Chapter 12 - The Dead Man’s AccountClaire Donnelly looked older than thirty-six.
Fear had a way of aging people without touching their birthdays. She sat in a police interview room with a paper cup of water, her hands shaking so badly Detective Walsh had to hold the recorder button herself.
Dominic, Elena, and Margaret Ellis watched through a live legal feed from the recovery center. Walsh had allowed it because Claire had named Elena as a victim and because Margaret had threatened three separate motions before breakfast.
Claire spoke in fragments at first.
Hospital.
Cash.
A woman on the phone.
A man waiting in a black car.
Then Walsh placed the newborn photograph on the table.
Claire began to cry.
“I didn’t hurt them,” she said. “I swear I didn’t hurt them.”
Walsh’s voice was calm.
“Who paid you?”
Claire wiped her face.
“The account name said L. Caruso.”
Dominic’s expression did not move.
Elena watched his hand tighten on the armrest.
Walsh asked, “Lucia Caruso?”
“I don’t know. That’s just what the transfer memo said. L.C. Holdings.”
Dominic looked at Marcus.
Marcus was already typing.
Claire continued.
“They told me to take one photo after delivery. Just proof. They said the father needed to know someday.”
Elena’s face twisted.
“The father?”
Claire nodded miserably.
“I thought—I thought he was dangerous. I thought maybe someone was trying to protect the mother.”
Walsh leaned forward.
“Who contacted you?”
“A woman. Older. She used a voice changer sometimes, but not always.”
“Name?”
Claire shook her head.
“She called herself Lucia once.”
Dominic’s voice cut through the room though Claire could not hear him.
“No.”
Elena looked at him.
“My mother would never.”
“She was already dead,” Elena said softly.
“I know that.”
But grief did not obey logic.
Walsh asked, “Why come forward now?”
Claire looked toward the camera as if she could see Elena.
“Because they contacted me again. Yesterday.”
“What did they want?”
“A statement saying Ms. Ramirez sold information about the children to Dominic Caruso for money.”
Elena went cold.
Claire sobbed.
“They wanted me to lie. They said if I didn’t, they would tell people I helped hide children from their father. I can’t do this anymore.”
Walsh placed another paper on the table.
“Did they pay you this time?”
Claire nodded.
“Half upfront.”
“How?”
“Courier envelope. Cash. And a phone.”
“Do you have the phone?”
Claire reached into her bag.
Dominic leaned forward.
Marcus whispered, “Got them.”
The phone was clean, cheap, prepaid.
But the final message remained.
Tonight. Say she planned it. Say the children were leverage. After that, you disappear again.
Walsh asked, “Who delivered the envelope?”
Claire swallowed.
“I don’t know his name. But he had a tattoo.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“A raven?”
Claire nodded.
Dominic turned from the screen.
Victor.
Always Victor’s shadow.
But the account bothered him.
L.C. Holdings.
His mother’s initials.
His father had created hundreds of entities. Some legal. Some not. Dominic had dismantled many after inheriting power, but not all. He had avoided anything tied to Lucia because grief made him sentimental and sentiment made men sloppy.
His father had known that.
After the interview, Dominic went silent for a long time.
Elena let him.
Finally he said, “My father built something under her name.”
Marcus nodded grimly.
“Looks like it.”
“Why?”
“To hide money?”
Dominic shook his head.
“My father never used my mother’s name for money. He used it for punishment.”
Elena sat slowly.
“What does that mean?”
Dominic’s voice was distant.
“When my mother tried to leave him, he made sure every account, every property, every car she could access was legally tied to him. Then he created companies in her name and moved dirty money through them. He told her if she ran, police would believe she was part of it.”
Elena covered her mouth.
“She stayed.”
Dominic looked at the floor.
“She died.”
The room went quiet.
Marcus spoke carefully.
“Maybe Victor revived the account.”
“Maybe,” Dominic said.
But he did not sound convinced.
That evening, Dominic asked to be alone in the records room.
Elena found him there at midnight, surrounded by old files.
“Dominic.”
He did not look up.
“I found it.”
She stepped inside.
On the table lay a trust document dated six months before his father’s death.
Lucia Caruso Protective Trust.
Beneficiaries: any biological child or grandchild of Dominic Alessandro Caruso.
Elena read it twice.
“What is this?”
“My mother’s money,” Dominic said. “Not my father’s. Hers. Family inheritance from the Ruiz side. He hid it after she died. I never knew.”
“How much?”
His laugh was humorless.
“Enough that Victor would kill for it.”
Elena’s stomach turned.
Dominic pointed to a clause.
“If I died without children, Victor gained administrative control. If I had children, control transferred to their legal guardian until they turned twenty-five.”
Elena stared at him.
“Their legal guardian.”
“You.”
The air left her lungs.
The boys were not only heirs to Dominic’s name.
They were heirs to Lucia’s escape.
Dominic leaned back, face pale.
“My mother tried to protect children she never met.”
Elena’s eyes filled.
And somewhere in the building, Nico cried out from a nightmare.
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Both of them moved at once.
For once, neither arrived first.
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