Chapter 5 - ISABELLE COMES BACK
Isabelle returned voluntarily.
No guards dragged her in.
No melodramatic confrontation.
She walked into Damian's office three days later carrying a cardboard box.
Her hair was perfect.
Elena hated that she noticed.
“I know about Thomas Bennett,” Elena said.
Isabelle closed her eyes.
“So Dad was right.”
“About what?”
“That you'd find him.”
Damian stood near the window.
“Does Carlo know you're here?”
“No.”
Isabelle placed the box down.
“My father has been terrified of Rafael Vasquez for twenty years.”
“Rafael's dead,” Elena said.
“That's what makes it worse.”
Inside the box were financial statements.
Original Bellini Development incorporation documents.
Bank transfers.
Carlo had indeed stolen Thomas's $164,000.
But there was more.
Over the following twenty years, he repeatedly made anonymous payments to Thomas.
Medical bills.
Mortgage payments.
College tuition for Thomas's granddaughter.
Not enough to equal what the stolen investment became.
But evidence of guilt.
Elena looked at Isabelle.
“Why bring me this?”
“Because I'm tired.”
“Of what?”
“Being my father's daughter.”
The sentence surprised her.
Isabelle sat.
“I grew up being told Bellinis earned everything. That Morettis respected us because we were strong.”
Her laugh was bitter.
“Then last month I found this.”
“You knew before you cut my hair?”
“Yes.”
Elena went still.
“Then why?”
Isabelle looked ashamed.
“Because I saw your name in a copy of the ledger.”
There it was.
“I knew what would happen if Damian found the original.”
“So you humiliated me.”
“I wanted you to quit.”
“You could have spoken to me.”
“And said what? Hello, Elena, my family's fortune began with money your father tried to give a dying truck driver?”
Elena's anger sharpened.
“So instead you cut my hair.”
“Yes.”
“Because you thought servants were easier to frighten.”
Isabelle looked down.
“Yes.”
No excuse.
Elena had expected denial.
It was almost harder to hate honesty.
“I'm sorry.”
Elena touched the shorter side of her hair.
“Sorry doesn't put it back.”
“I know.”
“And your shame doesn't become my responsibility.”
“I know.”
Damian said nothing.
This was Elena's confrontation.
Not his.
Isabelle stood.
“I'm going to testify.”
“Against your father?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She looked at Elena.
“Because I spent my entire life thinking power meant never letting anyone humiliate you.”
Her eyes moved toward Elena's hair.
“Then I became the person who humiliated someone else.”
She left.
Damian watched the door close.
Elena asked:
“Do you still love her?”
He considered the question.
“I loved the person I thought she was.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“No.”
He looked at Elena.
“I don't think I knew her.”
Elena nodded.
Then:
“And you don't know me either.”
Damian's expression softened.
“I know.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“Because whatever is happening between us doesn't get to skip that part.”
“What part?”
“Actually knowing me.”
For once, Damian Moretti had no clever response.
May you like
“Fair.”
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