Chapter 4 - THE BROTHER'S DEBT
My vision blurred. The edges of the photograph seemed to curl and darken as the reality of what I was looking at slammed into my chest. My brother. Thomas. He was supposed to be a nursing student in Boston. A quiet, introverted kid who I sent half my paycheck to every month. What was he doing in a Chicago alley with a mafia underboss and a corrupt cop two years ago? “Emily?” Eleanor asked, her voice tight with anxiety. “What is it? What does it show?” I couldn’t speak. I shoved the first photo to the back of the stack, my hands trembling violently. The second photo was even worse. It showed Thomas again, this time sitting inside a sleek black town car. Vanessa was in the driver’s seat, handing him a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills. “I don’t understand,” I whispered, tears blurring my eyes. “Why is my brother in these?” “Because your brother wasn’t just a student, Emily,” a cold voice said from the doorway. I spun around. The locked oak door hadn’t been opened, but the connecting door that led to the guest bathroom was wide open. Vanessa stood there, her red dress torn at the hem, her makeup ruined. She was holding a heavy bronze candlestick she must have grabbed from the hallway console. “Vanessa!” Eleanor cried out, moving to shield Grace. “Shut up, old woman,” Vanessa snapped, stepping into the room. She locked the bathroom door behind her and turned to me, her eyes wild and desperate. “Give me the envelope, Emily. Marcus has Luca distracted downstairs. If I can destroy those photos, I can still fix this.” “Fix this?” I yelled, holding the photos tightly against my chest. “You helped kill her! And you paid my brother! For what? What did Thomas do?” Vanessa let out a dark, bitter laugh. “Your sweet little brother? He’s a hacker, Emily. A very expensive, very illegal hacker. Marcus hired him to alter Luca’s shipping ledgers. They were skimming millions from the family business.” My stomach dropped. The tuition money. The sudden expenses Thomas always had. It wasn’t school. It was a cover. “Catherine found out,” Vanessa continued, gripping the candlestick tighter. “She saw Thomas leaving Marcus’s office one night. She hired a private investigator to follow them. That’s how she got those photos.” “So you killed her to keep her quiet,” Eleanor spat out, her eyes blazing with hatred. “I didn’t kill her!” Vanessa screamed. “I told you, Marcus pushed her! But Catherine was going to expose all of us. She knew I was in on the skimming. I needed the money, Emily! Do you know what it costs to keep up with Luca’s lifestyle before you’re officially his wife?” I looked down at Grace. The little girl was shaking, her hands covering her ears. Something fiercely protective ignited in my chest. “Catherine was going to give these to Luca,” I realized aloud. “That’s why she was running to the stairs that night.” “Yes,” Vanessa hissed. “She was bringing them to his study. We had to stop her.” Vanessa took a step toward me, raising the heavy bronze candlestick. “Hand them over, Emily. I won’t ask again. If you give them to me, I’ll make sure Marcus leaves your brother alone. If Luca sees those, he’ll kill Thomas too.” The threat hung in the air, cold and terrifying. If Luca found out my brother helped steal millions from him, Thomas was a dead man. I looked at the blue envelope. I could save my brother right now. I just had to hand over the proof of Catherine’s murder. I looked at Eleanor, who was staring at me with pleading eyes. Then I looked at Grace, the little girl who had kept this secret for two agonizing years, waiting for someone to finally believe her. I took a deep breath. “No,” I said firmly. Vanessa lunged at me. Before I could react, Eleanor moved. The frail, seventy-four-year-old woman threw herself directly into Vanessa’s path. The candlestick came down, striking Eleanor’s shoulder with a sickening thud. The old woman cried out and collapsed to the floor. “Grandma!” Grace screamed. Vanessa stumbled back, momentarily shocked by what she had done. That was all the time I needed. I grabbed the heavy wooden music box off Grace’s dresser and hurled it at Vanessa’s legs. It struck her knees hard, sending her crashing to the floor. I grabbed Grace’s hand and pulled Eleanor up by her good arm. We bolted for the bathroom door, unlocking it and spilling out into the upstairs hallway. But as we ran toward the top of the grand staircase, we froze. Below us, in the grand foyer, the dinner guests were gone. Only Luca and Marcus remained, standing ten feet apart, both with their guns drawn and aimed at each other’s heads. And lying on the marble floor between them was a man with his hands zip-tied behind his back. It was my brother, Thomas.
