Chapter 17 - The Final Thread
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Clara ignored the phone, losing herself in Dominic’s touch. But it buzzed again. And again.
Dominic groaned in frustration, rolling over and grabbing the phone. "Who is calling you at this hour?"
He looked at the screen, and his expression hardened. He handed the phone to Clara.
The message was from a highly secure, anonymous server.
You think you won, Mrs. Russo? You just removed the pawn. The King is still on the board. Check your mother's accounts.
Clara sat up, pulling the sheets around her, her heart pounding. "Dominic, get my laptop."
He brought it to her immediately. Clara logged into her secure server and ran a deep trace on her mother’s old, dormant financial accounts from before she was moved to the care facility.
"What are you looking for?" Dominic asked, standing tense beside the bed.
"I don't know," Clara muttered, her fingers flying across the keys. "My mother has been in care for years. She has no money. But someone is sending me a message."
She broke through the final firewall of her mother’s old banking records.
Her breath caught in her throat.
"Dominic," Clara whispered, her eyes wide with shock. "My mother wasn't just a patient. Before she got sick... she was receiving monthly deposits from a shell company in Switzerland."
"Who owns the shell company?"
Clara ran the trace. The result flashed on the screen, illuminating the dark bedroom in a harsh blue light.
Montgomery Holdings.
Victoria’s family.
"Victoria wasn't just a jealous ex," Clara realized, the horrifying truth dawning on her. "Her family was paying my mother. Why?"
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Dominic stared at the screen, his mind working furiously. "When Victoria ran to Paris, she didn't just leave me. She stole highly classified syndicate ledgers. We thought we recovered them all. But what if she hid the master copies with someone nobody would suspect?"
"A civilian with dementia," Clara breathed. "She hid the ledgers with my mother."
