Chapter 5 - I HAD BEEN HIRED AS A SURVEILLANCE TARGET
The realization humiliated me.
For five years I thought I earned my job.
Technically, I had.
I did the work.
I kept the position because I was good at it.
But the door had opened for a reason I never knew.
Marco Bellini wanted me where he could monitor whether Noah’s evidence resurfaced.
Vincent looked furious when he learned this.
I was furious differently.
“Did everyone in this house know more about my life than I did?”
“No,” Renzo said.
“Feels like it.”
Then Vincent asked a question I had avoided.
“What did Noah keep at home?”
“Nothing important.”
“You’re sure?”
“No.”
Honest.
Noah had been organized to the point of irritation.
Tools labeled.
Receipts filed.
Passwords written nowhere.
After he died, I packed his desk into boxes because looking at it hurt.
Most were still in a storage unit in Brooklyn.
We went that afternoon.
Not Vincent.
I refused.
Renzo came with two plainclothes security people, and I brought my sister, Emily.
Mia stayed at the estate with Maria and three background-checked childcare staff Vincent somehow produced within an hour.
The storage unit looked untouched.
Then I noticed one thing.
Noah’s gray metal toolbox.
Wrong shelf.
I knew because I had packed it myself.
Someone had moved it.
Renzo photographed everything before we touched anything.
Inside:
Wrenches.
Tape measure.
Screwdrivers.
An old flashlight.
Then Emily noticed the bottom panel sat unevenly.
We lifted it.
Hidden beneath was a small envelope.
No flash drive.
No dramatic ledger.
A key.
Brass.
Number stamped:
And a receipt from Hudson National Bank.
Safe-deposit box.
My hands started shaking.
The access agreement was in both our names.
I had never known.
The bank confirmed the box still existed.
Because my name was co-owner, I could access it after completing updated identification requirements.
The next morning, I opened box 417.
Inside was a thick packet of photocopied invoices.
A sealed letter.
A memory card.
And a photograph.
Noah standing outside a warehouse beside a man I recognized.
Marco Bellini.
On the back, Noah had written:
If he denies knowing me, he’s lying.
Then the letter.
Hannah,
If you’re reading this, I either finally told you everything or I failed to come home before I could.
I sat down.
My sister held my shoulder.
Noah explained he had discovered vendors were being charged “security fees” under Castalano authority.
Money flowed into legitimate-looking consulting invoices.
Then offshore holding accounts.
Noah believed Vincent did not know.
He was not certain.
That uncertainty was why he never told me.
Then one line:
If Vincent Castalano is part of this, take Mia and disappear.
If he isn’t, he may be the only person Marco is afraid of.
I cried.
Even dead, Noah had left me another impossible choice.
Then I inserted the memory card into the bank’s secure viewing computer.
One spreadsheet opened.
Hundreds of transactions.
Total diverted over four years:
$9.4 million.
Then I saw one column.
HOUSEHOLD PLACEMENTS.
My name appeared beside an internal code.
Below it were three others.
Employees inside Vincent’s estate.
May you like
Marco had not planted only me.
He had planted people throughout the house.
