Chapter 5: The Name That Rewrote Nine Years
The name was Dominic Reyes.
Lorenzo's attorney.
His financial architect.
The man who had structured every legitimate holding, every trust, every layered company that put distance between Lorenzo DeLuca and the parts of his life that could not survive daylight.
Dominic had been with him for nine years.
He had been at the funeral.
He had held Lorenzo's arm at the graveside.
Lorenzo stood in the cold and said nothing for a long time.
"How long have you known?" he finally said.
"Caruso told me during the meeting." Isabella pulled the coat tighter.
"He said Dominic had been feeding him information for two years.
Small things at first.
Enough to build leverage.
Then he asked for Aldren."
"And you said no."
"I said I didn't have access to it.
Which was true." Her eyes held his.
"He didn't believe me."
"So he arranged the accident."
"He arranged what was supposed to look like one." Her jaw tightened.
"The car was tampered with.
The guardrail section had been weakened three days before.
Someone on the road crew was paid.
I found out the morning it happened — one of Caruso's men made a call from a number I recognized.
I had forty minutes."
Lorenzo looked at her.
"You staged it."
"I had a body." She said it quietly, without drama.
"A woman.
She had already d*ed.
Natural causes.
She had no family, no record, no one looking for her.
I had her in the car before the road crew finished their shift."
"The dental records."
"Dominic prepared them.
I thought he was helping me." Something moved across her face.
"I didn't know he was working for Caruso.
I thought I was using him.
He was using me."
"The records he filed were real enough to close the investigation."
"Yes.
Because he made sure they were.
He needed me d*ad and confirmed.
A living Isabella DeLuca asking questions is a problem for both of them."
Mason had not moved or spoken.
He stood six feet back, eyes on the street.
"Why didn't you contact me," Lorenzo said.
"After.
Why did you run instead of coming to me."
Isabella looked at him for a long moment.
"Because Dominic told Caruso that you already knew about the Aldren account vulnerability.
That you had been planning to hand it over voluntarily in exchange for expanded territory." Her voice was careful and precise.
"He told Caruso that the accident was your idea."
The cold settled deeper.
"He told you I arranged it," Lorenzo said.
"He told Caruso.
Caruso told me, in that meeting, as a warning.
He said you had decided I was a liability." She held his gaze.
"I didn't believe him.
Not completely.
But I had just learned that someone I trusted had been lying to me for two years, and I was standing in a room with a man who had just told me my husband wanted me g0ne, and I had forty minutes to decide."
"So you ran."
"I ran." She exhaled.
"And then I spent two months trying to find enough proof to know which version of the truth was real."
"Did you find it?"
"Yes." She reached into the inside of her coat.
She removed a folded envelope and held it out.
"Three weeks ago.
A man named Garrett.
He was Caruso's courier for the road crew payment.
He decided Caruso wasn't going to pay him what he was owed.
He came to me."
Lorenzo took the envelope.
Inside were two documents.
A signed statement.
And a series of wire transfer records with Dominic Reyes's name on the originating account.
"Garrett is willing to testify," Isabella said.
"Where is he now?"
"Safe.
He doesn't know where I am.
I made sure of that."
Lorenzo looked at the documents.
Then at his wife.
"You've been building a case."
"I've been making sure that when I came back, I came back with something that couldn't be argued away." Her voice cracked slightly on the last word.
The first time it had.
"I wasn't going to walk through that door with nothing but my word against Dominic's."
Bruno pressed harder against her leg.
"Come inside," Lorenzo said.
"Not the estate.
Somewhere Caruso's people don't know."
"Lorenzo—"
"You've been alone for two months." His voice was quiet.
"You're not alone anymore."
Isabella looked at him.
Her eyes were full.
She nodded once.
Mason was already moving toward the car.
None of them saw the gray SUV idling without lights at the far end of the street.
May you like
None of them saw the phone being raised inside it.
None of them saw the photograph being taken.
