Chapter 3 - Three Million Dollars and One Dead ManBy sunrise, Aleandro had discovered that the three-million-dollar theft was only the beginning.
His chief financial officer, Nathan Price, stood across the desk in Aleandro's private office, pale and visibly sweating.
“The documents Isabella brought last night aren't originals.”
Aleandro didn't move.
“Explain.”
“The account numbers are real. The transfer dates are real. But the authorization records have been modified.”
“By whom?”
“We're still tracing that.”
Aleandro placed Emily's black card on the desk.
His gaze remained fixed on it.
“Did my wife authorize any of those transfers?”
Nathan swallowed.
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“Completely.”
The room seemed to shrink around him.
Aleandro remembered the way Emily had looked at him.
Waiting.
Giving him one last opportunity to trust her.
He had chosen his sister.
“Get me the original records,” he said.
Nathan hesitated.
“There's something else.”
Aleandro looked up.
“The money didn't disappear.”
“Where is it?”
“It was transferred into a private holding company called Northbridge Medical Investments.”
“Who owns it?”
“We don't know yet. The beneficial ownership is concealed behind several entities.”
Aleandro's expression hardened.
“Find out.”
Nathan nodded, but remained standing.
“Sir, one of the transfers occurred three weeks ago.”
“And?”
“Your wife was in the hospital that morning for a prenatal appointment.”
Aleandro felt something cold settle beneath his ribs.
He remembered that appointment.
Emily had asked him to come.
He had canceled because Isabella insisted an emergency meeting couldn't wait.
Emily had attended alone.
And now someone had used that same morning to frame her.
Across Chicago, Emily sat in Hannah's kitchen with a blanket around her shoulders.
The police had taken a report about the threatening messages.
They had also explained that the photograph and phone number might be difficult to trace immediately.
Hannah poured coffee.
Emily accepted herbal tea instead.
“I'm calling your doctor,” Hannah said.
“I'm fine.”
“You had cramps last night.”
“They stopped.”
“Emily.”
Emily sighed.
“All right.”
Her obstetrician arranged an appointment that afternoon.
Before they could leave, someone knocked.
Hannah froze.
Emily's heart accelerated.
“Don't open it.”
A woman's voice came through the door.
“Emily? It's Margaret.”
Emily recognized the voice immediately.
Margaret Ellis.
Her late mother's oldest friend.
A retired accountant who had known Emily since childhood.
Hannah checked the peephole before opening the door.
Margaret entered carrying a worn leather briefcase.
She was sixty-two, with silver hair and a face that rarely betrayed emotion.
But today she looked frightened.
“I heard what happened,” she said.
Emily frowned.
“How?”
“Someone contacted me last night.”
“Who?”
Margaret placed the briefcase on the kitchen table.
“Your mother.”
Emily stared.
“My mother has been dead for six years.”
“I know.”
Margaret opened the briefcase and removed a sealed envelope.
“Before she died, she asked me to keep something until the Bellini family became involved in your life.”
Emily felt the room tilt.
“That doesn't make sense. I didn't even meet Aleandro until four years ago.”
Margaret nodded.
“That's what makes this so dangerous.”
She slid a photograph across the table.
It showed Emily's mother standing beside an older man outside a waterfront warehouse.
The man wore a dark suit and carried a silver-handled cane.
Emily recognized him from photographs in Aleandro's study.
Vittorio Bellini.
Aleandro's father.
The former head of the Bellini organization.
He had died twelve years earlier.
Emily looked up slowly.
“Why was my mother with Aleandro's father?”
Margaret's lips tightened.
“Because she was investigating him.”
The room fell silent.
“My mother was a school administrator.”
“That was her last job,” Margaret said. “Before that, she was a forensic accountant.”
Emily stared at the photograph.
“She never told me.”
“She was protecting you.”
“From what?”
Margaret opened the envelope.
Inside was a handwritten letter, a small brass key, and a photograph of a young woman standing beside Emily's mother.
Emily recognized the second woman.
Isabella.
But she looked barely eighteen.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written:
The Bellini children must never learn what happened on October 17.
Emily's hands began shaking.
“What happened on October seventeenth?”
Margaret took a breath.
“Your mother discovered that Vittorio Bellini was laundering money through a charitable medical foundation.”
“And Isabella?”
“She wasn't just involved.”
Margaret looked directly into Emily's eyes.
“She was the one who reported your mother to the men who wanted her silenced.”
Emily's throat tightened.
“My mother died of a heart attack.”
Margaret lowered her gaze.
“That's what the death certificate says.”
A sharp knock interrupted them.
Three times.
Then a man's voice.
“Chicago Police Department. We need to speak with Emily Bellini.”
Hannah approached the door cautiously.
“Can I see your badge?”
A badge appeared at the peephole.
But Margaret had already gone white.
“Don't open it,” she whispered.
Emily looked at her.
“Why?”
May you like
Margaret pointed at the man visible through the narrow glass.
“Because I attended his funeral nine years ago.”
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