Two Million Dollars After a Funeral
Chapter 10 - Two Million Dollars After a Funeral
Helena Raldi refused coffee.
Adeline had expected the meeting to feel like an interrogation. Instead, the diner made everything embarrassingly ordinary. A child in the next booth was coloring a dinosaur purple. Someone near the kitchen dropped a tray. The smell of bacon clung to Helena's expensive coat.
Adeline found the setting useful. Wealth lost some of its theater under fluorescent lights. Helena could not summon assistants or close a boardroom door. She was simply a woman across a Formica table, asking to be believed.
Adeline decided she would listen without promising belief.
She chose a corner table in a nearly empty diner where no one looked twice at two women speaking quietly over untouched menus.
Adeline placed the bank statement between them.
She had spent the previous night checking the account numbers against public filings. The payment had moved through three entities before reaching a Vale consulting company, a route complicated enough to look intentional. Beside the transaction code was a short internal reference: CLEARWATER.
Helena said she had seen that word once before in Vittorio's private calendar.
“Was Clearwater a project?” Adeline asked.
“I thought it was a property.”
“Where?”
“Near the lake.”
The answer pulled the old accident back into the room. For ten years, every road seemed to lead there.
“What was the payment for?”
Helena folded her gloves carefully.
The waitress came by twice before either woman ordered. Helena eventually asked for hot water with lemon. Adeline chose coffee and left it untouched.
Up close, Helena's elegance looked less effortless than it had in photographs. Concealer could not hide the sleepless shadows beneath her eyes, and her left hand trembled when she lifted the cup.
Adeline wondered how many women in wealthy families had been praised for composure when what they had actually mastered was concealment.
“You don't like me,” Helena said.
“I don't know you.”
“That's wiser.”
“Officially? Acquisition consulting.”
“And actually?”
“I don't know.”
“Then why bring it to me?”
“Because Cassian has had a copy for five years.”
Adeline's stomach tightened.
“He knew his father paid Gideon after my father died.”
“Yes.”
“Did Vittorio order the murder?”
Helena shook her head. “I don't know.”
“What do you know?”
“That Vittorio came home the night Thomas died with blood under his fingernails and a bullet wound in his chest. He told me he'd been mugged.”
“You believed him?”
“I was thirty-eight, married to a man who could make questions feel disloyal. I believed what survival required.”
The sentence stayed with Adeline.
Helena was not asking for sympathy. That made her easier to believe.
“Why tell me now?”
“Because Cassian is becoming his father in one important way.”
“Which way?”
“He thinks love gives him permission to make terrible decisions on behalf of other people.”
Adeline looked toward the window.
“Does he love me?”
Helena's expression softened.
“I didn't say that.”
A clever correction.
Adeline almost smiled.
Helena continued. “I said he behaves as his father did when afraid.”
“Cassian doesn't look afraid.”
“Neither did Vittorio.”
That evening, Adeline asked Cassian to meet her in a public place.
He chose the conservatory in Lincoln Park, where winter disappeared under glass and wet leaves smelled like soil.
She showed him the bank statement.
“I know.”
No denial.
No surprise.
Adeline's anger rose quietly.
“How long?”
“Five years.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I never proved what it was for.”
“You told me your father tried to protect the evidence.”
“He did.”
“You did not tell me he paid Gideon two million dollars after my father's death.”
“No.”
“Do you hear the difference?”
“Yes.”
“Do you care?”
Cassian looked at her.
“More than I know how to explain.”
She shook her head.
“Try.”
For a long moment, he watched condensation slide down the glass ceiling.
“When I was nineteen, my older brother died.”
Adeline had read that Vittorio Raldi had lost a son. She had not known Cassian had witnessed it.
“Julian was twenty-three. He overdosed after a party. My father paid everyone who was there to stay quiet because he thought protecting the family name would protect me.”
Cassian's voice remained controlled.
“It did the opposite. I spent years wondering which truth was worse than the one I knew.”
Adeline said nothing.
“When I found the transfer to Gideon, I thought it might prove my father paid to cover Thomas's death. I couldn't tell you that without evidence.”
“You could have told me you suspected it.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you?”
His answer came slowly.
“Because by then I had already asked you to marry me.”
She understood.
“You thought I'd walk away.”
“Yes.”
“And you wanted the contract more than you wanted me informed.”
“Yes.”
The honesty no longer impressed her.
It only made the shape of his choices clearer.
Cassian reached into his coat and handed her a folded document.
“What is this?”
“An amendment.”
She read it.
Clause twenty-two was removed.
All temporary voting rights over her trust were returned exclusively to an independent fiduciary chosen by Adeline.
The marriage contract's financial penalties for early separation were eliminated.
She looked up.
“You're giving up control.”
“I never should have had it.”
“Why now?”
“Because you were right.”
Simple words.
Rare words.
Adeline folded the paper.
“I haven't forgiven you.”
“I know.”
“I don't know if I ever will.”
“I know.”
They walked separately toward the exit.
Near the doors, Adeline's phone rang.
It was Ezra.
She answered.
His voice sounded strained.
“Adeline, don't go back to the hospital.”
Her heart stopped.
“Why?”
“Your mother is gone.”
Cassian heard him through the phone.
Adeline gripped the railing.
“What do you mean gone?”
“She was transferred forty minutes ago.”
“By whom?”
Ezra took a breath.
“By an order carrying your signature.”
Adeline looked at Cassian.
May you like
She had never signed a transfer order.
And whoever had forged her name had known exactly how to make the hospital believe she had.
