Chapter 3 - EMMA’S LAST WARNING
I did not call Sebastian.
That was the hardest thing I did all morning.
Every part of me wanted him standing in front of me.
I wanted to ask one question and watch his eyes when he answered.
But rage makes men predictable.
Predictable men get lied to.
So I waited.
Elizabeth cleaned Alex’s hands while I photographed every page of Emma’s book.
Then I called only one person.
Gabriel Santos.
My private forensic accountant.
He had worked for me for eleven years and hated everyone equally, which made him unusually trustworthy.
“Come to the penthouse.”
“What happened?”
“Bring no one.”
“That sounds cheerful.”
“Gabriel.”
“I’m moving.”
He arrived forty minutes later.
By then, Alex had fallen asleep on the couch beside Elizabeth.
Exhaustion after emotional overload, she explained.
I watched her cover him with a blanket.
“You knew exactly what to do.”
“That’s why Emma chose me.”
The sentence irritated me.
Not because it was wrong.
Because my dead wife had known something about my son I had failed to see.
Gabriel spread Emma’s photographs across my dining table.
“These transfers are real.”
“How can you know already?”
“Because I’m excellent.”
I stared.
He sighed.
“James Maritime has six dormant vendor accounts. I’ve questioned them twice.”
“Why didn’t I know?”
“Because each explanation came with documentation.”
“Signed by who?”
Gabriel’s face tightened.
“Sebastian.”
My chest went cold.
Not proof.
But close enough to make breathing harder.
“How much is missing?”
“If Emma found everything? Forty-three point eight million.”
“Where?”
“Shell companies.”
“Controlled by?”
“Still tracing.”
Elizabeth stepped closer.
“Emma believed the money was going to another organization.”
I looked at her.
“You left that part out.”
“I didn’t know whether she was right.”
“What organization?”
“She used one name.”
“Say it.”
“The Marino family.”
I nearly laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was impossible.
The Marinos had been our enemies for twelve years.
Three years earlier, Sebastian had nearly died during a dispute with them.
I personally sat beside his hospital bed.
He called me brother.
“You’re telling me Sebastian was moving my money to the people who tried to kill him?”
“I’m telling you Emma suspected it.”
Gabriel looked uncomfortable.
“I need server access.”
“Take it.”
“Quietly?”
“No one knows.”
Elizabeth interrupted.
“Someone may already know.”
We both looked at her.
She pointed toward the ceiling.
“Emma thought she was being monitored.”
My security system had been designed by Sebastian.
I stared at the camera above the dining room.
“Gabriel.”
He understood.
“External hardware sweep.”
“Now.”
Within an hour, two devices were found.
One beneath the kitchen counter.
One inside the hallway smoke detector.
Not part of my security system.
Both transmitted through a hidden wireless network.
Gabriel stared at the serial number.
“This isn’t consumer equipment.”
“Who installed it?”
“Need time.”
I looked at Elizabeth.
“How long have you known?”
“I suspected after my first week.”
“You suspected my home was bugged and said nothing?”
“If I had told you without evidence, what would you have done?”
“Found the person.”
“You would have confronted Sebastian.”
I hated that she knew me well enough to answer.
“And if Sebastian is innocent?”
“Then I would apologize.”
“And if he isn’t, you would have warned him.”
I said nothing.
She was right.
Again.
I was beginning to dislike that.
That afternoon, Dr. Benjamin Ross came through the private elevator.
He had been Alex’s pediatrician since birth.
I trusted him because Emma had trusted him first.
He examined Alex.
Then he listened while Elizabeth explained the behavioral patterns.
Dr. Ross nodded slowly.
“This could be trauma-associated selective mutism.”
“Could?”
“I won’t diagnose him from one morning.”
“Can someone make a child stop talking?”
Dr. Ross looked at me carefully.
“Fear can.”
My chest tightened.
“Threats?”
“Yes.”
“Witnessing something?”
“Yes.”
“Repeatedly being told something terrible will happen if he speaks?”
Dr. Ross’s eyes hardened.
“Yes.”
I looked toward my sleeping son.
Somebody may have convinced Alex that silence was survival.
And I had spent nine weeks waiting for him to “recover.”
I felt sick.
