Chapter 6 - THE MAFIA BOSS FOLLOWED HIS DEAD MOTHER'S LAST WARNING TO A GOLDEN-LIT DINNER—BUT WHEN HIS BLONDE MAID FORMER LOVE OPENED THE NORTH STAR AGREEMENT, THE MAN WHO BETRAYED THEM NAMED A SECOND VICTIM
Peter Rourke had disappeared before Lucas could ask him a single honest question.
For ten years, the man had moved through the Valentini empire like a shadow, delivering messages, arranging meetings, and telling Lucas which enemies were dangerous. Rourke had once called himself Dominic's closest friend. Elena's final letter had warned Lucas not to trust a man who used exactly those words. Now the missing original agreement was apparently in Rourke's possession.
Lucas stood in the library studying a photograph of his father, Rourke, Bellamy, and Natalie Cross. They looked like respectable people attending a fundraiser. He wondered how many terrible decisions had been made beneath beautiful chandeliers while ordinary people carried trays and smiled because their jobs depended on it.
Jessica entered wearing a cream sweater and dark jeans instead of her maid's uniform. Rosa had insisted she take leave while the investigation continued. Jessica had resisted until Lily asked whether her mother could spend one entire morning without cleaning somebody else's bedroom. Now she carried a folder of school forms and an expression Lucas had come to recognize: determined, frightened, and unwilling to be dismissed.
“Lily wants to know whether she can call you Dad,” Jessica said.
Lucas set down the photograph. “What did you tell her?”
“That it was her choice, but that we were still learning how to be a family.”
He swallowed. “That's more than I deserve.”
“Don't make it about what you deserve. Make it about what you do next.”
He nodded. “Then tell her she can call me whatever feels right. I'll answer.”
Jessica studied him. “She also wants you to come to her school science fair next month.”
“I'll be there.”
“Check your calendar before you promise.”
Lucas opened his phone and canceled a meeting. “I checked.”
For a moment, Jessica almost laughed. The sound caught in her throat, but he saw it and held onto the memory.
Keene arrived with a development that shifted the investigation. Federal financial investigators had agreed to review the North Star account and the successor charity. A judge had authorized preservation of relevant bank records, and the hospital archive had been secured. No one had been charged yet, but Bellamy's network was no longer operating in the dark.
“Rourke knows that,” Keene said. “He contacted me through his attorney. He claims he has the original agreement and wants to exchange it for protection.”
Lucas's first reaction was anger. “Protection from whom?”
“Bellamy, according to him. Possibly you, according to his lawyer.”
“I haven't threatened him.”
“Then keep it that way.”
Jessica leaned forward. “Will he tell us why the letters disappeared?”
“He says he'll answer questions if we meet in a public place with investigators present. He chose the old Valentini charitable dining room at the Harbor House building. It has cameras, two exits, and enough history to make everyone uncomfortable.”
Lucas knew the room. Elena had hosted holiday dinners there for families whose homes had been lost in fires. Dominic had later used the building for business gatherings. Golden wall lamps lit a long table beneath a portrait of the harbor. As a child, Lucas had loved the room because his mother seemed happiest there. As an adult, he had avoided it because the charity's books never balanced.
Jessica insisted on attending. “My letters are part of this,” she said. “My daughter is part of this. I won't wait in another hallway while men decide what I can know.”
Keene agreed on conditions: no weapons inside the meeting room, officers at both exits, and Jessica's attorney present. Lucas accepted without argument.
Before the meeting, he visited Lily in the carriage-house kitchen. She was building a cardboard model of the solar system for school. Duke lay at her feet, his bandaged leg improving. Lily had painted Earth blue and green, then placed a tiny paper dog beside it.
“Duke doesn't live on a planet,” Lucas observed.
“He lives wherever I put him.”
“Fair point.”
She looked up. “Mom says I can ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“Can I call you Dad sometimes?”
Lucas felt his chest tighten. He knelt beside the table, careful not to knock over Jupiter. “Yes. If you want to.”
“Even if I get mad at you?”
“Especially then.”
“Even if you forget my birthday?”
“I'll try very hard not to. But if I make a mistake, I want you to tell me.”
Lily considered him seriously. “Okay, Dad. Can you hold Saturn while the glue dries?”
He held Saturn for eleven minutes. It was the most important appointment of his day.
At Harbor House that evening, rain streaked the windows and turned the city lights into blurred stars. The dining room glowed gold. Keene sat at one end of the table, Jessica's attorney at the other. Lucas stood near a window, his tattoos visible beneath rolled shirtsleeves. Jessica took a seat across from the empty chair reserved for Rourke. She refused to be positioned behind Lucas as though she were an accessory to his anger.
Rourke arrived with a lawyer and a battered leather briefcase. He looked older than he had at the gala, his cheeks hollow, his expensive coat hanging loosely. He stopped when he saw Jessica.
“You look like your mother,” he said.
Jessica frowned. “You never met my mother.”
“I meant Lily looks like you.”
“No,” she said. “You didn't.”
Keene leaned forward. “Mr. Rourke, begin with the agreement.”
He opened the briefcase and placed a document on the table. The cover bore the same compass rose symbol found in Elena's records. NORTH STAR BENEFICIARY PROTECTION AGREEMENT, it read. Beneath the title were signatures belonging to Dominic Valentini, Arthur Bellamy, and a trustee from Harbor House Outreach.
Rourke explained that Elena had established a protected fund for vulnerable children after discovering Dominic was moving illicit proceeds through the charity. The ten million dollars had been placed beyond Dominic's direct control. Elena intended the money to compensate families harmed by the organization, but Dominic and Bellamy sought a way to redirect it. A child identified as a protected beneficiary would give the trustees authority to manage distributions while keeping the account sealed.
