Chapter 4 - CAMILLA DIDN’T STEAL MY DIAMONDS—SHE USED THEM TO BUY HER WAY OUT ALIVE
Camilla’s trail ended in Vermont.
At least publicly.
Albany bus terminal.
Rental car under a false name.
Gas station north of Saratoga.
Then nothing.
Enzo hated missing trails.
I hated it more.
Three days into treatment, I could stand for almost four minutes without support.
My legs shook.
Sweat covered my back.
Dr. Hale refused to call it miraculous.
“Your muscles are severely deconditioned.”
“You will not undo months in three days.”
“I stood.”
“Yes.”
“Then progress.”
She stared at me.
“You are exhausting.”
“Most people say intimidating.”
“Medical staff prefer exhausting.”
Physical therapist Nora Bennett was worse.
She made me walk twelve steps between parallel bars while speaking to me as though my opinion had no constitutional protection.
“Again.”
“No.”
“Again.”
“I own the building.”
“No, you own the house.”
“This is your bedroom.”
“Technically.”
“Again.”
I hated her.
By the sixth day, I walked twenty-two steps.
That afternoon, Enzo found Camilla.
Not physically.
A bank record.
The diamond bracelet had been sold.
Legally.
In Boston.
Three days after she vanished.
My bracelet.
Twenty-eight diamonds.
A gift I gave her for our fourth anniversary.
She sold it for less than half its value.
“Why?”
I asked.
“Cash.”
Enzo said.
“She took cash.”
“Then crossed into Canada?”
“Maybe.”
“Any withdrawals?”
“No cards afterward.”
“Phone?”
“Destroyed.”
I looked at the sales record.
“She needed untraceable money.”
“Yes.”
“Why not take cash from the house?”
“Your safes are monitored.”
“The bracelet was hers.”
I froze.
Technically, yes.
I gave it to her.
It was not stolen.
I had called it stolen because she left.
Because my grief needed evidence that she betrayed me.
“Anything from the jeweler?”
Enzo slid over security footage.
Camilla entered alone.
Nervous.
Looking behind her twice.
She wore no makeup.
No designer coat.
Nothing like a woman escaping toward luxury.
Then another frame.
A man entered five minutes later.
Baseball cap.
Dark jacket.
He remained near the entrance.
Camilla saw him.
Her face changed.
She sold quickly.
Left through rear service door.
The man followed.
“Who?”
“Facial recognition poor.”
“Build?”
“Could be one of Aldo’s contractors.”
My jaw tightened.
“She was being followed.”
“Likely.”
“Why didn’t she call me?”
Enzo looked at my bed.
At the medication bottles we had removed.
At the cameras Aldo controlled.
“Maybe she thought your house was compromised.”
That answer hurt because it made sense.
I had built a fortress where the wrong man controlled the gates.
“Search Canada.”
“Already.”
Then Elena arrived.
She had insisted on returning without Giulia.
I refused.
She argued.
Then reminded me I had said she got to decide.
Annoying woman.
She entered the bedroom carrying folded laundry.
I stared.
“What is that?”
“Your shirts.”
“I have staff.”
“Most of them are being questioned.”
“Good point.”
She placed the clothes down.
“Giulia is with my cousin.”
“Safe?”
“Yes.”
“Does Aldo know the cousin?”
“No.”
I nodded.
Then noticed Elena watching me stand beside the bed.
“You’re walking.”
“Poorly.”
“But walking.”
I hated how much satisfaction her smile gave me.
“Yes.”
She looked toward the hidden passage now secured with steel plates.
“No more ghosts?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Then:
“I remembered something.”
My attention sharpened.
“What?”
“Camilla came to the laundry room the week before she disappeared.”
I stared.
“Why?”
“She asked about the wall panel.”
My pulse changed.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I reported it to Aldo.”
“What did she say?”
Elena thought.
“She told me not to report anything else to him.”
“Why?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“She gave me an envelope.”
My heart hit.
“What envelope?”
“I forgot.”
I stared at her.
She flushed.
“I know how that sounds.”
“Where?”
“I put it in my locker.”
“Then Giulia got sick.”
“I missed two days.”
“When I came back, Camilla was gone.”
“Victor—Aldo emptied staff lockers during a security review.”
“Did you open it?”
“No.”
“What did it say?”
“I don’t know.”
I closed my eyes.
Another missing piece.
“Could it still exist?”
“Maybe in lost property.”
“Where?”
“Basement administrative storage.”
Controlled by Aldo’s household office.
Enzo searched before sunset.
The envelope was not there.
But a camera archive showed Aldo’s assistant removing Elena’s locker contents.
That assistant, Rosa Mendez, had quit abruptly the same week Camilla vanished.
Another missing person?
No.
Enzo found Rosa living in New Jersey.
She agreed to speak by phone.
“I didn’t quit.”
she said.
“Aldo fired me.”
“Why?”
I asked.
“Because I opened the wrong envelope.”
My chest tightened.
“What was inside?”
“A note from Camilla.”
“What did it say?”
Rosa hesitated.
“I only read part.”
“Read it now from memory.”
“She wrote…”
Rosa breathed.
“**Elena, if anything happens to me, do not trust Aldo with Dario’s medicine. There is someone using the old west passage. I saw them access the bedroom at night. I think Dario is being made sick.**”
My entire body went cold.
