Chapter 1 - THE DOCUMENT WITH MY SIGNATURE
Elias nearly missed the turn.
“What do you mean you knew?”
“I mean Natalia stopped being the biggest problem seven weeks ago.”
The sedan merged onto Lake Shore Drive while Chicago glittered beyond the dark water. I opened my purse and removed a folded photocopy sealed inside a clear evidence sleeve.
Elias had seen it before.
That was why he had agreed to help me disappear.
Across the top were the words:
MORETTI FOUNDATION — EMERGENCY ASSET REALLOCATION AUTHORIZATION.
Thirty-eight million dollars.
Money donated for hospitals, housing grants, addiction recovery programs, and scholarships.
Money I had spent seven years protecting.
The authorization transferred it into a private investment entity called North Meridian Holdings.
My signature appeared on the final page.
So did Dante’s.
“I never signed it,” I said.
Elias kept his eyes on the road.
“I know.”
“The signature is excellent.”
“Better than excellent. Whoever created it had access to your original signing files.”
I stared through the window.
Six weeks earlier, I had been reviewing quarterly donor restrictions from my kitchen table when I found a payment that should not have existed.
One payment led to three shell corporations.
Three led to North Meridian.
Then I found the authorization.
My name.
Dante’s name.
A notarization.
And Natalia’s initials beside the transfer request.
At first, I thought Dante had stolen from his own charity to finance something illegal.
Then Elias discovered something stranger.
North Meridian had not spent the money.
The entire thirty-eight million remained untouched.
Waiting.
“For what?” I had asked.
Elias had not known.
Tonight he finally answered.
“For a trigger.”
My hand tightened over my stomach.
“What kind?”
He reached into the center console and handed me another page.
A corporate resolution.
North Meridian could access the frozen funds only if one of three events occurred.
Dante died.
Dante was arrested on a felony charge.
Or Dante and I legally separated.
I stared at the third condition.
“They wanted me to leave him.”
Elias nodded.
“And tonight somebody made very sure you would.”
Natalia.
The gala.
Dante’s hand on her waist where two hundred witnesses could see it.
My throat went dry.
“You think the affair was part of this?”
“I think the affair is real.”
That hurt.
“But,” Elias continued, “I think somebody wanted you to discover it exactly now.”
I looked down at the document.
Forty-two days of planning.
Secret bank records.
A rental house outside Evanston.
Divorce papers waiting unsigned.
I had believed I was quietly escaping a cheating husband.
Instead, my departure might unlock thirty-eight million dollars.
Then Elias’s phone rang.
He answered through the car.
His assistant’s voice came fast.
“Someone accessed the North Meridian account eleven minutes ago.”
Elias glanced at me.
“Did they move anything?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“They changed the beneficiary.”
My pulse jumped.
“To whom?”
A pause.
Then the answer.
“Isabella Romano Moretti.”
I stared at Elias.
That made no sense.
Then his assistant added:
“And the secondary beneficiary is her unborn child.”
May you like
Nobody outside my doctor, Elias, and my sister knew I was having a boy.
But whoever had changed that account knew.
