Chapter 3 - THE CHARITY MONEY SOMEONE STOLE
Roman didn't speak for almost a minute.
The DeLuca Community Medical Fund had been created by his mother fifteen years earlier.
Its purpose was simple.
Emergency medical grants.
No interest.
No repayment requirement.
Families facing catastrophic illness received help without debt.
My father hadn't borrowed seventy-eight thousand dollars.
He'd received a grant.
Someone had converted that grant into a loan after his death.
Then increased it.
Then threatened me for years.
Roman looked at Rebecca.
"Who processed the original application?"
She checked the records.
"Margaret DeLuca Foundation Services."
Roman's expression softened.
"My mother."
His mother had died six years earlier.
I remembered her photographs throughout the mansion.
Dark hair.
Gentle smile.
The only DeLuca whose reputation seemed built around kindness instead of fear.
"She helped Lily?" I whispered.
Roman nodded slowly.
"Apparently."
My throat tightened.
"Why?"
Rebecca turned another document.
"Your father wrote directly to her."
A scanned letter appeared.
Mrs. DeLuca,
My younger daughter is critically ill. I have exhausted every option. I am not asking for myself.
I stopped reading.
My father's handwriting.
Suddenly I was twenty-three again.
Standing beside his coffin.
Believing he'd left me with a debt that could destroy us.
He hadn't.
He'd found help.
Someone else had turned that help into a weapon.
Roman's hands curled into fists.
"Who had access to the fund after my mother died?"
Rebecca glanced toward him.
"Financial oversight transferred to a joint committee."
"Names."
She read them.
Three former DeLuca accountants.
A bank officer.
And Charles Mercer.
My stomach dropped.
Vivian's father.
Roman looked toward his security chief.
"Find every transaction Mercer approved."
The man nodded and left.
I stared at the documents.
"Why me?"
Roman turned.
"What?"
"Thousands of people must have received grants. Why target me?"
Nobody answered.
Then Rebecca found another file.
My father's application included a family photograph.
Dad.
Me.
Lily.
I was twenty-two.
Rebecca examined it.
"There's a notation here."
"What notation?"
She zoomed in.
Beside my name, someone had handwritten:
C. Bennett - confirm identity before approval.
Roman moved closer.
"Confirm what?"
Rebecca opened the scanned supporting documents.
Birth certificates.
Insurance records.
A letter from Lily's neurologist.
Then another page appeared.
Not medical.
A photograph.
My father standing beside Roman's mother at a charity event twenty-five years earlier.
They looked young.
Familiar.
Roman stared.
"You father knew my mother."
"I never knew that."
Rebecca turned the photograph over digitally.
On the back were words written in Margaret DeLuca's handwriting.
Thomas Bennett kept my son alive when nobody else could.
Roman's face drained of color.
"My son?"
I looked at him.
"What does that mean?"
He didn't answer.
Because he was staring at my father's name like it had just opened a grave.
May you like
Then he whispered:
"Your father saved my life."
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