Camilla knew.
“What else?”
“There was a key.”
“To what?”
“Small brass key.”
“Aldo took it.”
“Did he see you?”
“Yes.”
“He asked what I read.”
“I lied.”
“He fired me the next day.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Rosa laughed bitterly.
“You were Dario Castellano.”
The answer hurt.
“What does that mean?”
“It means people did not call you.”
“They called Aldo.”
There it was.
The empire I built.
The wall Victor—no, Aldo—used.
I had made myself too feared to receive warnings.
Aldo had simply become the safe interpreter.
Rosa continued:
“I was scared.”
“I had two kids.”
“I left.”
“I’m sorry.”
I looked toward Elena.
She heard.
I said:
“You don’t owe me an apology.”
Rosa went quiet.
Neither did I expect those words from myself.
“What key?”
Enzo asked after the call.
Camilla had a brass key.
Possibly bank box.
Storage.
Hotel safe.
We began tracing.
Two days later, Enzo found a safe-deposit box opened under Camilla’s legal name at a small bank in Connecticut.
She had accessed it once.
The day before disappearing.
Still active.
Only she could legally access.
Unless authorities obtained a warrant.
We had enough evidence to involve state and federal investigators fully now.
Pietro’s testimony.
Toxicology.
Modified humidifier.
Vitale’s suspicious payments.
Rosa’s statement.
The hidden passage.
I hated surrendering control of the investigation.
Did it anyway.
A warrant opened the box.
Inside:
Medical records.
Photographs of Aldo entering the passage.
Copies of transfers from shell companies to Vitale.
A flash drive.
And a letter addressed to me.
Dario, if you are reading this, either I was wrong or I was too late.
My hands shook.
I continued.
You think strength means making everyone afraid to disappoint you. Aldo figured out fear makes people report upward through the safest person. That became him, not you.
I closed my eyes.
Camilla always had a talent for cruelty shaped like truth.
I saw someone enter the wall behind your room. I followed and saw the access to the humidifier. Aldo found me before I could reach you privately. He told me if I accused him without proof, he would say your illness had made me unstable and greedy.
My jaw tightened.
I believed him because your doctors already spoke to him more than they spoke to you.
The next line hurt worst.
I tried to warn you twice. Both times Aldo was in the room. You told me to stop questioning men who had protected you longer than I had known you.
Memory returned.
Camilla.
Angry.
“Why does Aldo know your medication before you?”
Me:
“Enough.”
Another night:
“I don’t trust Vitale.”
Me:
“Aldo does.”
I had silenced her.
Not because she lacked truth.
Because she threatened the hierarchy I trusted.
The letter continued.
I sold the bracelet because I needed cash no one could trace. I am going to find the source of the payments. If I come back, I will explain. If I do not, please do one thing I know you hate.
I almost smiled despite myself.
Ask someone else whether you were wrong.
I stared at the final line.
I loved you. I hope that was not another thing Aldo learned how to use.
No address.
No location.
But the flash drive contained one clue.
A photograph of a warehouse ledger.
A company name:
NORTHSTAR MEDICAL IMPORTS — MONTREAL
Camilla had gone north.
Not running from me.
Running toward evidence.
Enzo looked at me.
“She may be alive.”
“Yes.”
“You want to go.”
“Yes.”
“You can barely walk to the bathroom.”
“Insulting.”
“Accurate.”
Dr. Hale entered behind him.
“No travel.”
I glared.
She folded her arms.
“Try me.”
I hated competent women.
Apparently my life now contained several.
We compromised.
Enzo went.
Federal investigators coordinated.
I stayed.
Elena visited daily.
Not as maid.
She had been placed on paid leave.
I made sure of it.
One evening she found me trying to walk without Nora.
“You’re going to fall.”
“I’m improving.”
“You’re stupid.”
I looked at her.
“Do you speak to all employers that way?”
“Only poisoned ones.”
I laughed.
Then my knee buckled.
Elena caught my arm.
I hated needing support.
She felt me stiffen.
Immediately loosened her grip.
“Do you want help?”
Question.
Not assumption.
“Yes.”
I said.
She supported me back to the chair.
That simple permission stayed with me.
Two hours later, Enzo called from Montreal.
His face appeared on screen.
Behind him, police lights reflected against snow.
“What happened?”
I asked.
“We found Northstar.”
“And?”
“Warehouse empty.”
My heart dropped.
Then Enzo smiled.
“But we found Camilla.”
Everything stopped.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Where?”
“Hospital.”
The relief almost destroyed me.
“What happened?”
“She was attacked two days ago after contacting police.”
“Serious?”
“Broken ribs.”
“Concussion.”
“She’ll recover.”
I closed my eyes.
Alive.
Camilla was alive.
Then Enzo’s expression changed.
“Dario.”
“What?”
“She says Aldo knows we found her.”
My eyes opened.
“How?”
“She received a message before the attack.”
“What message?”
Enzo read it.
YOU SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE DIAMONDS AND KEPT RUNNING.
Aldo was no longer preparing to inherit my empire.
May you like
He was cleaning up everyone who could prove how he intended to steal it.
And now he knew the dying man in the bed had stopped dying.
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