Chapter 2 - THE NAME IN THE BOOK
Nobody argued with Damian Moretti when his voice became quiet.
That was something Elena had learned during her first month in the mansion.
Loud Damian was irritated.
Quiet Damian had already decided.
Within three minutes, the drawing room emptied.
Guests collected coats.
Conversations disappeared into whispers.
Isabelle did not move.
“This is my engagement dinner.”
“Not anymore.”
Her face changed.
Elena's did too.
“Damian.”
He removed his overcoat and handed it to Marta.
“Go home, Isabelle.”
“You cannot be serious.”
“I am.”
“Over her?”
Damian's eyes hardened.
“No.”
That answer surprised Elena.
Damian continued.
“Over you.”
Isabelle stared.
“You humiliated an employee because you believed she lacked the power to object.”
“She dropped—”
“I don't care about the tray.”
“You've been sleeping with her.”
Elena's face burned.
Damian did not blink.
“No.”
“But you want to.”
Silence.
That one landed differently.
Elena looked at him.
Damian's jaw tightened.
“Leave.”
Isabelle laughed.
It sounded close to breaking.
“My father will hear about this.”
“I assume you own a telephone.”
The engagement ring came off.
Isabelle placed it on the table.
Then she turned toward Elena.
“You think you've won something?”
Elena finally spoke.
“I wasn't competing.”
Isabelle's face tightened.
That answer hurt her more than any insult could have.
She left.
The front door closed.
Silence settled over the mansion.
Elena looked at Damian.
“I'm resigning.”
His expression changed immediately.
“No.”
She almost laughed.
“You don't get to say no.”
“Fair.”
“Your fiancée cut my hair because she thinks you want me.”
Damian said nothing.
“That silence isn't helping.”
“No.”
“Do you?”
Marta abruptly discovered urgent business in the kitchen.
Damian looked at Elena.
Then away.
“Yes.”
One word.
No seduction.
No excuse.
Elena's heartbeat became painful.
“But,” he continued, “I have never acted on it.”
“No.”
“And I won't while you work for me.”
That surprised her.
Elena touched the butchered side of her hair.
“Apparently someone acted on it.”
Damian's face darkened.
“I'm sorry.”
“You didn't cut it.”
“It happened in my house.”
“That still doesn't make it your crime.”
His gaze returned to her.
“You're very determined not to let me take responsibility for things I didn't do.”
“I grew up watching a man take responsibility for things he didn't do.”
Damian became still.
“Your father.”
Elena's chest tightened.
“Yes.”
Rafael Vasquez.
Once the chief accountant of Moretti Freight.
Then the man accused of stealing $4.8 million.
He had never gone to prison because the evidence wasn't enough for criminal conviction.
But his name had been destroyed.
The Morettis fired him.
Banks refused him.
Friends disappeared.
Elena had been seven.
Rafael spent the rest of his life repairing commercial refrigerators.
He died insisting he had never stolen a dollar.
Damian said:
“Your father wasn't a thief.”
Elena stopped breathing.
“What?”
Damian walked toward the library.
“Come with me.”
“No.”
He stopped.
“I've had enough Moretti men telling my family where to go.”
He accepted that.
Then said:
“Please.”
That changed it.
She followed.
The Moretti library occupied two floors.
Damian unlocked a cabinet behind an old painting.
Inside sat a leather book.
Cracked spine.
Yellowed pages.
Handwritten columns.
“What is that?”
“The oldest financial ledger my grandfather kept after coming to Chicago.”
He placed it on the table.
“Some transactions were legal.”
“And the others?”
“Weren't.”
At least he didn't pretend.
Damian turned toward the final third.
A folded page had been sewn into the binding.
He carefully cut one thread.
Opened it.
There was Elena's name.
ELENA MARISOL VASQUEZ
Her full name.
Underneath:
Age 7.
Then:
Debt protected until majority.
R.V. — 4,800,000.
Elena stared.
“That was twenty years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Why is my name here?”
Damian looked at her.
“Because my grandfather owed your father $4.8 million.”
Her knees almost failed.
“What?”
“Rafael didn't steal the money.”
Damian turned the ledger toward her.
“He made it disappear.”
“That's the same thing.”
“No.”
Damian's eyes met hers.
“He hid it from my family.”
“Why?”
May you like
“Because that money belonged to forty-three people my grandfather intended to destroy.”
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