
The conservatory stood on the grounds of the Moretti family's abandoned country estate, a property that had been locked for years.
“Then that's where we're going,” he said.
Adrian shook his head.
“Not without a plan. Marcus knows the estate better than anyone. If he's working with the people behind Northbridge, he'll expect us.”
“Then we won't go through the main entrance.”
Clara looked at the video again.
“Arthur said the ledger was incomplete. What does that mean?”
Adrian answered.
“Your mother may have divided it into separate pieces. One could prove who controlled the money. Another could identify the people paid to carry out the operation.”
“And the third?”
No one answered.
They reached the country estate after dark.
The main house stood behind iron gates, its windows black against the cloudy sky. The conservatory was several hundred feet from the mansion, surrounded by overgrown rose bushes.
Dominic led the way with Adrian. Clara followed, carrying her mother's photograph.
Inside, broken glass covered the stone floor. Dead vines climbed the walls. A cracked piano stood beneath a sheet of dust.
Clara approached it slowly.
She could almost imagine a woman sitting there, singing to two babies while rain tapped against the glass.
She knelt beside the piano.
Beneath a loose floorboard, she found a metal box.
Inside lay an old ledger, a sealed letter, and a small cassette recorder.
Dominic opened the ledger.
The first pages listed payments made through Northbridge Holdings. The names included lawyers, security contractors, politicians, and members of the Moretti organization.
Halfway through, the handwriting changed.
The final entry was dated two days before their mother's death.
IF THE BOYS EVER RETURN, TELL THEM THE TRUTH ABOUT THEIR FATHER.
Adrian picked up the cassette recorder.
“There's a tape.”
Clara pressed play.
Their mother's voice filled the abandoned conservatory.
“If you are hearing this, then I failed to protect you from the truth.”
She spoke of the money, the secret trust, and a plan to use her daughters as leverage against their father.
Then she said something that made Dominic's blood run cold.
“Your father did not die in the accident that everyone remembers. The body found in the river belonged to another man.”
Adrian looked at Dominic.
Their father had supposedly survived an attack, disappeared for several days, and later returned home. Eight years after that, he had been declared dead in a separate incident.
Their entire understanding of his death might have been fabricated.
The recording continued.
“The man who took his place was paid to keep silent. The real Giovanni Moretti is alive. And he knows where the third ledger is hidden.”
A sound came from outside.
Footsteps.
Dominic extinguished his flashlight.
Someone was standing on the other side of the conservatory door.
Then a familiar voice spoke through the glass.
“Dominic, put down the ledger.”
Marcus Hale.
And he wasn't alone.
Behind him stood a man with silver hair, a familiar face, and a smile that had haunted Dominic's childhood.
Giovanni Moretti.
His father.
May you like
Alive.
---
