Chapter 6 - THE BLOOD ON THE LEDGER
I stared at the folded piece of paper in Victor’s hand.
The hallway was freezing from the broken fire escape window, but the chill in my veins had nothing to do with the wind.
“You lied to Luca,” I whispered, pulling Isabella firmly behind me. “You let him think Marcus destroyed the evidence.”
Victor slowly unfolded the paper. It was a single page, filled with handwritten dates, account numbers, and names. Clara’s elegant handwriting.
“I didn’t lie to protect Marcus,” Victor said, his eyes scanning the page. “I lied to protect you, Emma.”
Answer One: Victor had already recovered the ledgers before arriving at the house.
“I don’t understand,” I said, stepping backward. “Why me?”
“Because Marcus wasn’t working alone,” Victor said softly. “He was the one who slipped the poison into Clara’s tea. But he wasn’t smart enough to orchestrate the financial cover-up. Someone else in this house helped him. Someone who wanted Clara out of the way, and the money for themselves.”
Open Two: Who was Marcus’s accomplice?
Before I could ask, the sound of heavy footsteps echoed on the stairs.
Luca reappeared, his face pale, his white dress shirt stained with blood.
“Luca!” I cried out. “What happened downstairs?”
“Marcus didn’t run away,” Luca said, his breathing ragged. “He went to the basement. He killed the two guards holding Bianca.”
My heart stopped. “Is Bianca dead?”
“No,” Luca said, his jaw clenching. “She’s gone. Marcus took her. They escaped through the service tunnels.”
Reversal: Marcus and Bianca weren’t enemies. They were partners.
“Bianca,” Victor said quietly, nodding as if a puzzle piece had finally clicked into place. “It makes perfect sense.”
Luca looked at the paper in Victor’s hand.
“What is that?” Luca demanded, raising his gun again.
“The truth,” Victor said. He handed the ledger page to Luca. “Your wife didn’t just record the offshore accounts, Mr. Moretti. She recorded the wire transfers. Two million dollars, funneled from your syndicate’s funds into a private account in the Cayman Islands.”
Luca read the numbers, his eyes widening in horror.
“The account belongs to Bianca,” Victor explained. “She didn’t owe my employers money because of a bad gambling habit. She owed us because she paid us to supply the undetectable heavy metals used to poison your wife.”
I felt sick to my stomach.
Bianca had bought the poison. Marcus had administered it.
Together, they had murdered a mother, stolen millions, and then seamlessly positioned Bianca to become Luca’s new wife, ensuring their absolute control over the empire.
And tonight, when they realized Isabella was asking too many questions, they planned to sell the little girl to Victor to cover their tracks.
“They played me,” Luca whispered, crushing the ledger paper in his fist. “For two years, the woman sleeping in my bed was the woman who murdered my wife.”
He looked absolutely shattered. The most powerful man in Chicago, broken by the betrayal within his own walls.
Isabella gently let go of my apron.
She walked over to her father and wrapped her small arms around his waist.
“It’s okay, Daddy,” she whispered, resting her head against his bloodstained shirt. “You didn’t know.”
Luca dropped to his knees, burying his face in his daughter’s shoulder, a single sob tearing from his throat.
I stood there, tears blurring my vision, watching a father realize he had failed to protect his family.
Suddenly, my apron pocket vibrated.
I pulled out my cell phone.
It was an unknown number.
I answered it, pressing it to my ear.
“Hello?” I said cautiously.
“Emma.”
It was Bianca’s voice. She was breathing heavily, the sound of rushing wind in the background. She was in a moving car.
“What do you want?” I asked, my voice turning to ice.
Luca immediately stood up, grabbing the phone from my hand and putting it on speaker.
“Bianca,” Luca snarled. “I am going to hunt you to the ends of the earth.”
Bianca laughed. It sounded desperate and unhinged.
“You won’t have to hunt me, darling,” Bianca said. “Because I have something you need.”
“You have nothing!” Luca shouted.
“Oh, really?” Bianca mocked. “Ask your precious little maid to check her apron pocket again. The left one.”
I froze.
I reached my hand into my left pocket.
My fingers brushed against something hard and plastic.
I pulled it out.
It was an empty, crushed blister pack of pills.
I stared at it, uncomprehending.
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“Did you really think I was just going to send Isabella away to a boarding school, Luca?” Bianca whispered through the phone. “She drank her hot chocolate thirty minutes ago. You have exactly two hours to bring me the ledgers, or your daughter dies just like her mother.”
TITLE: The Crushed Blister Pack
