Chapter 2 - The Scars of the Innocent and the Sins of the Vances
The arrival of Agent Harrison turned the opulent dining room into an interrogation chamber. Camille’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the back of her dining chair, her breathing shallow and ragged.
“What is the meaning of this, Gabriel?” Camille stammered, attempting to recover her aristocratic demeanor. “Why is a federal investigator in your private residence during our dinner?”
Agent Harrison stepped forward, his leather shoes clicking sharply on the blood-warm tea-stained floor. He didn't even look at Camille. He bowed his head slightly toward me. “Mr. Moretti. We executed the search warrants on the Vance Charitable Trust twenty minutes ago, exactly as you instructed. We found everything.”
Camille gasped, taking a stumbling step backward. “The Vance Trust? You have no right! That is my family’s foundation!”
“It was your family's foundation,” I corrected, stepping around the table toward her. “Until you decided to siphon forty-two million dollars out of my corporate logistics accounts and funnel it through your father’s shell companies in the Cayman Islands.”
“That’s a lie!” she shrieked. “I love you, Gabriel! Everything I did was for our future!”
“You did it because your father is drowning in three hundred million dollars of unserviceable debt to offshore cartels,” I said coldly. “You thought by securing a Moretti ring, your family's financial crimes would be swallowed by my balance sheet. You thought I was blind.”
I signaled to the two guards flanking Harrison. “Escort Miss Vance to the gate. Confiscate her phone, her purse, and her vehicle keys. She leaves this property on foot.”
“You can’t do this to me!” Camille screamed as the guards seized her arms, dragging her away from the table. “My father will destroy you! I am a Vance! You will beg for my forgiveness on your knees, Gabriel Moretti!”
Her venomous shrieks echoed down the vaulted corridors until the heavy front doors slammed shut, plunging the mansion into absolute stillness.
I turned my attention immediately to the west wing.
When I entered the private medical suite twenty minutes later, Dr. Reynolds was already applying a specialized cold bio-gel to Elena’s right forearm and shoulder. The young woman sat on the edge of the examination bed, wrapped in a heavy cashmere blanket, her teeth chattering from shock. Her dark hair fell across her face in damp strands, but when she looked up and saw me, she immediately tried to stand.
“Please, sir... I will clean the dining room right away,” Elena whispered, her voice cracking with fear and exhaustion. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble between you and Miss Vance.”
“Sit down, Elena,” I said, my tone softening in a way that surprised even Dr. Reynolds.
I walked over to the bed and knelt down on one knee so that my eyes were level with hers. For the first time, I looked at her properly. Beneath the plain black uniform and the pallor of pain, she possessed striking, intelligent hazel eyes and high, aristocratic cheekbones that looked entirely out of place on a domestic servant.
“How bad is it, Doctor?” I asked without taking my eyes off Elena.
“Second-degree burns across the forearm and right deltoid,” Dr. Reynolds replied, wrapping a sterile gauze dressing around the wound. “We caught it quickly enough to prevent permanent tissue scarring, but she will require daily treatments and total rest for at least three weeks.”
“She will have the best medical care available in this country,” I stated.
Elena shook her head frantically. “No, Mr. Moretti. I cannot afford this. I don’t have insurance to cover this kind of treatment. I need to keep working. My father—” She cut herself off abruptly, biting her lip.
“Your father?” I asked gently.
Elena looked down at her bandaged hands, fresh tears spilling over her eyelashes. “My father is in a specialized nursing facility in South Boston. He has advanced Parkinson’s. The only reason I took this maid position six months ago was to pay his monthly medical bills. If I lose this job, they will evict him.”
A strange intuition stirred in my chest. “What is your father’s full name, Elena?”
She hesitated, her voice barely a breath. “Dr. Ronald Brooks. He used to be the Chief of Neurovascular Surgery at Boston General.”
I went completely still.
Dr. Ronald Brooks. Five years ago, he was celebrated as one of the most brilliant neurosurgeons in North America. Then, overnight, a massive medical scandal erupted: an experimental surgical trial failed, patient records were altered, and Dr. Brooks was publicly disgraced, stripped of his medical license, and sued into absolute bankruptcy.
And the pharmaceutical company that had sponsored that disastrous trial—the company that had laid all the blame squarely on Dr. Brooks while walking away with billions in patent profits—was Vance Pharmaceuticals, owned by Arthur Vance. Camille’s father.
The pieces slammed together in my mind with terrifying clarity.
“Elena,” I said, reaching out to gently touch the edge of the blanket around her shoulders. “Did you know who Camille was when you applied to work in this house?”
She met my gaze with raw honesty. “I knew she was engaged to you. But I didn't come here for revenge, Mr. Moretti. I swear on my life. Every hospital and clinic in the state blacklisted me from working as a registered nurse because of my father’s name. This estate was the only place paying wages high enough in cash to keep my father alive. I just wanted to save him.”
Looking into her eyes, I didn't see a maid. I saw the daughter of a brilliant man ruined by the greed of the very monsters who had sat at my dinner table.
“Your father will not be evicted,” I told her, my voice carrying the weight of an iron contract. “And from this moment on, you are no longer a servant in this house.”
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Elena looked bewildered. “Sir?”
“You are a guest under the absolute protection of the Moretti name,” I declared. “And the people who destroyed your family are about to pay their debt in full.”
