Chapter 2 - THE ORDER THAT WAS NEVER ABOUT FOOD
I did not leave the mansion.
I tried.
Dominic asked me to stay.
I said no.
Then he said something that stopped me.
“I know what happened to your father.”
Eight years of grief compressed into one sentence.
My father, James Carter, had died when a warehouse loading platform collapsed outside Joliet.
That was the official report.
Industrial accident.
Equipment failure.
Wrong place.
Wrong time.
Mom received a small insurance settlement.
I left school.
Everything after that traced back to one phone call at 2:17 on a Thursday afternoon.
“What do you know?”
Dominic looked toward the remaining guests.
“Not here.”
I laughed.
“Interesting. Everyone was allowed to watch me crawl around on your marble floor, but this needs privacy?”
Several guests looked ashamed.
Good.
Dominic did not argue.
He led me into a study.
I stayed near the door.
He stayed on the other side of the room.
That mattered.
“What did my father have to do with you?”
“Your father worked for a company called Marlowe Freight.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Dominic shook his head.
“He officially worked for Marlowe Freight.”
“What does that mean?”
“Marlowe moved cargo for Moretti businesses.”
I felt cold.
“What kind of cargo?”
“Mostly legitimate.”
“Mostly?”
His jaw tightened.
“I’m not going to insult you by pretending my family is something it isn’t.”
At least there was that.
“Was my father involved in crime?”
“No.”
Too fast.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because he was investigating it.”
My stomach dropped.
Dominic explained.
James Carter had been a maintenance supervisor.
Then a safety auditor.
He discovered shipping manifests that did not match warehouse inventory.
Containers entered under one classification.
Exited under another.
Money flowed through waste-management vendors and equipment contractors.
My father kept copies.
“He went to police?”
“He tried.”
“What happened?”
“The person he contacted was compromised.”
“By your family?”
Dominic looked down.
“By someone connected to ours.”
Not the same answer.
But close enough to hurt.
“What happened the night he died?”
Dominic walked to a safe.
Opened it.
Took out a sealed envelope.
My father’s name was written across the front.
JAMES CARTER.
I stared.
“Where did you get that?”
“My father.”
“Your father knew mine?”
“Yes.”
Anthony Moretti.
Dead five years.
Publicly a real-estate billionaire.
Privately something else.
“My father told me James had evidence.”
“Then why didn’t he protect him?”
Dominic’s face tightened.
“He tried.”
“Not hard enough.”
“No.”
That answer surprised me.
He did not defend Anthony.
“After your father died, my father recovered this from a Marlowe office.”
“Why didn’t he give it to us?”
“He thought your family was still being watched.”
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
My skin went cold.
Then I remembered the deliveries.
“Was I being watched?”
Dominic hesitated.
“Not by me at first.”
“At first?”
He had someone track my delivery routes after recognizing my surname.
Avery Carter.
Same age as James’s daughter would be.
Then he requested me again through the app.
Not Vanessa.
Him.
The hundred-dollar tip had not been random.
The preferred-driver requests had not been random.
“You were testing me?”
“I was trying to confirm your identity without scaring you.”
I laughed.
“You could have asked.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because people connected to your father’s death may still exist.”
“And you brought me repeatedly to your mansion.”
He closed his eyes.
“That was safer than approaching you outside.”
“Safer for who?”
Silence.
Then the door opened.
Vanessa.
Somehow she had slipped past security before leaving.
She stood there holding her phone.
“You’re unbelievable, Dominic.”
His expression hardened.
“Out.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“You want the truth?”
I stared.
“She requested me too.”
Dominic turned.
“What?”
Vanessa smiled.
“Not every order. But enough.”
“Why?”
Her eyes moved to the envelope in Dominic’s hand.
“Because I knew she was James Carter’s daughter before you did.”
My stomach tightened.
“How?”
Vanessa reached into her purse.
Pulled out an old photograph.
My father.
Standing beside a woman.
Younger.
Dark hair.
Vanessa’s eyes.
“My mother,” she said.
I stared.
“Your mother knew my dad?”
“She did more than know him.”
Dominic went still.
“Vanessa.”
She ignored him.
“My mother was the last person to speak to James Carter before the warehouse collapsed.”
I could barely breathe.
“What did they talk about?”
Vanessa looked at Dominic.
Then back at me.
“He told her he had proof someone inside the Moretti organization was stealing millions.”
My pulse hammered.
“Who?”
Vanessa’s smile disappeared.
“He never got to say.”
Then she handed me the photograph.
On the back, my father had written:
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, TRUST ELENA WHITMORE.
Vanessa’s mother.
The woman Vanessa had never once mentioned during seven weeks of humiliating me.
I looked up.
“If my father trusted your mother, why do you hate me?”
Vanessa’s face changed.
Because there it was.
The question beneath everything.
She stared at the floor.
May you like
Then whispered:
“Because six months after your father died, my mother disappeared too.”
