Chapter 6 - Dinner with Madame Delacroix
Camille Delacroix served duck.
Victor found that insulting.
Not personally.
Strategically.
Anyone inviting a suspected mafia boss to a mansion for what might become a confession should serve something easier to eat under surveillance.
Camille sat at the opposite end of a twelve-seat dining table as if hosting an ordinary Thursday supper.
Seventy-three.
Silver hair.
Black silk dress.
No visible fear.
Victor respected that despite himself.
“You look like your father,” she said.
“He’s been dead twenty years.”
“You still look like him.”
“Is that supposed to upset me?”
“No.”
“Then we’re wasting time.”
Camille smiled.
“Still impatient.”
Victor wore a wire.
Marcus and Detective Keene monitored from a van two blocks away.
Hannah remained at Harrow Point.
She had argued.
Victor had refused.
Poppy settled it by asking for pancakes.
Camille poured wine.
Victor did not touch it.
“You think I killed Elena.”
Victor’s hands remained still.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Leo?”
“No.”
“Daniel Bell?”
“Never heard the name until this week.”
“Gregory worked for you.”
“Yes.”
Finally.
No denial.
Victor leaned back.
“How long?”
“Twenty-one years.”
“Before he worked for me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Your father.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“What about him?”
“He stole from me.”
Victor almost laughed.
“My father stole from everyone.”
“This was different.”
Camille described an old arrangement.
Castellano docks handled Delacroix cargo discreetly.
Both families profited.
Then Victor’s father began moving money out of joint accounts.
Camille sent Gregory into the Castellano organization to document it.
Originally, espionage.
Nothing more.
Then Victor inherited everything.
And Gregory stayed.
“Why?”
“He liked you.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
Camille smiled sadly.
“That bothers you.”
“It should.”
“Gregory became loyal to two masters. Eventually neither.”
“What happened to Elena?”
“She discovered him.”
“Did you order the fire?”
“No.”
“Did Gregory?”
“I don’t know.”
“Convenient.”
“It is true.”
Victor watched her.
Camille continued.
“I told Gregory to leave your wife alone.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
At least she was honest.
“Why invite me?”
Camille placed a folder on the table.
“Because Gregory has something that belongs to me.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
Victor almost laughed.
“Everyone wants a ledger.”
“This one is different.”
She opened the folder.
The original agreement between Victor’s father and Delacroix Maritime.
Inside were account numbers, names, political payments, judges, customs officials.
A map of twenty years of corruption.
“If Gregory gives that to federal investigators,” Camille said, “dozens of people fall.”
“Maybe they should.”
She studied him.
“You sound like a man in love.”
Victor’s face remained blank.
“Excuse me?”
“Men become moral for two reasons. Death or love.”
He almost stood.
Camille smiled.
“I heard about the maid.”
“Hannah Bell is irrelevant to this conversation.”
“That reaction says otherwise.”
Victor lowered his voice.
“If you mention her daughter, dinner ends.”
Camille’s smile faded.
“Interesting.”
“Where is Gregory’s copy?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you want?”
“For you to find it before the government does.”
“And give it to you?”
“Yes.”
Victor laughed.
“No.”
Camille looked almost disappointed.
“Then perhaps Hannah Bell’s husband died for nothing.”
Victor stopped.
“You said you’d never heard his name.”
Camille realized her mistake.
Too late.
Victor’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“You knew Daniel.”
She said nothing.
Victor stood.
Dinner ended.
Marcus’s voice came faintly through the earpiece.
We got it.
Camille remained seated.
“You think one inconsistency proves murder?”
“No.”
Victor looked at her.
“But it proves you lied.”
He walked toward the door.
Camille called after him.
“Victor.”
He turned.
“Gregory did not kill your wife because she found the accounts.”
Victor waited.
“He killed her because she found out who Leo’s biological father was.”
Everything inside Victor stopped.
Silence.
Camille watched him carefully.
“Sit down.”
Victor didn’t move.
“My son was mine.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t.”
“Elena never betrayed you.”
His pulse thundered.
“Then what are you talking about?”
Camille looked toward the window.
“Leo was adopted.”
Victor stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
“I was there when he was born.”
“You were outside the delivery room.”
Victor’s face lost color.
Camille continued.
“Elena’s pregnancy ended in stillbirth.”
“No.”
“Your father arranged another child.”
Victor could barely breathe.
“Why?”
“Because Elena was hemorrhaging. Because she was unconscious. Because your father believed losing both the baby and the future heir would destroy her.”
“This is insane.”
“Yes.”
Camille’s voice softened.
“That never stopped your father.”
Victor remembered.
Elena weak for months after Leo’s birth.
Medical records handled privately.
His father controlling everything.
Could it be?
No.
And yet.
“What does Gregory have to do with it?”
“He found the original adoption documents.”
Victor’s mouth went dry.
“Why would Elena care?”
Camille looked at him.
“Because Leo’s biological mother was still alive.”
Victor stood frozen.
“She wanted contact.”
“When?”
“Shortly before the fire.”
Victor could not process it.
Leo had been six.
Elena found out their son was adopted.
She discovered Gregory’s accounts at the same time.
Two secrets.
Two threats.
“What happened to the biological mother?”
Camille said nothing.
“Where is she?”
Camille looked toward him.
“Ask Gregory.”
Victor left.
He did not remember the drive back.
At Harrow Point, Hannah waited in the study.
One look at his face and she knew something had happened.
“What?”
Victor poured whiskey.
Didn’t drink it.
“Hannah.”
She waited.
“I may not have been Leo’s biological father.”
She blinked.
“What?”
He told her.
Not everything.
Enough.
Hannah listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she said, “Did you love him?”
Victor looked at her like the question was ridiculous.
“More than anything.”
“Then you were his father.”
“That simple?”
“Yes.”
Victor almost became angry.
Then he saw she meant it.
Hannah continued.
“Poppy barely remembers Daniel.”
“That doesn’t make him less her father.”
“No.”
“Same thing.”
Victor sat.
“The biological mother may still be alive.”
“That matters.”
“Yes.”
“But it doesn’t erase you.”
He looked at her.
“You’re very sure.”
“I have experience deciding what family means after someone dies.”
Victor’s expression softened.
Then Poppy appeared in the doorway.
Again.
Always no knock.
She carried Teddy.
“Can’t sleep.”
Hannah lifted her.
Poppy looked at Victor.
“You sad?”
He considered lying.
Didn’t.
“Yes.”
She climbed from Hannah’s lap and walked to him.
Then handed him Teddy.
“For you.”
Victor stared at the rabbit.
“Why?”
“He helps.”
Victor took it.
A mafia boss holding a patched gray rabbit at midnight.
Hannah smiled.
“Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Only internally.”
Poppy climbed onto the couch.
Within minutes she fell asleep.
Victor looked at Hannah.
Then at the child.
Family, he realized, might be less about origins than the people who sat beside you when every origin story broke apart.
His phone rang.
Detective Keene.
“We found Gregory’s second property.”
Victor stood.
“Where?”
“Outside Frederick.”
“And?”
“There’s someone living there under a false name.”
“Who?”
Keene paused.
“A fifty-nine-year-old woman named Rebecca Shaw.”
Victor waited.
“We ran historical records.”
Another pause.
“Her real name is Rebecca Lawson.”
Victor knew none of it.
Keene continued.
“She gave birth to a male child thirty years ago.”
May you like
Victor’s heart stopped.
“That child’s birth name was Leo Lawson.”
