Chapter 6 - Bianca's Last Visit
I had not set foot inside the Red Hook warehouse since Bianca's funeral.
By three in the morning, I was standing beneath its steel rafters with Marco, Luca, and six armed men while rain hammered the roof.
"What was Bianca doing here?" Marco asked.
"She said she was checking foundation inventory."
Luca gave me a look. "At midnight?"
I ignored him.
Bianca had handled the charitable side of our businesses because she refused to let our name mean only fear. She funded clinics, food programs, shelters. She also had a habit of asking questions accountants hated.
The warehouse stored medical supplies for the foundation.
At least, that was what the paperwork said.
Marco unlocked Bianca's old office.
Dust covered the desk.
A framed photo of the two of us still sat beside the lamp. Bianca was seven months pregnant in the picture, laughing because I had spilled coffee down my shirt ten seconds before it was taken.
For a moment I could not breathe.
Then Luca said, "Adrien."
He was looking at the floor.
One floorboard beneath the desk had been replaced with a newer piece of wood.
We pried it up.
Under it was a slim metal box.
Inside were photocopies of invoices.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical equipment had been purchased by the foundation and then diverted to shell companies.
Each transfer was approved by a signature.
Mine.
Except I had never signed them.
"Forgery," Marco said.
Luca flipped through the pages. "Good forgery."
At the bottom was a handwritten note from Bianca.
A.M. DOES NOT KNOW.
CHECK BENNETT.
CHECK NORTHSTAR.
DO NOT TRUST FAMILY SIGN-OFFS.
"Bennett?" Marco asked.
"Graham Bennett," I said. "Our family attorney."
Luca's expression hardened. "And trustee."
Graham Bennett had drafted every legal document that mattered after my father's death. He knew the trust structure, the insurance policies, my children's inheritance, and every weakness in our corporate walls.
Marco photographed the note.
Then his radio cracked.
"Movement outside. East loading dock."
The lights went out.
Blackness swallowed the warehouse.
Gunshots exploded near the side entrance.
"Down!" Marco shouted.
We moved behind a forklift as glass shattered somewhere above us.
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One message.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE WALL CLOSED.
Then another.
ASK YOUR HOUSEKEEPER WHY HER HUSBAND DIED HERE.
I read it twice.
Elena's husband, Tomas Ruiz, had died five years earlier in what I had been told was a construction accident.
I had never asked which property.
Another shot hit the forklift.
Marco returned fire toward the loading dock.
Luca grabbed my shoulder. "We need to move."
I looked at the text again.
Someone was not only watching us.
They were feeding me secrets in an order designed to make me distrust everyone around me.
May you like
And it was working.
Because back at my house, Elena was alone with Sophie and my three children.