“Why Lily?” Jessica demanded.
“Because Dominic knew she was Lucas's daughter,” Rourke said. “He knew before Lucas did. Bellamy proposed listing her as the beneficiary while keeping Lucas unaware. They believed Elena would never risk exposing her own granddaughter.”
Lucas felt a cold anger settle over him. “My father used her as leverage against my mother.”
“Yes. And Bellamy used the arrangement to siphon administrative fees for years. Elena discovered the withdrawals and threatened to report them. That's when the letters disappeared and the hospital records were altered.”
Jessica stared at the agreement. “Who wrote the letter telling me Lucas didn't want me?”
Rourke looked away. “I delivered it.”
“Who wrote it?”
“Bellamy's office.”
“And who wrote the message telling Lucas I never loved him?”
Rourke swallowed. “I delivered that too.”
Jessica's voice shook. “You watched two people lose ten years. You watched a little girl grow up without her father.”
“I was following orders.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“No,” Rourke whispered. “It isn't.”
Lucas gripped the window frame until his knuckles whitened. He had imagined confronting the man responsible. In his old life, a confession like this would have ended in a locked room with no cameras. Instead he looked at Keene and said, “Make sure his statement is recorded.”
Rourke continued. Elena had intercepted the proposed transfer at the clinic, preventing Lily from being moved under the false paperwork. But she had been unable to dismantle the fund immediately. Dominic threatened Lucas's life if she exposed the scheme. Elena hid copies of the documents, hoping to outlive her husband and eventually tell her son the truth. She died before she could.
“How did she die?” Lucas asked.
Rourke hesitated. “The official report said a stroke.”
“I'm asking what you know.”
“I know Bellamy met her the night before she collapsed. I know they argued. And I know he removed a blue folder from her office afterward.”
Keene wrote something down. “Do you have evidence of wrongdoing connected to her death?”
“No,” Rourke admitted. “I have suspicions. I won't pretend they're proof.”
Jessica appreciated that distinction. Too much of her life had been controlled by men who treated suspicion as certainty whenever it served them.
Keene turned to the final pages of the agreement. “There is an additional protected beneficiary.”
Rourke nodded reluctantly. “Yes.”
“Who?”
He glanced at Lucas. “A boy named Matthew Bellamy.”
The room fell silent.
Lucas frowned. “Arthur has a son?”
“He had a nephew. Matthew was eleven when the agreement was signed. His mother worked for Harbor House. She discovered the diverted funds before Elena did. After she reported the discrepancies, she disappeared. Bellamy told everyone she had left the country.”
Jessica felt sick. “What happened to Matthew?”
“Placed in a residential program under another name. Bellamy kept the file sealed. The boy became a bargaining chip, just like Lily.”
Keene looked up. “Is he alive?”
“I believe so. He would be twenty-one now.”
Rourke slid a photograph across the table. A boy with solemn brown eyes stood beside Elena Valentini in the Harbor House garden. On the back, Elena had written: NO CHILD SHOULD HAVE TO EARN THE RIGHT TO BE SAFE.
Lucas stared at the handwriting. His mother had tried to protect more than one child. Her charity had been compromised, but her intention had survived in hidden notes and documents.
“Where is Matthew?” Keene asked.
Rourke opened his mouth, then stopped. His phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen and went pale.
Keene immediately asked him to place the phone on the table. He complied. The message displayed a photograph of a young man sitting alone on a bench outside a bus station. Beneath it were four words: YOU ARE TOO LATE.
Jessica stood. “They found him.”
Keene called the officers outside and requested an immediate welfare check at the location. Lucas wanted to run to his car. Instead he waited long enough for the investigators to confirm the address. He had promised Jessica that he would not turn every crisis into a private war.
Rourke's hands shook. “Bellamy told me Matthew was safe. He promised.”
“Did you believe him?” Jessica asked.
“I wanted to.”
“That isn't the same thing.”
A call came through minutes later. Officers had reached the bus station. The young man was gone, but they found a paper bag beneath the bench. Inside was a paperback novel, a half-eaten sandwich, and a small blue envelope addressed to Elena Valentini.
Keene listened, then looked toward Lucas. “There's something else. The envelope contains a recent photograph of Lily. On the back is a message written by Matthew.”
Lucas's heart hammered. “What does it say?”
Keene repeated the words slowly.
I KNOW WHO TOOK THE MONEY. I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO ELENA. KEEP LILY AWAY FROM THE MAN WHO CALLS HIMSELF HER GRANDFATHER.
Jessica reached for the table. Dominic was dead. Elena was dead. Lily had never known either grandparent. Yet someone was still using the word grandfather to threaten her.
Lucas looked at Rourke. “Who is he talking about?”
Rourke stared at the photograph, then closed his eyes.
May you like
“Arthur Bellamy,” he said. “He's been telling Matthew that Lily belongs to him. And if Matthew is right about Elena, Bellamy may be willing to kill to keep that lie alive.”
Across the room, Jessica thought of the day she first met Lucas outside the university coffee shop. He had offered her his umbrella even though it meant he would get soaked. She had laughed at his expensive shoes and asked why a man dressed like a banker was waiting tables at a charity event. He had said he wanted to know what life looked like outside his father's gates. She wondered whether that young man had been lost or merely buried beneath the weight of a family name. Tonight she had watched him refuse the easy satisfaction of revenge. She had watched him listen while a man confessed to stealing their future. The choice had cost him something, and that mattered. It did not erase the years or make trust automatic. But for the first time she could imagine a future in which Lily's father did not have to be feared in order to be strong.
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