Chapter 5 - What Mia Feared
The dashcam audio survived ten seconds longer than the video.
Mia’s voice:
“Turn it off.”
Roman:
“What?”
“They can see through it.”
“Who?”
Then static.
That was all.
Mia believed someone could access Roman’s vehicle camera remotely.
Luca checked Vale Logistics systems.
Roman’s SUV dashcam uploaded automatically through company servers.
A senior administrator could access live location and video.
“How many administrators?”
“Seven.”
I was one.
Roman was one.
Luca was one.
Four IT and operations executives had credentials.
Claire had none.
At least officially.
Then Luca found an audit log.
Someone accessed Roman’s live dashcam at 2:42 a.m.
The user:
A.VALE.
My dead brother’s account.
Adrian Vale had been dead eighteen months.
The login should have been disabled.
It wasn’t.
I felt cold.
“Who kept it active?”
Luca checked.
Authorization came from my chief financial officer, Victor Hale.
Victor had handled Adrian’s unfinished business after his death.
He was also Claire’s uncle.
I looked toward the investigator.
There it was.
The first direct family connection between Claire and my organization.
I had known Victor introduced us socially.
I had never considered that suspicious.
Now everything about that introduction changed.
Claire admitted Victor recommended she attend the charity event where we met.
“Did he tell you to date me?”
“No.”
“Did he know about Mia?”
“Everyone knew Mia.”
“Not what I asked.”
Claire looked away.
“Yes.”
Victor knew Mia had been reviewing Adrian’s finances.
He had told Claire she was “unstable.”
That word again.
A convenient word for women asking dangerous questions.
“What was Mia looking for?”
Claire claimed not to know.
Then Harper supplied something nobody expected.
She was sitting with Eleanor in the adjacent room when she began repeating:
“Blue book.”
Eleanor brought her to us carefully.
“What blue book, sweetheart?”
Harper pointed toward me.
“Daddy book.”
I wasn’t her father.
She sometimes called me that when frightened.
I didn’t correct her.
“Where’s the blue book?”
She pointed upstairs.
“Mommy hide.”
Luca searched only after obtaining appropriate consent and documenting the process.
Inside Harper’s nursery, beneath a loose drawer panel, he found a blue accounting notebook.
Mia’s handwriting filled it.
Dates.
Amounts.
Initials.
A.V.
V.H.
C.B.
And one name written out completely:
DOMINIC.
My name.
Beside it:
DOES HE KNOW?
I stared at the question.
Apparently Mia had not known whether I was protector or participant.
May you like
And neither did anyone else reading that book.
📖 Mia’s hidden ledger tied my dead brother, Claire’s uncle, and my own name together, forcing me to uncover what Adrian had been financing before he died. 👇
