Chapter 6 - THE SECOND LIEN
Billy stared at the man in the dark suit.
“Mr. Santangelo sent you to guard my house?” she asked, lowering the fabric shears slightly, though she didn't let them go.
“Yes, ma’am,” Enzo replied, standing completely still near the doorway. “He said you might be having some uninvited guests tonight. Looks like I missed the first one.”
He glanced at the empty file folder lying on the floor near the sewing cabinet.
“They already came,” Billy said, her voice tight. “They took my mother’s files.”
Enzo nodded slowly, pulling a sleek black cell phone from his pocket. He dialed a number, spoke a few hushed words in Italian, and hung up.
“Mr. Santangelo is on his way,” Enzo said.
Billy’s eyes widened. “He’s coming here? Now?”
“He doesn't like it when people steal from women under his protection,” Enzo said, looking pointedly at Billy’s clenched left fist.
Billy opened her hand, revealing the heavy silver signet ring resting in her palm.
Twenty minutes later, a black town car pulled silently onto the quiet Dorchester street. The sun was just beginning to rise, casting long, gray shadows across the small front yard.
Rafe Santangelo stepped out of the car. He had changed out of his tuxedo and was wearing a dark peacoat over a simple black sweater. He looked less like a corporate chairman and more like the dangerous man the North End feared.
Enzo opened the front door for him.
Rafe stepped into the small, cramped living room. He looked at the worn furniture, the peeling wallpaper, and the heavy antique sewing machine in the corner.
He looked at Billy. She was still wearing her stained, ruined banquet uniform, her bandaged right hand resting on the table.
“Are you hurt?” Rafe asked, his voice low and serious.
“No,” Billy said. “But my mother’s files are gone. The original sketches. The receipts. Sabine took everything.”
Rafe walked over to the empty file folder on the floor. He picked up the handwritten note.
I told you not to play games.
He read it, his jaw clenching so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek.
“She broke into your house,” Rafe said softly. “While your mother was sleeping.”
“Sabine didn't break in,” Billy corrected, her voice shaking with residual anger. “My mother’s caregiver, Martha, has a key. She knows where the file is kept. She hasn't answered her phone since last night.”
Rafe turned to Enzo. “Find the caregiver. Bring her to the warehouse on 4th Street.”
Enzo nodded and left the house immediately.
Rafe looked back at Billy.
“You said Sabine has a second lien on this house,” Rafe said, crossing his arms.
Billy nodded, tears of frustration threatening to spill. “Sabine told me last night. She said if I told you about the stolen design, she would foreclose on us. But my father paid off the mortgage ten years ago. There shouldn't be a lien.”
“Do you have the property deed?”
Billy walked to a small lockbox on the bookshelf, unlocked it with a key from her apron, and handed a stack of official documents to Rafe.
He flipped through the papers quickly, his sharp eyes catching the details an ordinary man would miss.
“Your father paid it off,” Rafe confirmed. “But there’s a home equity line of credit taken out two years ago. For eighty thousand dollars.”
Billy felt the blood drain from her face. “Eighty thousand? We never saw that money. My mother couldn't even sign her name two years ago because of the stroke.”
“She didn't sign it,” Rafe said, pointing to the signature line on the loan document.
Billy looked closely at the signature. It wasn't her mother’s handwriting. It was forged.
“Who approved this loan?” Billy asked, horrified.
Rafe looked at the bank logo at the top of the page.
“Apex Financial,” Rafe said, his voice turning deadly cold.
“Is that Sabine’s company?”
“No,” Rafe said, staring at the forged signature. “It’s mine.”
The room went completely silent.
“Sabine didn't take out the loan,” Rafe explained, the betrayal carving deep lines into his face. “She used my financial firm to forge a loan against your house. She used my money to blackmail you into silence.”
Billy backed away from him. “She used your company? How?”
“She has access to the accounts,” Rafe said, running a hand through his dark hair. “I trusted her. I gave her executive authority over the charitable foundation we set up together.”
He looked around the small, struggling household.
“She stole eighty thousand dollars from my foundation, forged a loan against a disabled woman’s house, and used it to protect a stolen patent,” Rafe summarized grimly.
He looked at Billy.
“I need to prove she stole the design, Billy. If I go to the police with financial fraud, her lawyers will bury it in red tape for years. But if I can prove her entire fashion empire is built on a stolen patent, the investors will pull out instantly. Her brand dies today.”
“I don't have the files,” Billy reminded him, her voice cracking.
“You have something else,” Rafe noted, gesturing to the dismantled scrap of black silk on the sewing table.
Billy explained the signature knot her mother had used. The invisible anchor stitch that held the reverse-beading together.
“If Sabine stole the design without understanding the architecture of it, her dresses will have that exact same useless knot inside them,” Billy said. “But I need one of her dresses to prove it.”
Rafe pulled out his phone.
“There are three hundred of them sitting in the Windmir bridal suite right now,” Rafe said, dialing a number. “She brought the entire new collection to the hotel for a promotional photoshoot this morning.”
May you like
He hung up the phone and looked at Billy.
“Get in the car,” Rafe ordered. “We’re going shopping.”
