Chapter 3 - Someone Above Her
I sent Sophie home with Elena.
She protested.
“I want to stay with you.”
I crouched beside her.
“You’ve had enough grown-up nonsense for one night.”
“Is the mean lady in trouble?”
Vanessa stood twenty feet away pretending not to hear.
I smiled faintly.
“Adults have consequences too.”
Sophie hugged me.
Then whispered, “Can we still get dessert?”
Thomas laughed for the first time all evening.
“I’ll personally make sure you get the biggest chocolate cake in Manhattan.”
When Sophie left, the warmth disappeared with her.
Rebecca closed the private dining-room doors.
Vanessa sat opposite us.
Her attorney was on speakerphone.
The restaurant continued operating outside.
Inside, the truth began peeling open.
The missing money had started eighteen months earlier.
Refunds issued for meals customers never returned.
Fictitious vendor invoices.
Private-event deposits routed through shell companies.
Wine inventory disappearing.
Nothing individually enormous.
Together, devastating.
Vanessa denied everything.
Then Rebecca showed her the electronic approvals.
Vanessa stopped denying.
She started bargaining.
“I didn’t design it.”
“Who did?” I asked.
Silence.
“Vanessa.”
She looked at me.
“You think owning the company means you know the company.”
“I know enough.”
“No. You know reports.”
She leaned forward.
“You disappeared after your wife died. Everyone knows it.”
The words landed harder than I expected.
Thomas shifted beside me.
I raised a hand.
Vanessa continued.
“You left executives to run everything. People learned where the blind spots were.”
“Names.”
“You want the truth?”
“That would be refreshing.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Your chief operating officer.”
I stared at her.
“Richard Vale?”
She smiled without humor.
“The man you trust to run Bellmont Hospitality while you play anonymous owner.”
I said nothing.
Richard had attended my wedding.
He had carried one side of Emily’s coffin.
He had sat in my kitchen after the funeral while I stared at a cup of coffee for three hours.
Rebecca slid a phone across the table.
Messages.
Vanessa and Richard.
Instructions.
Payments.
Customer profiling.
Manipulated reports.
Then one message stopped me.
Mercer never visits. As long as numbers look good, he won’t ask questions.
I read it twice.
Vanessa watched me.
“Still think tonight was about your boots?”
I lifted my eyes.
“No.”
I understood now.
Her cruelty was real.
But it had also served a purpose.
High-spending customers created inflated revenue numbers.
Complaints were buried.
Employees who objected were pushed out.
Richard had built a system that rewarded humiliation because humiliation was profitable.
At least on paper.
My phone rang.
Richard Vale.
Everyone stared at it.
I answered.
“Richard.”
“Daniel, thank God. I just heard something insane. Rebecca says you’re at Bellmont House.”
“I am.”
“Don’t do anything until I arrive.”
I looked at Rebecca.
“When can you get here?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Take your time.”
I disconnected.
Vanessa laughed.
“He knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That you know.”
I stood.
“Good.”
Twenty-three minutes later, Richard walked into the private dining room.
Expensive navy suit.
Silver tie.
Perfect hair.
He looked exactly as he always did.
Reliable.
Calm.
Trustworthy.
Then he saw Vanessa.
His step faltered.
Barely.
But I caught it.
“Daniel.”
“Richard.”
“What the hell is happening?”
I pushed the ledger toward him.
“Tell me.”
He glanced at it.
No reaction.
Too little reaction.
“I’ve never seen this.”
Rebecca spoke.
“Interesting.”
Richard looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because your fingerprint is on the original.”
Silence.
Richard slowly turned toward Vanessa.
She smiled.
And that was when he made his mistake.
“You stupid woman.”
Nobody moved.
Richard realized what he had said.
Too late.
Vanessa leaned back.
“There he is.”
Richard pointed at her.
“She’s stealing from you, Daniel.”
Vanessa laughed.
“You taught me how.”
“You’re insane.”
“You told me he was too broken to notice!”
Richard lunged toward her.
Marcus intercepted him.
The chair crashed backward.
For ten seconds, everything became noise.
Then I said one word.
“Enough.”
Richard froze.
I walked toward him.
He had been my friend for seventeen years.
“I trusted you.”
His face hardened.
“You abandoned the company.”
There was the justification.
People always found one.
“I buried my wife.”
“And I kept your empire alive!”
“With stolen money?”
“With results!”
I stared at him.
Then I understood something.
Richard genuinely believed that sentence excused him.
I turned toward Rebecca.
“Suspend his access immediately.”
Richard laughed.
“You can’t run this place without me.”
“I don’t intend to.”
His smile faded.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Bellmont doesn’t need another king.”
I looked through the glass doors at the employees outside.
“It needs people willing to tell the truth.”
Richard was escorted out.
Vanessa followed twenty minutes later.
Before leaving, she stopped beside me.
For the first time, there was no arrogance in her expression.
Only exhaustion.
“You think you won tonight?”
“No.”
“Richard wasn’t the top.”
My eyes narrowed.
“What?”
She leaned closer.
“He was scared of someone too.”
“Who?”
She smiled.
Then walked away.
Rebecca looked at me.
“Daniel.”
I was already staring at the ledger again.
One payment code appeared repeatedly beside Richard’s transfers.
E.M.
My chest tightened.
Rebecca noticed.
“What?”
I pointed at the initials.
She frowned.
“Do they mean something?”
I knew only one person inside Bellmont Hospitality who had ever used those initials on confidential accounts.
Someone who had supposedly been dead for three years.
May you like
My wife.
Emily Mercer.
