Chapter 10 - The Price of a Sister’s Safety
Lily was moved to a secure apartment with my father, who had insisted on leaving his assisted living facility despite the strain. The police took statements from her school and found the photographer's car on traffic cameras. For the first time, the threat against my family had a name and a license plate.
I spent the night on a sofa beside Lily's bedroom. She woke once to ask whether I regretted speaking up at the engagement dinner. I thought about Mia's tears, Toby's courage, and the men who had treated Marco's murder like a business inconvenience.
“No,” I said. “I regret that speaking up costs so much.”
The next day, Dante offered to pay my family's expenses until the investigation ended. I accepted temporary protection but insisted the financial assistance be documented as a grant through an independent victim-support fund. I had learned how easily gratitude could become another kind of chain.
Dante didn't seem offended. He asked his attorney to draft the agreement. “You should never have to wonder whether I expect something in return,” he said.
We followed the photographer's vehicle to a storage facility rented by a shell company connected to Lucien. Inside were boxes of counterfeit documents, false passports, and surveillance photographs of the children. There was also a ledger of payments to the men who had ambushed Marco.
The final page named a recipient: V. MONTCLAIRE. It was not Giselle's name, but the initials matched a woman who had attended the engagement dinner as her personal assistant. I remembered her face clearly because she had helped rip my apron away.
The assistant was missing. Her apartment had been emptied, and a neighbor said she had left with a man carrying a silver briefcase.
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That night, Dante came to the safe apartment with news. A warrant had been issued for Lucien. Giselle had vanished from the hotel where she was being questioned. And the woman using the name Vivienne Montclaire had crossed the Canadian border six hours earlier.
We had uncovered the network. Now the network knew we were coming.
