Chapter 3 - The Gold Money Clip and the Secret Beneficiary
Serena stared at the gold money clip gleaming against the dark wool of the Persian rug. For a fraction of a second, the mask of the wounded, betrayed fiancée slipped, replaced by raw, unadulterated panic.
She quickly knelt and snatched the clip from the floor, clutching it so tightly her knuckles turned white.
“It’s just a keepsake, Adrian,” she said, her voice breathy and defensive. “I found it in the study a few months ago. I was going to have it polished and give it to you for our anniversary. You know how much your father meant to my family before… before everything happened.”
“Give it to me,” Adrian commanded, extending his hand.
Serena hesitated, her eyes darting toward the hallway, but Adrian’s uncle, Carlo, who had been sitting quietly at the far end of the table this whole time, stood up. Carlo was a man who rarely spoke, but his presence was a physical weight in the room.
“Give the boy his father’s clip, Serena,” Carlo said gently, though it was not a request.
Serena placed the gold clip into Adrian’s palm.
Adrian turned the heavy metal over. “My father didn’t lose this in the study. He had this in his pocket the night he had his heart attack at the warehouse. The coroner’s report explicitly noted his pockets were empty when the ambulance arrived.”
He looked up at Serena, the realization dawning cold and hard. “You were the one who found him that night. You told the police he was already gone.”
“He was!” Serena cried, taking a step back. “Adrian, you can’t possibly think I—I just took the clip to remember him by! This has nothing to do with Grace stealing the charity money!”
“We’ll find out exactly what Grace did or didn't do,” Adrian said, slipping the clip into his pocket. He turned to his uncle. “Carlo, take Serena to the east wing. She is not to leave the property. Not until I have my security team pull the security footage for the foundation offices and cross-reference every signature on that contractor account.”
“You’re holding me prisoner over a maid?” Serena spat, her veneer of elegance finally cracking into a vicious sneer.
“I’m keeping my fiancée close while I figure out why she was looting a dying man’s pockets,” Adrian replied.
Carlo placed a heavy hand on Serena’s shoulder and guided her out of the dining room. Serena shot me a look of pure, concentrated hatred as she passed.
Once they were gone, the dining room felt suffocatingly quiet. Adrian ran a hand through his dark hair and let out a long, ragged breath. He looked at Ruth, who was still clutching her envelope, trembling slightly.
“Ruth,” Adrian said gently. “I am so sorry for this. I will have a driver take you home. The eviction will be handled tomorrow morning. You have my word.”
“Thank you, Mr. Valenti,” Ruth whispered. She looked at me, her expression unreadable, before following the driver out the front door.
I was left alone with a mafia boss who had just discovered his fiancée might be a sociopath, and that my name was on the account holding his stolen money.
“Mr. Valenti,” I said, standing my ground. “I know how it looks. But she had me sign a stack of NDA and non-compete forms for the foundation three weeks ago. She must have slipped the bank authorization into the pile. She used me as the fall guy.”
Adrian looked at me. His anger seemed to have cooled into something much more calculated and dangerous.
“I believe you, Grace,” he said quietly.
I blinked, stunned. “You do?”
“Serena is smart, but she’s arrogant. If you had stolen forty-five thousand dollars, you wouldn't have risked your job and your freedom to stop her from humiliating Ruth for a video tonight. A thief would have kept their head down.”
Relief washed over me so strongly my knees went weak. “Then why did you pretend to suspect me in front of her?”
“Because Serena needed to think she had won that hand,” Adrian said, walking over to the sideboard and pouring two glasses of whiskey. He handed one to me. “My father’s charity isn't just a tax write-off, Grace. It’s the public face of my family’s legitimate business transition. If the press finds out my fiancée is embezzling from grandmothers, the state will audit our entire portfolio. I need to know exactly how deep this goes before I cut her loose.”
He took a sip of his drink. “You said she had you sign paperwork three weeks ago. Where did she keep those files?”
“In the locked filing cabinet in her private office,” I said. “But she has the only key.”
Adrian pulled a small, sleek black keycard from his wallet. “My father built this house. There isn't a door in it I can't open. We’re going into her office.”
Ten minutes later, we were standing in Serena’s lavishly decorated home office. The air smelled strongly of her expensive jasmine perfume. Adrian bypassed the filing cabinet completely and walked straight to the large landscape painting on the back wall. He pulled it aside to reveal a hidden wall safe.
He punched in a four-digit code. Click.
“She uses her father’s birth year,” Adrian muttered, pulling the heavy steel door open.
Inside the safe were stacks of hundred-dollar bills, a secondary passport in Serena’s name, and a thick leather-bound ledger. Adrian pulled the ledger out and opened it on the desk.
The pages were filled with handwritten transaction records. She hadn't just stolen the forty-five thousand. She had been skimming hundreds of thousands of dollars from the foundation for two years, routing it through shell companies and fake contractor accounts.
But as Adrian turned to the final page, his breath caught.
Attached to the last page with a paperclip was a glossy photograph. It wasn't a picture of a bank statement or a charity event.
It was a photograph of a little boy, about eight years old, playing in a suburban park. He had dark, curly hair and familiar brown eyes.
Written in red ink across the bottom of the photograph were three words:
May you like
LEO VALENTI — ALIVE.
Adrian dropped the ledger, his hands shaking violently. “My brother died when he was six,” he whispered, staring at the photo. “This boy… he has my mother’s eyes.”
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