Chapter 6 - Helena’s Two-Million-Dollar Secret
Carmine turned slowly.
“Two million?”
Helena didn’t speak.
He laughed once.
A cold sound.
“So seventy-five thousand was a loan?”
She started crying.
“Carmine—”
“Two million.”
“I never agreed to hurt Leo.”
“Did you agree to help them?”
Silence.
Rebecca waited.
Finally Helena whispered:
“I agreed to persuade you.”
“How?”
“To support the merger.”
“And when I said no?”
“I was supposed to convince you the trust was causing problems.”
“By transferring the car?”
“I didn’t know Marco filed that.”
“What did you know?”
She wiped her face.
“Julian said if assets were moved into my name temporarily, it would simplify things.”
Rebecca asked:
“Did you provide Carmine’s access credentials?”
Helena’s eyes dropped.
“Yes.”
Carmine closed his eyes.
There it was.
Not the full conspiracy.
Enough.
“You opened my safe.”
“Yes.”
“Gave Marco the device.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said it was paperwork.”
Carmine stared.
“You are thirty-five years old.”
She flinched.
“You don’t get to pretend you’re a child because the lie was convenient.”
Helena sat down.
“I was in debt.”
“So you sold access to my son’s future?”
“I didn’t understand the trust.”
“You understood two million.”
Silence.
That ended the argument.
Then Rebecca asked the harder question.
“What did you think would happen if the merger succeeded?”
Helena shook her head.
“Nothing to Leo.”
“His trust would lose blocking rights.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You signed an advisory memo.”
“I didn’t read it.”
Rebecca stared.
“Then you signed a document affecting a toddler’s assets without reading it.”
Helena cried harder.
That wasn't innocence.
It was reckless entitlement.
Then Carmine asked:
“Why were you cruel to Leo before today?”
She looked at him.
“What?”
“You’ve been impatient with him for months.”
“He’s difficult.”
“He’s seventeen months old.”
“He screams when I touch his things.”
Carmine’s face changed.
“What things?”
Helena realized she’d said too much.
Rebecca leaned forward.
“What things, Helena?”
“Nothing.”
“Answer.”
She looked at Carmine.
“His blue blanket.”
Carmine went still.
Sofia’s blanket.
The last thing Leo’s mother held before she died in the hospital.
“Why were you touching it?”
“I wanted to wash it.”
“No.”
Carmine knew Leo slept with it every night.
Helena hated it.
Called it dirty.
Called Sofia’s memory unhealthy.
Now another possibility emerged.
Maybe her cruelty toward Leo wasn’t only money.
Jealousy.
Of a dead woman.
Of a child who connected Carmine to that woman forever.
Then Rebecca asked:
“Did Marco ever tell you Leo would be easier to challenge if Carmine appeared emotionally unstable?”
Helena stared.
“How did you know?”
Carmine’s face hardened.
“What?”
Helena whispered:
“Julian said the trust could be attacked if you looked irrational.”
“And?”
“They told me to document your temper.”
Silence.
The garage.
The bodyguards.
The shove.
The keys.
Every confrontation suddenly looked different.
Had Helena been provoking Carmine?
Recording him?
Building evidence?
“I never recorded today,” she said quickly.
Rebecca asked:
“Other days?”
Helena looked down.
“Yes.”
Carmine stood.
“How long?”
“Three months.”
She had filmed arguments.
Edited clips.
Sent them to Julian.
Marco planned to use them to portray Carmine as unstable and unsafe around Leo.
Then seek court supervision over Leo’s trust.
Possibly appoint a “neutral” corporate fiduciary.
Beaumont.
Julian’s firm.
Helena’s brother.
The circle closed.
Then Rebecca’s phone rang.
The independent trustee had discovered unauthorized uploads to Leo’s file.
Videos of Carmine shouting.
Photographs of broken objects.
Statements from Helena.
One line stood out.
Carmine routinely becomes violent when challenged about money.
He stared at her.
“You wrote that?”
Helena whispered:
“Yes.”
“Was it true?”
She cried.
“Sometimes you got angry.”
“Did I ever hurt Leo?”
“No.”
“Did I ever threaten him?”
“No.”
“Did you leave that out?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca’s expression sharpened.
Then she showed Helena something recovered from metadata.
One of the videos began twelve seconds earlier than the edited version submitted.
In the missing beginning, Helena could be heard saying:
“Marco says you’re too weak to stop the merger.”
Then Carmine shouted.
May you like
They had manufactured context.
And now they finally had proof.
