Chapter 10 - THE WOMAN THEY MADE INTO A TRAITOR
Hope read the name three times.
HOPE WHITAKER.
Beneath it:
CONSULTING PAYMENT — $500,000.
Three days before the explosion.
She handed the phone back.
“That isn’t mine.”
Luca answered immediately.
“I know.”
Hope looked at him.
“You didn’t even ask.”
“No.”
“Luca—”
“I know you.”
She wanted that to comfort her.
Instead, it terrified her.
Because police did not know her.
Federal prosecutors did not know her.
A bank record did not care who she was.
Raina crossed the lawn toward them.
Two federal agents followed.
Agent Marcus Bell was in his forties, clean-cut, expressionless.
“Ms. Whitaker.”
Hope folded her arms.
“You’re here to arrest me?”
“Not currently.”
“Encouraging.”
“We need you to answer questions.”
Luca stepped beside her.
“She’ll have counsel.”
Hope glanced at him.
“I can answer.”
“You can answer with counsel.”
Agent Bell looked between them.
“Mr. Ferretti, interfering won’t help.”
Luca smiled without warmth.
“I haven’t begun interfering.”
Hope touched his arm.
He stopped.
Progress again.
The interview lasted three hours.
Hope denied opening the account.
Denied receiving the money.
Denied working for Janus.
Bell placed a signature form in front of her.
The signature looked like hers.
Hope stared.
“That’s good.”
Bell nodded.
“Passport copy. Military identification. Medical records. Everything used to establish the account was authentic.”
“Stolen.”
“Possibly.”
“Definitely.”
Bell leaned forward.
“There’s more.”
He showed her an email.
FROM: H.WHITAKER
TO: V.FERRETTI
Delivery confirmed. E.F. remains unaware.
Hope stopped breathing.
Luca stood behind the observation glass with Raina.
“What the hell is that?” he asked.
Raina shook her head.
“Fabricated.”
“You know that?”
“No.”
Luca looked at her.
Raina met his eyes.
“But I know Hope.”
Inside, Bell continued.
“We traced the message to a military network terminal at the clinic where you worked.”
“I didn’t send it.”
“Do you remember using that terminal?”
“Everyone used those terminals.”
“So it was accessible to you.”
“And fifty other people.”
Bell nodded.
“Did Elias ever suspect you?”
Hope’s face changed.
“No.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“Did you argue before his death?”
Hope looked away.
Bell noticed.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Ms. Whitaker.”
Hope rubbed her hands.
“We argued.”
“About?”
“The ledger.”
Bell waited.
Hope sighed.
“He wanted to travel to the warehouse. I told him it was reckless.”
“Did you threaten to report him?”
“Yes.”
“Did he accuse you of betrayal?”
“No.”
“Did you tell him you were done helping?”
Hope hesitated.
“Yes.”
Bell sat back.
Luca cursed behind the glass.
Raina said, “She’s telling the truth.”
“The truth looks bad.”
“Sometimes.”
Bell finally released Hope without charges.
But the damage had begun.
By the time they exited the building, reporters were outside.
Someone had leaked the financial records.
TRAFFICKING HERO OR JANUS INSIDER?
HOPE WHITAKER RECEIVED SECRET PAYMENT BEFORE DEADLY SYRIA ATTACK.
Luca moved between Hope and the cameras.
She hated needing it.
She hated being grateful.
At the mansion, Hope packed.
Again.
Luca found her folding clothes into a duffel.
“No.”
She didn’t look up.
“You really need another word.”
“You’re not leaving because someone forged records.”
“I’m not staying while reporters camp outside your gate.”
“Let them.”
“And your businesses lose more contracts?”
“Let them.”
“Luca.”
He entered.
Hope backed away.
Not because she feared him.
Because she was barely holding herself together.
“I spent three years thinking I failed Elias.”
Luca listened.
“Now half the country thinks I sold him.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It is to me.”
Hope’s eyes flashed.
“I cannot build my life on whether you believe me.”
Luca absorbed that.
It hurt.
She saw it.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
He sat on the bed.
“And you’re right.”
Hope stared.
“I want to fix everything with walls, money, lawyers, men with guns.”
“Yes.”
“It’s what I know.”
“I know.”
“But you need your own name back.”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Luca nodded.
“Then we get it back.”
“How?”
A voice came from the doorway.
“By finding who opened the account.”
Dominic entered carrying Elias’s old camera.
Hope frowned.
“We checked everything.”
“Not everything.”
He placed the camera on the desk.
“There were twelve original files.”
“Eleven,” Hope said.
Dominic shook his head.
“The directory showed twelve.”
Luca stood.
“One was deleted.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before the bank box was opened.”
Hope’s pulse jumped.
“The fake Dominic.”
Dominic nodded.
“Whoever accessed the box six weeks ago deleted one recording.”
“But the bank’s security footage—”
“Was copied before the deletion.”
