Chapter 6 - THE TRAITOR INSIDE MY HOUSE
His name was Anthony Russo.
He had protected me for nine years.
He had stood outside Arya’s bedroom when she had pneumonia.
He had accompanied Isabella to charity events.
After the crash, he sat outside my study every night for two weeks because I refused to sleep.
Anthony was not merely an employee.
He was part of the architecture of my life.
Now federal agents had caught him following Sophia’s protected transport using a vehicle registered to his brother-in-law.
He broke after six hours of questioning.
Richard had been paying him.
At first, small amounts.
Then more.
Anthony had gambling debts.
Richard learned about them.
Paid one.
Then another.
Eventually debt became leverage.
Anthony supplied schedules.
Vehicle movements.
Security-camera maintenance windows.
On the night Isabella died, Anthony told Richard she had picked Arya up early.
That revelation made me physically ill.
Richard had known Arya was in the SUV after all.
His statement in the garden had been another lie.
Arya was never supposed to be in the car.
Perhaps originally.
But once Anthony reported the change, Richard could have stopped everything.
He chose not to.
Worse, Anthony confirmed Richard specifically asked:
“Is the child with her?”
Anthony answered yes.
Richard said:
“Then we’re already committed.”
I left the interrogation room before I did something that would make Rebecca spend the rest of her career defending me.
Marcus Reed followed.
“Damian.”
“Don’t.”
“You need to hear the rest.”
“I heard enough.”
“No. You didn’t.”
I turned.
Anthony had also provided the location of the federal safe route.
But he had not given it to Kessler.
He gave it to someone called The Bookkeeper.
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
Richard’s network had a fourth central figure.
Someone who managed payments.
Shell companies.
Emergency funds.
Someone Elias apparently referred to in one margin of the ledger only as B.
Rebecca had assumed B meant bank.
It did not.
Anthony said Richard sometimes called a woman after meetings and told her to “balance the book.”
“Name?”
“He claims he never met her.”
“Do you believe him?”
Marcus hesitated.
“Mostly.”
That was not comforting.
The hidden ledger contained several payments marked B.
One the day Isabella died.
One the day Elias died.
One three days before someone shot through my study window.
The Bookkeeper was still active.
And she knew where Sophia and Emma were headed.
We changed the safe location again.
This time I did not know the address.
I hated that.
It was also the only way to protect them.
Emma sent me a voice message through Marcus that evening.
“Mr. Moretti, I am good. Mama says no say where. There is pancakes. Water flower. Bye.”
I listened four times.
Then went into Arya’s garden carrying the tin cup.
I filled it from the old stone fountain.
Watered the sunflower stalks.
For three years, grief had made me preserve death.
Do not touch the garden.
Do not move Arya’s shoes.
Do not change Isabella’s side of the closet.
I called that love.
Emma had walked into the same garden and understood something I had forgotten.
Living things still needed water.
The next day, forensic accountants found The Bookkeeper.
Or thought they did.
One shell company had paid accounting fees to Brennan Advisory Services.
Owner: Claire Brennan.
The name meant nothing to me.
The address did.
It was a condominium in Evanston I had purchased fifteen years earlier.
For my younger sister, Celeste.
Celeste Moretti Brennan.
My only surviving sibling.
The room spun.
“No.”
Rebecca looked devastated.
“Claire is her middle name.”
I stared at the corporate filing.
Celeste married Thomas Brennan thirteen years ago.
Divorced six years later.
She rarely used Brennan socially.
But the signature matched.
Celeste had been managing Richard’s money.
My sister.
Arya’s aunt.
The woman who held Isabella’s hand in sister.
Arya’s aunt.
The woman who held Isabella’s hand in the funeral home.
The woman who selected Arya’s burial dress because I could not.
I called her.
No answer.
Agents went to her home.
Empty.
Her closet had been cleared.
Passport gone.
Vehicle gone.
But unlike Kessler, Celeste had left something behind.
An envelope with my name.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
Damian,
You will believe Richard forced me. He didn’t.
I had to sit.
Rebecca continued reading because I could not.
Father left you everything because you were his son. He left me enough to live well and expected gratitude. You became chairman at twenty-eight. I was expected to host charities and smile. Richard understood what that felt like.
My father’s old sins again.
Favoring sons.
Teaching men that inheritance was proof of worth.
But grievance did not explain Isabella.
It did not explain Arya.
I never agreed to hurt Isabella. Richard told me he was going to frighten her into dropping the audit. I moved money. That was my part. By the time I learned what he had done, Arya was dead.
Rebecca stopped.
My voice came out broken.
“Continue.”
I should have gone to you. Instead, I helped hide it because if Richard fell, so did I. Every year made telling you harder.
Elias found the payments. Richard said he would handle him. I did not ask how. That cowardice belongs to me.
My hands shook.
Then the final paragraph.
Kessler has lost control. He thinks Sophia has more evidence. He will not stop. Richard kept one insurance ledger outside the accounts Elias found. If I can get it before Kessler does, I can prove every payment and give prosecutors everything.
Do not look for me.
I am going to the place Father taught us never to put on paper.
I knew immediately.
Our father had owned an old hunting lodge near the Wisconsin border.
Not under the Moretti name.
No public deed connected us.
He used it decades earlier for meetings he never wanted recorded.
After he died, I assumed it had been sold.
Only Celeste, Richard, and I would remember.
“The lodge,” I said.
Marcus stood.
“Address?”
I gave it.
Federal agents mobilized.
The property was ninety minutes away.
I was ordered to stay behind.
I did not.
Rebecca cursed at me for eleven consecutive minutes.
I went anyway.
We arrived after dark.
Celeste’s SUV sat beside the lodge.
Door open.
Driver’s seat empty.
Inside, lights burned.
Agents surrounded the property.
Marcus entered first.
Then shouted for medics.
Celeste was alive.
Barely conscious on the kitchen floor.
A blow to her head.
No Kessler.
The lodge had been searched violently.
Drawers torn out.
Walls opened.
Floorboards pried loose.
Celeste woke in the ambulance.
She saw me.
Started crying.
“I’m sorry.”
“Where is Kessler?”
“He took it.”
“The insurance ledger?”
She nodded weakly.
“Where?”
“I hid it in the fireplace.”
“What’s in it?”
“Everything Richard kept off the main books.”
Her eyes closed.
I grabbed her hand.
“Celeste.”
She forced them open.
“There’s another name.”
“What name?”
“The person who approved the original plan against Isabella.”
I felt the world narrow.
“Richard?”
Celeste shook her head.
“No.”
I stared.
Richard had sabotaged the car.
Kessler supplied the crew.
Celeste moved money.
But someone else had authorized it.
“Who?”
Her lips trembled.
“Damian… the order came from your own office.”
May you like
And then she lost consciousness.
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