Chapter 3 - THE WIFE THEY USED AS A SHIELD
By sunrise, Elena had learned two things.
Someone had stolen her identity.
And her husband had trusted the thief more than he trusted her.
She sat at Margaret's kitchen table with the financial records spread before her.
The transfers were precise.
Twenty million dollars moved through shell companies over eighteen months.
Every transaction appeared authorized by Elena Moretti.
Her signature was on the documents.
But she had signed none of them.
“This is fraud,” Elena whispered.
Margaret nodded.
“And someone wants the investigators to believe you committed it.”
Elena studied the signatures.
They were nearly perfect copies.
Then she noticed something strange.
Every forged document used her full married name.
Elena Catherine Moretti.
But on legal paperwork, Elena always signed with her middle initial.
Elena C. Moretti.
Her husband knew that.
Her attorney knew that.
Bianca apparently did not.
Elena photographed every page and contacted Rachel Bennett, an attorney she'd known since college.
“Rachel, I need help.”
“What's happened?”
“Someone is using my name to steal from my husband's companies.”
A pause followed.
“Where are you?”
“Safe.”
“Stay there. Don't contact Dante until we understand the situation.”
Elena looked toward the window.
“I'm not planning to.”
At the Moretti estate, Dante hadn't slept.
He sat in his office with the hospital records and Elena's ring on his desk.
Bianca entered without knocking.
“You canceled an important event because Elena wanted attention.”
Dante didn't look up.
“Where were you on October seventeenth, 2018?”
Bianca stopped.
“What?”
“The night I was shot.”
Her expression changed almost imperceptibly.
“At the hospital. You know that.”
“Who arranged my surgery?”
“I did.”
“Who paid for it?”
Bianca hesitated.
“My father handled the details.”
Dante slid the invoice across the desk.
“Then explain why Elena's name is on this.”
Bianca glanced at the paper.
“Maybe she reimbursed him later.”
“She didn't.”
“How would you know?”
Dante lifted his eyes.
“Because the transfer was completed before you arrived.”
For the first time, Bianca looked genuinely frightened.
“You're reading too much into an old invoice.”
“Am I?”
She stepped closer.
“Dante, your wife has always been jealous of me.”
He remained silent.
“She wants you isolated.”
Dante stood.
“Leave.”
“Excuse me?”
“My house. Leave it.”
Bianca's mouth tightened.
“You're making a mistake.”
“Probably,” Dante said. “But trusting you may have been the bigger one.”
She walked toward the door.
Then her phone lit up.
Dante caught a glimpse of the message on the screen.
Did Elena take the evidence?
The sender was Victor Salerno.
Bianca quickly turned the phone over.
Too late.
Dante had seen enough.
After she left, he called Marco.
“Follow Bianca. Quietly.”
Then he opened the safe behind his desk.
He removed the emergency financial records Elena had organized for him years earlier.
Something was missing.
A sealed blue folder.
The one Elena had once begged him to read.
Across the folder's empty space was a handwritten label.
PROJECT WINTER: THE REAL OWNER OF MORETTI SHIPPING.
Dante suddenly remembered dismissing Elena when she tried to discuss it.
He had told her business was his responsibility.
May you like
But someone had made certain the folder disappeared.
And whoever had taken it knew that Elena's next discovery could destroy the Moretti empire.
