Chapter 3
I pulled the transfer records myself.
Every month.
Same day.
Fifty thousand dollars.
Recipient:
BENNETT FAMILY SUPPORT.
Every transfer cleared.
I stared at the screen.
Nora stood behind me.
“That isn’t my account.”
“I know.”
She looked at me.
“How?”
“The routing information.”
The account belonged to a private D’Angelo-controlled holding structure my father had created years ago for emergency family expenses.
Only three people had authority over it.
Me.
My late father’s accountant.
And Helena.
The accountant had been dead two years.
That left one person.
I looked at my mother across the study.
She had been brought upstairs under guard.
Her composure had returned.
“This is absurd.”
I rotated the screen.
“Then explain the account.”
She barely looked.
“I managed family distributions.”
“To Nora?”
“Yes.”
Nora stepped forward.
“No.”
Helena looked at her with contempt.
“You expect Roman to believe you kept nothing?”
Nora’s expression changed.
There.
The first attempt to turn poverty into guilt.
I stood between them.
“Don’t.”
Helena looked at me.
“She is lying.”
“So show me.”
Silence.
“Receipts.”
Nothing.
“Transfers to her account.”
Nothing.
“Anything.”
Helena’s mouth tightened.
I leaned closer.
“You took $1.8 million under my daughter’s name.”
“I protected it.”
“From who?”
Her eyes moved toward Nora.
Nora laughed bitterly.
“Me?”
Helena answered calmly.
“You were twenty-three when you had Sophie. No family. No standing. No understanding of what Roman’s money would attract.”
Nora stared.
“So you kept my daughter hungry to protect her?”
“She was never hungry.”
Sophie’s voice came from the doorway.
“Yes, I was.”
Everyone turned.
She stood beside one of my guards holding half a dinner roll.
“My mommy gives me her food when we don’t have enough.”
Helena’s face went still.
I looked at Nora.
She looked away.
There are moments when rage becomes too large for movement.
That was one.
May you like
My mother had diverted more money in one month than Nora had apparently lived on in a year.
And Sophie had learned to notice when her mother skipped dinner.
