Chapter 5 - WHAT LUCA REALLY GAVE AWAY
“Did you give Richard the ledger?”
Luca stared at me.
“No.”
“Nora says you did.”
“I didn't.”
“She sent a photograph.”
“Show me.”
I did.
Luca's face went pale.
“That isn't my office.”
“It has your desk.”
“Yes, but…”
He stopped.
“What?”
“The drawer is wrong.”
I frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“My desk has two drawers on the left.”
He pointed at the photograph.
“That one has three.”
Rachel took the phone.
“Then it's a staged photograph.”
Luca nodded.
“Someone wants us to believe I had it.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
“To make you distrust me.”
The answer was obvious.
And terrifying.
Because it was working.
We returned to Arthur's room.
He was awake.
I showed him the photograph.
He stared at it.
“That's not my ledger.”
“What?”
Arthur shook his head.
“The cover is similar.”
He looked at Rachel.
“Who took this?”
“Nora.”
Arthur frowned.
“Why would she have access?”
“I don't know.”
Luca stepped forward.
“Dad, Richard Bennett asked me to sign documents.”
Arthur looked at him.
“How many?”
“Six.”
“Did you read them?”
“Yes.”
“Did you understand them?”
“I thought I did.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
“Then you were exactly what Richard needed.”
Luca lowered his head.
“I'm sorry.”
Arthur opened his eyes.
“Sorry isn't the same as innocent.”
Luca nodded.
“I know.”
That sentence seemed to break something in him.
Arthur continued.
“Your affair gave Richard leverage.”
“How?”
“Because you trusted Chloe.”
Luca looked away.
“Chloe told me she loved me.”
“I believe she did.”
Luca looked surprised.
Arthur's expression softened.
“People can love someone and still serve another person's interests.”
I thought about that.
Maybe Chloe had been using Luca.
Maybe she had also genuinely cared about him.
Human beings rarely fit neatly into villain and victim.
Arthur looked at me.
“Jessi, there is one thing I need you to understand.”
“What?”
“If Luca had never met Chloe, Richard would have found another way.”
“Because of the company?”
“Because of the voting shares.”
Arthur explained that Vance Industrial had been preparing a major acquisition.
If Richard could control enough shares, he could force a sale.
The company was worth far more than Luca had realized.
The inheritance wasn't simply about money.
It was about control.
Luca had been chasing a fortune.
Richard had been chasing the company itself.
Then Rachel opened a folder.
“There is another problem.”
She showed us a corporate resolution.
It appeared legitimate.
Arthur's signature was on it.
But Arthur immediately shook his head.
“I never signed that.”
“What does it do?” I asked.
“It transfers my voting shares.”
“To whom?”
Rachel pointed to the beneficiary.
Bennett Strategic Holdings.
Luca stared.
“So that's what Richard wanted.”
“Yes.”
“How did he get it?”
Rachel looked at the signature.
“Through a forged authorization.”
Arthur whispered,
“And whoever forged it had access to my private signature.”
I looked at the photograph of Nora's message.
Then something clicked.
“Nora.”
Everyone looked at me.
“She told me not to trust anyone at the hospital.”
“Maybe she knows.”
“Or maybe she wants us to think she knows.”
Rachel nodded.
“We need to find her.”
We returned home.
Nora's apartment above the garage was empty.
Her clothes were still there.
Her purse.
Her medication.
Her favorite blue coat.
But she was gone.
On the kitchen table sat a handwritten note.
I read it.
“I am sorry.”
Nothing else.
Luca picked up the note.
“This is ridiculous.”
I noticed something beneath it.
A small brass key.
Arthur's initials were engraved on it.
A.V.
I called Rachel.
She arrived twenty minutes later.
The key opened a locked drawer in Arthur's old study.
Inside was a stack of letters.
The first was from Richard Bennett.
The second was from Chloe.
The third was from Nora.
I opened Nora's letter.
She explained everything.
Twelve years earlier, before she worked for our family, Nora had worked for Richard Bennett.
She had left after discovering he was using domestic employees to gather personal information about wealthy clients.
She had taken the job with us because she believed she could escape him.
But Richard found her.
He threatened her.
Then he demanded access to our household records.
Nora had resisted.
Until he threatened her brother.
That was why she had accessed my personnel file.
She hadn't forged my signature.
She had been ordered to retrieve the sample.
Someone else had done the forgery.
I looked at Luca.
“Who?”
Nora's letter answered.
Chloe.
The handwriting sample had been sent to her through Nora.
But Chloe wasn't acting alone.
At the bottom of the letter was a name.
Richard Bennett.
Then came the part that stunned me.
Nora had discovered Richard's real plan.
He didn't want to inherit Vance Industrial.
He wanted to bankrupt it first.
Then purchase the company cheaply through a shell corporation.
Arthur's illness created the perfect opportunity.
If the company appeared unstable after his death, its value would collapse.
Richard could buy control for a fraction of the real worth.
Luca's affair was useful because it made him reckless.
His greed made him easy to manipulate.
The affair itself wasn't the goal.
It was the distraction.
I looked at Luca.
“You were never the heir Richard wanted.”
Luca nodded slowly.
“I was the door.”
The words hurt.
Because they were true.
Then we found something worse.
A list of future transactions.
The first was scheduled for Monday morning.
A transfer of the company's emergency reserves.
The amount was enormous.
If it went through, payroll for thousands of employees would be threatened.
Arthur couldn't stop it from his hospital bed.
Luca couldn't legally stop it.
But I could.
Because the finance department still recognized my credentials.
I looked at Rachel.
“What happens if we block it?”
“We need evidence.”
“We have evidence.”
“Not enough.”
I looked at the ledger.
Then at the forged signature.
Then at Luca.
“What if we let the transaction begin?”
Rachel frowned.
“We'd expose the receiving account.”
“Exactly.”
Luca understood.
“We trace it.”
“Yes.”
Arthur was listening.
He gave a faint smile.
“That's why I trusted you.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“You always look for the second move.”
I smiled sadly.
“Occupational hazard.”
Monday morning arrived.
At 8:59, the transfer request appeared.
At 9:00, I approved the first stage.
Luca stared at me.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
Rachel watched the account.
“Wait.”
The money moved.
Then disappeared into a holding company.
We traced it.
The company was registered in Delaware.
Its owner was hidden behind another entity.
Then the final beneficiary appeared.
Richard Bennett.
We had him.
Or so we thought.
Rachel's face suddenly changed.
“What?”
She zoomed in.
The beneficiary had changed.
The money was no longer going to Richard.
It was going somewhere else.
“Where?”
She whispered the name.
I felt the room go cold.
It was a Vance family account.
An account belonging to—
Luca.
He stared at the screen.
“I never opened that.”
Rachel looked at him.
“Someone did.”
Then his phone rang.
Chloe.
He answered.
Her voice was trembling.
“Luca, you need to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because my father knows you found out.”
“What did you do?”
“I didn't know what he was planning.”
“Chloe.”
“I swear.”
“Where are you?”
She hesitated.
Then whispered,
“He's coming for the children.”
The line went dead.
Luca looked at me.
I was already reaching for my coat.
Because suddenly this was no longer about the company.
May you like
It was about Kelly and Leo.
And somewhere outside our house, Richard Bennett had just decided they were worth more than money.
