Chapter 10 - THE ACCOUNT UNDER SERAPHINA’S NAME
Martin Keene did not receive immunity.
Not immediately.
Investigators required evidence first.
What he gave them was a bank account.
Opened seventeen years earlier.
Geneva.
Account holder:
SERAPHINA ALEXANDRA BELLAMY.
Seraphina had never seen it.
Never authorized it.
Never received a statement.
Balance:
$84,300,000.
Julian delivered the news in person.
Seraphina stared at him.
“Eighty-four million?”
“Yes.”
“Under my name?”
“Yes.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Transfers originating from Bellamy subsidiaries, Holloway-connected entities and several offshore companies.”
Seraphina felt physically ill.
“So someone has been moving money through an account using my identity for seventeen years.”
“Yes.”
“Who opened it?”
“Documentation contains copies of your passport.”
“My passport?”
“An older one.”
Seventeen years earlier Seraphina had been eighteen.
Her father was alive.
Her mother had been dead two years.
She was beginning university.
“Did my father open it?”
Julian hesitated.
“Martin says yes.”
Seraphina sat.
Her father had always been her moral anchor.
Not perfect.
But honorable.
The possibility that Alexander Bellamy had hidden money under her name shook something deeper than the collapse of her marriage.
“Do you believe Martin?”
“No.”
She looked up.
Julian continued.
“I believe Martin tells whatever version benefits Martin.”
“Then why mention my father?”
“To shift responsibility onto someone who cannot respond.”
Seraphina nodded slowly.
“What evidence?”
“A scanned instruction letter bearing Alexander’s signature.”
“Real?”
“Forensic review pending.”
Seraphina stared toward the window.
“Everyone’s signatures seem unusually easy to obtain in this family.”
Julian almost smiled.
Then his expression became serious.
“There is another issue.”
“What?”
“Some transfers occurred after your father died.”
Seraphina turned.
“Then he could not have authorized them.”
“Correct.”
“Who did?”
“We are tracing access.”
“Martin?”
“Possibly.”
“Mavis?”
“Possibly.”
“Grant?”
“We found no evidence yet.”
That mattered.
Seraphina hated what Grant had done to her emotionally.
But she did not want him blamed for crimes he had not committed.
“Make sure investigators distinguish Grant’s conduct from Martin’s.”
Julian nodded.
“I already instructed our team.”
Seraphina looked at him.
“You knew I’d ask?”
“I have known you since you were twenty-two.”
For the first time all day, she smiled.
That afternoon she visited Mavis.
Not at the mansion.
Mavis had voluntarily moved to a small hotel.
The irony was impossible to miss.
A woman who once mocked Seraphina’s old apartment now refused to remain in a mansion that belonged to her younger sister.
Mavis opened the door.
Her eyes were swollen.
“Come in.”
Seraphina remained standing.
“Do you know about the Geneva account?”
Mavis’s face changed.
Seraphina knew instantly.
“You do.”
“I knew there was an account.”
“Under my name?”
“I learned later.”
“When?”
“After Alexander died.”
Seraphina entered and closed the door.
“Tell me everything.”
Mavis sat.
“Martin found records through an attorney who had handled my mother’s trust.”
“What records?”
“Transfers Alexander made.”
“To you?”
“To accounts intended for me.”
“And somehow my name became attached?”
Mavis shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you receive money?”
“Some.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mavis.”
“Several million over many years.”
“From the Geneva account?”
“I think so.”
Seraphina stared.
“So you knew money was being moved through an account under my identity.”
“I didn’t understand that until later.”
“How much later?”
Mavis began crying.
“After you married Grant.”
Seraphina turned away.
Every answer returned to the same point.
Five years of knowing.
Five years of silence.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it was mine.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I was angry!”
Mavis stood.
“I believed Alexander created the account to hide what he owed my mother.”
“So you believed using my identity was acceptable?”
“No.”
“But you continued taking distributions.”
Mavis lowered her eyes.
“Yes.”
Seraphina felt exhausted.
Not angry anymore.
Just exhausted.
“Did Martin control it?”
“Mostly.”
“Did you authorize him?”
“At first.”
“What changed?”
“He stopped telling me things.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“Why didn’t you remove him?”
Mavis laughed bitterly.
“Because by then he knew everything.”
“He blackmailed you.”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“North Coast. Your identity. Grant’s father.”
Seraphina sat.
Martin had collected secrets.
Then turned secrets into power.
He had not created every wrongdoing.
He had simply become the person holding everyone’s leash.
“What did he want?”
“Control of the Bellamy trust.”
“The seventeen percent?”
“Eventually more.”
“How?”
“He believed if you divorced Grant under scandalous circumstances, he could challenge your fitness as trustee of certain family entities.”
Seraphina frowned.
“That would never work.”
“I know that now.”
“But he thought it might.”
“He had lawyers.”
“Which lawyers?”
Mavis gave her three names.
Seraphina immediately texted Julian.
Then she asked:
“Did Martin encourage Grant’s affair?”
Mavis looked away.
“I think so.”
“Did you?”
Silence.
Seraphina felt the answer before hearing it.
“Mavis.”
“I told Grant Delaney understood his world better.”
Seraphina closed her eyes.
“You encouraged your son to betray me.”
“I never told him to sleep with her.”
“You created permission.”
Mavis began crying again.
“I hated you.”
“You told me.”
“I hated what you represented.”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
Seraphina’s voice softened.
“I did not take him from you.”
Mavis looked at her.
“I know.”
“For most of our lives, I didn’t even know you existed.”
“I know.”
“Yet you punished me for being the daughter he raised.”
Mavis nodded.
“Yes.”
Seraphina stood.
“I hope someday you understand what that cost you.”
She walked toward the door.
Mavis whispered:
“Do you hate me?”
Seraphina stopped.
She thought about it.
“No.”
Mavis looked shocked.
“I don’t trust you.”
Seraphina turned.
“I don’t forgive you.”
Her older sister’s eyes filled.
“But hatred would keep me tied to what you did.”
She opened the door.
“I have spent enough years tied to other people’s choices.”
Outside the hotel, Seraphina’s phone rang.
Grant.
She almost ignored it.
Then answered.
“What?”
His voice was strange.
“Sera, I found something.”
“What?”
“I’m at my father’s old storage facility.”
“Why?”
“Looking for records.”
“You should have Julian with you.”
“I called him.”
“What did you find?”
Grant paused.
“A video.”
Seraphina’s heart beat faster.
“Of what?”
“My father.”
“When?”
“Two weeks before he died.”
Grant breathed.
“He’s talking to Alexander Bellamy.”
Seraphina gripped the phone.
Her father and Grant’s father.
Together.
“What are they saying?”
Grant’s next sentence changed the investigation.
“They knew Martin was stealing.”
May you like
Seraphina froze.
“And they were trying to stop him.”
Related Stories
