Chapter 8 - The Maid They Tried to BlameEnzo disappeared again before police reached Daniel’s apartment.
But now investigators knew what he carried.
The original ledger.
Vittorio’s handwritten notes.
Records linking decades of stolen money to Enzo.
And possibly names nobody had yet uncovered.
For forty-eight hours, Chicago became a maze of raids and search warrants.
Rebecca stayed at the estate.
Not because Gabriel ordered her.
Because she chose to.
That distinction still mattered.
Then prosecutors called.
Daniel Mercer was ready to make a complete statement.
Rebecca decided to attend.
This time, Gabriel did not argue.
Daniel looked different when she saw him again.
Tired.
Older.
Smaller.
Maybe he had always been smaller than she believed.
She had simply spent seven years looking at him from inside a relationship where he occupied too much space.
“Rebecca.”
She sat across from him.
Daniel’s attorney was present.
So were investigators.
Gabriel remained outside.
This was Rebecca’s conversation.
Daniel folded his hands.
“I loved you.”
Rebecca almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the sentence felt obscene.
“Don’t.”
“It’s true.”
“You forged my name.”
“I know.”
“You used my aunt.”
“I know.”
“You locked me underground.”
His eyes lowered.
“I know.”
Rebecca stared at him.
“You don’t get to use love to explain what you did.”
Daniel looked up.
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
Her voice remained quiet.
“That’s what you always did. You hurt me, then told me how much you cared so I would question whether the hurt counted.”
Daniel’s eyes filled.
Rebecca felt nothing.
That frightened her less than she expected.
“Did you know Enzo killed Vittorio?”
Daniel hesitated.
“I knew he was responsible.”
“When?”
“Years later.”
“How?”
“Marcus told me.”
“And you stayed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“Money.”
Finally.
A truthful answer.
“Power.”
Another.
“Fear.”
Rebecca nodded.
Daniel looked at her.
“And because once you’ve done enough bad things for someone, exposing them means exposing yourself.”
Rebecca sat back.
“What was the ledger for?”
“Insurance.”
“Yours?”
“Enzo’s.”
Daniel explained.
The black ledger documented payments no digital system could safely contain.
Bribes.
Ghost contractors.
Political favors.
Security payments.
Money sent to people who needed to remain loyal.
Vittorio discovered it.
Enzo recovered it after his death.
Years later, Daniel stole it from Enzo.
He hid it in Margaret’s bank box after learning she had once worked for St. Catherine, believing Enzo would never search a location connected to a woman he had already frightened into silence.
Then six months earlier, Daniel removed it.
“Why?”
“Because Enzo found out.”
“How?”
Daniel looked ashamed.
“I told him about you.”
Rebecca’s stomach twisted.
“What?”
“I mentioned your aunt’s name during dinner.”
One careless conversation.
One surname.
Seven years of Rebecca’s life suddenly tied back into Enzo’s secret.
Daniel continued.
“Enzo recognized it.”
“So you started asking Margaret about the bank.”
“Yes.”
“And our wedding?”
Daniel looked down.
Rebecca already knew.
“You wanted access to her documents.”
“I did.”
She closed her eyes.
Not all seven years had been fake.
Somehow that almost hurt more.
Daniel had loved her and still chosen to turn their future into a weapon.
Rebecca opened her eyes.
“Where is Enzo going?”
“I don’t know.”
“Daniel.”
“I don’t.”
His voice sharpened.
“But I know where he wants to go.”
“Where?”
“Out of the country.”
“How?”
Daniel looked toward the investigators.
“The Moretti family has a freight route through Canada.”
Rebecca frowned.
“Gabriel controls it.”
“Not the old route.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Vittorio did.”
Enzo was arrested twenty-two hours later at a private freight terminal near the Canadian border.
The black ledger was recovered from the trunk of his vehicle.
Along with three passports.
Almost two hundred thousand dollars in cash.
And a loaded handgun.
The arrest dominated the news.
But Enzo still had one weapon left.
Rebecca.
His attorneys released documents supposedly proving Rebecca had authorized several fraudulent transfers.
Her signatures appeared genuine.
Dates matched her employment.
One transfer had been made from an IP address assigned to the mansion where she worked.
Headlines changed overnight.
KEY WITNESS MAY HAVE PARTICIPATED IN MORETTI FRAUD
Rebecca stared at the television.
“No.”
Gabriel stood beside her.
“We know they’re forged.”
“They look real.”
“We’ll prove they aren’t.”
“What if we can’t?”
“Then I believe you.”
Rebecca turned.
“That won’t matter in court.”
Gabriel smiled faintly.
“You’re becoming irritatingly practical.”
“Your influence.”
Forensic specialists examined the documents.
The signatures were sophisticated.
Not traced.
Not copied.
They looked authentic because Daniel had spent years collecting samples of Rebecca’s handwriting.
Birthday cards.
Housekeeping forms.
Lease documents.
Wedding plans.
He had trained software to reproduce her signature.
But Daniel had made one mistake.
Rebecca’s legal signature had changed after she injured her wrist three years earlier.
Two of the supposedly recent invoices contained the older version.
Impossible.
The fraud collapsed.
Then investigators discovered the computer used to generate the signatures.
It belonged to Daniel.
Rebecca was cleared.
Enzo’s defense strategy backfired spectacularly.
The public reaction shifted.
For the first time, headlines described her not as a maid or alleged mistress.
They called her:
THE WOMAN WHO EXPOSED THE MORETTI FRAUD NETWORK.
Rebecca hated that too.
“I’m still a person,” she told Margaret.
Her aunt laughed.
“You’ll never win with newspapers.”
Enzo’s preliminary hearing took place three weeks later.
Rebecca sat behind prosecutors.
Gabriel sat on the opposite side of the aisle.
Not beside her.
He had asked where she wanted him.
She had chosen distance.
Not because she did not want him close.
Because she wanted the courtroom to see that she stood there under her own power.
Enzo entered wearing a dark suit.
No handcuffs visible.
He looked almost exactly as he had at the gala.
Controlled.
Expensive.
Untouchable.
Until Marcus Hale testified.
Marcus described the brake line.
The payment.
The order.
Then Daniel testified.
He described the financial network.
The forged invoices.
The attempt to use Rebecca as a scapegoat.
Finally, prosecutors played Vittorio’s recording.
Enzo’s own voice filled the courtroom.
The mask cracked.
Rebecca watched him close his eyes.
Gabriel did not look at his uncle.
He stared at the floor.
When the recording ended, the prosecutor read part of Vittorio’s letter.
Not the personal section.
Only one paragraph relevant to the financial investigation.
“I built St. Catherine to repair places our city had forgotten. If my own family has turned that work into a machine for theft, then blood does not excuse the betrayal. It makes the betrayal greater.”
Rebecca looked at Gabriel.
His father had left him more than evidence.
He had left a direction.
When the hearing ended, Enzo was denied bail.
He turned before officers led him away.
His eyes found Gabriel.
“You think your father was better than us?”
Gabriel finally looked at him.
“No.”
Enzo smiled.
Then Gabriel continued.
“I think he was trying to be.”
May you like
The smile disappeared.
“And I intend to finish what he started.”
