Chapter 8 - RICHARD'S WORST SECRET
Richard recognized the photograph before I placed it on the table.
He sat down.
“Where did Marco get this?”
“He says my father left evidence that can destroy you.”
Richard looked older than I'd ever seen him.
Vincent stood near the door.
I remained across from Richard.
“Who died?”
Richard rubbed both hands over his face.
“A man named Michael Russo.”
Vincent frowned.
“I've never heard that name.”
“You weren't supposed to.”
Twenty-four years earlier, Moretti Holdings still had illegal operations Richard had spent years denying existed.
Gabriel ran them.
Richard benefited from them indirectly even when he claimed not to know details.
Michael Russo was a union organizer who discovered one of Gabriel's smuggling routes.
He threatened to go to police.
Then a warehouse burned.
Russo died inside.
“Did Gabriel kill him?” I asked.
Richard's voice was quiet.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Thomas and I found him afterward.”
My father's photograph.
The burned warehouse.
The body.
“What did you do?”
Richard looked at me.
There are questions that divide a life into before and after.
That was one.
“We covered it up.”
Vincent stopped breathing.
I felt cold.
“You helped hide a murder.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Cowardice.”
The answer came without decoration.
Richard had feared prison.
Feared the company collapsing.
Feared what Gabriel would do if exposed.
So Richard and my father agreed to give Russo's family money anonymously and bury the evidence.
I stared at him.
“My father helped?”
Richard nodded.
My stomach turned.
The heroic dead father I had been relying on suddenly became human.
Flawed.
Compromised.
Capable of doing something terrible.
“Thomas regretted it immediately.”
“That doesn't undo it.”
“No.”
Richard accepted that too.
Years later, my father started gathering evidence against Gabriel.
Not only to stop him.
To make amends.
The founder option in my name was part of that.
A safeguard.
If the family returned to criminal control, a Bennett heir could interrupt succession long enough for outside authorities to enter.
Vincent looked devastated.
“You built my entire career on top of a murder you covered up.”
Richard whispered, “Yes.”
“And you never told me.”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
I laughed.
Both men looked at me.
“There it is again.”
Richard lowered his eyes.
Marco had the photograph because Gabriel kept copies.
After killing his father, Marco inherited them.
For two decades, he'd used Richard's guilt to keep himself safe.
“If Richard moved against him,” Nathan said, “Marco exposed Russo.”
Exactly.
That explained why Richard had tolerated behavior he suspected but never fully confronted.
The powerful Moretti patriarch wasn't protecting Marco out of love.
He was being blackmailed.
“Why now?” I asked.
Richard looked at me.
“Because the founder documents your father left you can force an independent audit.”
“And that exposes everything.”
“Yes.”
Including Russo.
Including Richard.
Including my father.
I sat back.
“So the choice is protect their reputations or tell the truth.”
Richard answered immediately.
“Tell the truth.”
Vincent looked at him.
Richard continued.
“I made the wrong choice twenty-four years ago. I won't ask Claire to make it again.”
That was the first time that day I respected him.
Then my phone rang.
Marco.
I answered.
“You told him?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“Then ask him what happens when Russo's daughter finds out.”
I frowned.
“Who?”
Marco laughed.
“You've already met her.”
Then he said the name.
Sophia Carter.
The room went silent.
Sophia wasn't Daniel Carter's biological daughter.
Her birth certificate had been sealed after adoption.
May you like
Her biological father was Michael Russo.
The man Richard and my father had helped bury with the truth.