Luca looked at him.
“How do we recover it?”
Dominic smiled faintly.
“We ask a seventeen-year-old criminal.”
Hope blinked.
“What?”
Teddy appeared behind him.
“My nephew.”
Hope stared at Luca.
“Why does everyone you know have a concerning job description?”
“Family culture.”
Teddy’s nephew Noah arrived an hour later wearing a Providence Bruins hoodie and carrying three laptops.
Luca looked at him.
“You’re seventeen.”
Noah shrugged.
“Allegedly.”
Teddy sighed.
“He thinks that’s funny.”
Noah connected the camera.
For four hours, nothing.
Then at one fourteen in the morning, he sat upright.
“Got something.”
Everyone gathered.
A damaged file opened.
Elias appeared.
Different location.
Hospital room.
Hope recognized it.
Her hospital room.
Her breath stopped.
The video date was two days after the explosion.
Elias should have been dead.
“What?”
Luca gripped the table.
Elias appeared on screen alive.
Barely.
Burns across his chest.
Oxygen tube beneath his nose.
Hope collapsed into a chair.
“No.”
Luca whispered, “He survived.”
For two days.
Elias looked into the camera.
“If Hope wakes up, don’t tell her I’m here.”
Hope started crying.
Luca stared at the screen.
“She was hurt because of me.”
Elias coughed.
“They’re trying to frame her.”
Everyone froze.
“Janus accessed her records. They’ll create payments. Messages. Whatever they need.”
Hope covered her mouth.
Elias continued.
“Hope argued with me because she wanted me alive. If anyone says different, they’re lying.”
Luca looked toward her.
Hope was shaking.
Then another person entered the frame.
Dr. Mercer.
He checked Elias’s monitors.
Elias whispered, “Did you hide the capsule?”
“Yes.”
“In Hope?”
Mercer nodded.
“She’ll never know unless someone goes looking.”
“Good.”
Elias closed his eyes.
“Keep her alive.”
The recording skipped.
Then Elias looked directly at the camera one final time.
“Luke.”
Luca stepped closer.
“I was angry when I left home.”
His voice weakened.
“But I never hated you.”
Luca’s face broke.
“I need you to know that.”
Tears ran silently down Luca’s cheeks.
“You were the only good thing in that house.”
Hope reached for him.
Elias smiled weakly.
“And if Hope somehow ends up in Rhode Island, don’t be weird.”
Through tears, Hope laughed.
Luca did too.
The image distorted.
Then Elias whispered his final recorded words.
“Take care of each other.”
The screen went black.
Nobody spoke for a long time.
Then Noah cleared his throat.
“There’s metadata.”
Luca looked over.
“What?”
“The deleted video was edited.”
“By whom?”
Noah turned the laptop.
A user ID appeared.
CMERCER_77.
Hope stood.
“Dr. Mercer.”
Raina called Agent Bell immediately.
Mercer was pulled from federal detention.
By morning, he confessed.
He had created the false account under orders from Samuel Ortiz.
The payment was never intended for Hope.
It was an escape fund Samuel could later use as evidence if she survived.
A perfect traitor.
A perfect dead witness.
Hope’s name was cleared within forty-eight hours.
The same reporters who accused her now called her heroic.
She hated both versions.
A week later, she returned to Elias’s grave alone.
Except Luca had followed her.
Not secretly.
He stood far enough away to give her space.
Hope touched the stone.
“You were alive.”
Wind moved through the maple leaves.
“For two days.”
She cried.
Not the violent grief from nightmares.
Something gentler.
“You protected me even then.”
Luca approached.
Hope looked at him.
“He told us to take care of each other.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds suspiciously like an order.”
“Elias enjoyed giving those.”
Hope smiled.
Then Luca’s expression became serious.
“Hope.”
“What?”
“I know I told you I wasn’t proposing.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“That sentence better not be headed where I think.”
He laughed.
“Not yet.”
“Good.”
“I want to ask something else.”
“What?”
“Move in with me.”
Hope froze.
Luca immediately continued.
“Not because you need somewhere to live.”
“I have an apartment.”
“I know.”
“An apartment I like.”
“I know.”
“I will not give it up immediately.”
“Keep it.”
She stared.
“You’d pay for two homes?”
“You would pay for yours.”
Hope blinked.
He understood.
Of course he did.
Luca held out his hand.
“I’m asking because when you’re not in my house, it feels like you’re missing.”
Hope’s eyes softened.
“That was disgustingly sweet.”
“I regret it.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No.”
She took his hand.
“I’ll try it.”
Luca smiled.
“Try?”
“Three months.”
“Six.”
“Four.”
“Done.”
Hope laughed.
They walked toward the car.
Behind them, Elias’s headstone stood beneath the trees.
For years, his death had been a wound connecting two strangers.
Now his truth had become something else.
May you like
A bridge.
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