Dr. Ross continued.
“Do not interrogate him.”
“I need to know what happened.”
“You need him to feel safe more.”
Elizabeth nodded.
I noticed.
I also noticed how naturally she and Ross spoke the same language.
That evening, Gabriel returned.
He closed my office door.
“The hidden devices were purchased through a private security distributor.”
“Name.”
“Harbor Sentinel.”
I knew it.
Sebastian owned thirty percent.
My heartbeat slowed.
Dangerously.
“Any evidence he ordered them?”
“Not yet.”
“Keep going.”
“There’s something else.”
Gabriel opened a laptop.
“Your penthouse camera archive from the day before Emma died has a gap.”
“How long?”
“Seventeen minutes.”
“Technical failure?”
“No.”
“Deleted?”
“Yes.”
“By who?”
“Administrator credentials.”
There were four administrators.
Me.
Head of security Marcus Vale.
Sebastian.
And Emma.
Emma was dead.
I was in Brooklyn during the missing seventeen minutes.
Marcus was on camera downstairs.
That left one possibility.
But possibility was not proof.
Then Gabriel opened another file.
“We recovered a fragment.”
“How?”
“Deletion is rarely as clean as people think.”
The video appeared.
Kitchen.
Four months earlier.
Emma stood near the pantry.
Alex sat at the island.
The image had no sound.
Then Sebastian entered.
My stomach dropped.
He was carrying a blue ceramic mug.
The same cups Alex now refused to touch.
Emma stood.
She looked angry.
Sebastian placed the mug down.
They argued.
Emma pointed toward the pantry.
Toward the floor.
Toward him.
Alex covered his ears.
Then Sebastian leaned down.
Close to my son.
Too close.
He said something.
Alex’s entire body went rigid.
The recording glitched.
Then disappeared.
Seventeen minutes missing.
When the picture returned, Sebastian was gone.
Emma was kneeling in front of Alex.
He was crying.
She held his face.
Made him look at her.
Then she hugged him.
Two hours later, Emma left the penthouse.
That night, her car went through a guardrail on the West Side Highway.
Police called it an accident.
I had believed them.
Until now.
I stared at the frozen image of Sebastian bending toward my son.
“What did you tell him?”
I whispered.
Behind me came a tiny voice.
“Daddy.”
I turned.
Alex stood in the doorway.
Elizabeth was behind him.
My son looked at Sebastian’s face on the screen.
His lip trembled.
Then he whispered:
“Daddy go away.”
I knelt immediately.
“No. Daddy stays.”
Alex shook his head.
He pointed at Sebastian.
“No.”
Then at me.
“Go away.”
Elizabeth crouched beside him.
“Did someone tell you Daddy would go away?”
Alex’s eyes filled.
He nodded.
“Who?”
She did not say Sebastian’s name.
She gave him space.
Alex stared at the screen.
Then whispered:
“Uncle Seb.”
My hands curled.
Elizabeth kept her voice gentle.
“What did Uncle Seb say?”
Alex began shaking.
I almost stopped the conversation.
Then he forced out four words.
“If talk… Daddy gone.”
Everything inside me turned cold.
Sebastian had not simply frightened my son.
He had weaponized me against him.
Alex believed speaking would make his father disappear.
I took him into my arms.
“No.”
He buried his face against my shoulder.
“Listen to me. Nothing you say will make me leave you.”
He clung tighter.
Then my phone rang.
Sebastian.
I stared at his name.
Elizabeth looked at me.
“Don’t.”
I answered.
“Sebastian.”
His voice sounded completely normal.
“Welcome home.”
I went still.
Nobody had told him my flight returned early.
“Who said I’m home?”
Silence.
Only half a second.
Then he laughed.
“Marcus mentioned it.”
Marcus was downstairs.
I texted him with my free hand.
Did you tell Sebastian I returned?
His reply came immediately.
No.
Sebastian continued casually.
“I thought I’d come by. Alex probably missed me.”
My eyes went toward the hidden camera Gabriel had just removed.
He knew because he had been watching.
“When?”
“I’m downstairs now.”
My blood ran cold.
The private elevator indicator lit.
Sebastian had already entered the building.
May you like
And he was coming up.
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