Chapter 6 – THE TRANSFER
Luca crumpled the confession in his fist.
He turned and looked through the glass at his mother. The woman who had baked him birthday cakes, who ran a charity that fed thousands of children, who had sat at his right hand at every family dinner.
A murderer.
“My mother was left penniless,” Claire said, her voice dropping to a hiss. “She died in a rented trailer because your mother destroyed her reputation to save her own skin. That six million dollars is just the beginning, Luca. I want the house. I want the foundation. I want everything Eleanor loves.”
“You’re not getting a dime,” Luca said.
“I already have it,” Claire smiled. “Check the foundation accounts.”
She turned on her heel and walked toward the elevators.
Luca pulled out his phone. His hands were shaking as he dialed his banking liaison. He put it on speaker.
“This is Luca Venturi. I need a trace on the six million dollar transfer from the employee retirement fund.”
The banker sounded nervous. “Mr. Venturi, we already completed the trace per your attorney’s request. The money didn’t go to Rebecca Lane’s consulting firm.”
Luca frowned. “What do you mean? The attorney said it did.”
“The attorney was mistaken, sir. The routing numbers were masked. We just uncovered the true destination account.”
“Whose name is on it?”
The banker paused. “It’s a personal checking account. Registered to a Natalie Brooks.”
The silence in the hallway was deafening.
Luca slowly lowered the phone. He turned to look at me.
“What?” I gasped, stepping back. “No. Luca, no. I don’t have six million dollars! I drive a car with a taped-on bumper! My dad is in a state-subsidized home!”
Luca’s eyes hardened. The trust we had built over the last fourteen months, the adrenaline of the train station, vanished in a single second.
“Your father worked for my family,” Luca said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “He kept the evidence. And you were the one who handed me the ticket tonight.”
“Because I was trying to help you!” I cried.
“Or because you and Claire are working together,” Luca said.
“I hate her! She tried to get my father hurt tonight!”
“Did she?” Luca asked. “Or was that just a convenient story to get me to open the locker so you could prove my mother was a murderer?”
I felt the blood drain from my face. I was being framed. Claire had orchestrated this perfectly. She knew she couldn’t get the money directly without setting off alarms, so she bounced it through my name, knowing my father’s history would make me the perfect scapegoat.
“Luca, please,” I begged. “Look at me. You know me.”
He looked at me. But the man looking back wasn’t the foundation president. He was the head of the Venturi family.
“Security is going to escort you out of the hospital, Natalie. If you try to run, or if that money moves, I won’t call the police. I’ll handle it myself.”
He turned his back on me and walked into his mother’s room.
I stood alone in the hallway, my world collapsing.
I needed proof. I needed to clear my name before I ended up in a river.
I reached into my pocket, my fingers brushing against the child’s drawing I had taken from Claire’s room.
I pulled it out and flipped it over. I stared at the back again.
Ask the maid how her father paid for her mother’s surgery.
Suddenly, my heart stopped. I recognized the handwriting.
It wasn’t Claire’s handwriting.
It was my father’s.
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