Chapter 4 - THE VELVET COAT
Marcus didn’t touch the gun.
He scooped Adeline up with one arm and backed away from the crimson coat, his heart hammering against his ribs.
“Who dropped it, Addie?” Marcus asked, keeping his voice perfectly level.
Adeline rested her chin on his shoulder. “Man in red.”
“Did he hurt your Mama?”
Adeline frowned. She shook her head. “Mama hurt him.”
Marcus froze.
“Camille hurt the man?”
“Mama hit him with shiny pot,” Adeline explained calmly, as if narrating a cartoon she had watched that morning. “Then Mama ran.”
Marcus processed the information rapidly.
Camille wasn’t just a victim being dragged away. She had fought back. She was on the run inside the estate.
And she was intimately connected to Dominic Castellano.
Marcus carried Adeline directly down to the medical suite.
He found Vincent sitting up on the edge of a gurney, his chest heavily bandaged, arguing with Dr. Morales.
“I need to be in the security room, Lena,” Vincent ground out, his face still pale.
“You need a blood transfusion,” Lena shot back.
Marcus walked in and set Adeline on a nearby chair.
“Boss,” Marcus said grimly. “We need to talk.”
Vincent saw the expression on his head of security’s face. He nodded at Lena, who reluctantly stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her.
Marcus pulled the soaked photograph from his pocket and laid it on the stainless steel tray next to Vincent.
Vincent looked at it.
He didn’t gasp. He didn’t shout.
He just stared at the picture of his supposedly deceased brother, his unassuming maid, and the baby that looked exactly like the toddler sitting across the room.
“Where did you find this?” Vincent asked quietly.
“By her cart. Along with the master key to your vault.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
“I knew she looked familiar,” Vincent whispered. “When I hired her two years ago. I thought it was just a coincidence.”
“You didn’t know she was Dominic’s girl?”
“Dominic had a lot of girls, Marcus. He was a monster. He used them and discarded them.”
Vincent looked over at Adeline.
“But he never had a child.”
“Apparently, he did,” Marcus said. “Boss, the attacker who stabbed you left a Moretti pocket watch in your office. And he dropped a red velvet coat in the east wing. Dominic is back.”
Vincent slowly shook his head.
“It wasn’t Dominic who stabbed me.”
Marcus frowned. “You said a man in a black jacket came up behind you.”
“He did,” Vincent said, looking up at Marcus. “But before he stabbed me, he said, ‘This is for the ledger, Castellano.’”
“The ledger?”
“The red book,” Vincent explained, his voice tight. “The one containing every payoff, every bribed judge, every offshore account the family has used for the last twenty years. It’s the only thing keeping the feds off our backs.”
“I know what the ledger is,” Marcus said. “It’s in the vault.”
“No,” Vincent said. “It isn’t. I took it out this morning to update it. I left it on my desk.”
Marcus stared at him. “It’s gone.”
“The attacker took it.”
Marcus felt the situation spiraling out of control.
“So Dominic sent a Moretti hitman to steal your ledger, and Camille fought him off?”
“No,” a soft, trembling voice said from the doorway.
Marcus and Vincent both turned.
Camille Boudreaux stood in the doorway of the medical suite.
Her maid’s uniform was torn. Her face was bruised. Her left arm hung awkwardly at her side.
But her right hand was perfectly steady.
And it was holding the missing red ledger.
“I took it,” Camille said, her voice shaking but defiant.
Before Marcus could draw his weapon, Camille reached into her pocket.
She pulled out a small, heavy gold crucifix on a chain.
Vincent’s breath hitched.
“Where did you get my mother’s rosary?” Vincent demanded.
May you like
Camille stepped into the room, locking the door behind her.
“Dominic didn’t send the hitman, Vincent,” Camille said, tears finally spilling down her cheeks. “Dominic has been dead for three years. I know, because I’m the one who killed him.”
