Chapter 4 - THE MONEY WAS NEVER LOST
The truth about the fifteen million dollars arrived on a Tuesday.
Adelaide was reviewing an old Jones Financial ledger when she noticed something strange.
The original debt was fifteen million.
But the transactions didn't support a fifteen-million-dollar loss.
She pulled the bank records.
Then the investment records.
Then the offshore transfers.
Her face went cold.
“Mateo.”
He entered the office.
“What?”
“The money wasn't lost.”
He walked toward her.
“Show me.”
She pointed to the screen.
“Fourteen-point-eight million was moved into three shell companies before your investment fund ever collapsed.”
“Whose?”
“Two are controlled by Evelyn's brother.”
Mateo's expression hardened.
“And the third?”
Adelaide enlarged the ownership record.
Her stomach dropped.
“Chloe.”
Silence.
“They stole the money,” Adelaide whispered.
Mateo's jaw tightened.
“Your father knew?”
“I don't know.”
Adelaide continued scrolling.
Then she found something worse.
A transfer dated two years earlier.
A second transfer.
A third.
All signed electronically using Adelaide's authorization.
Her blood turned cold.
“I never approved these.”
Mateo leaned over her shoulder.
“You're certain?”
“I would remember moving millions of dollars.”
He looked at the signature.
“Someone used your credentials.”
Adelaide suddenly remembered something.
“My father asked for my laptop password last year.”
“Why?”
“He said the company needed to update its security system.”
Mateo's face became very still.
“Adelaide.”
She looked at him.
“This isn't just about your father's debt.”
“What is it?”
“They've been building a fraud case around you.”
Her heart stopped.
“They're making it look like I stole the money.”
“Yes.”
She sank into her chair.
“Why?”
“Because if the authorities investigate Jones Financial, the electronic trail leads to your credentials.”
Adelaide stared at the screen.
The daughter they considered useless had unknowingly been turned into the perfect scapegoat.
Mateo placed both hands on the desk.
“They planned to make you disappear after the marriage.”
Her eyes lifted.
“What?”
“Your father wasn't sending you to me because he thought I'd marry you.”
Mateo's voice became colder.
“He was sending you somewhere he believed nobody would look for you if the company collapsed.”
Adelaide felt sick.
“So I was supposed to become the criminal.”
“Yes.”
“And they would keep the money.”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes.
For the first time since entering the Moretti estate, she allowed herself to cry.
Mateo didn't tell her not to.
He didn't tell her to be strong.
May you like
He simply remained beside her until the tears stopped.
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