Chapter 17 - The Wedding That Never Happened
Vanessa had not run alone. Victor's driver had taken her to a private airfield, where a plane was scheduled to leave before dawn. The police intercepted the car, but Victor was nowhere to be found.
Vincent wanted to go after him himself. Elena stopped him.
"If you do this your way, he'll use it to make you look like the monster he says you are. Let the evidence do the work."
The state investigator arrived with warrants for the Shaw offices, the clinic, and the private security contractor. Luca turned over the original phone, the video, and the altered medical reports.
Vanessa was found in a hangar with a passport and a bag of cash. She tried to claim she had been kidnapped. The officers showed her the recording from the mansion.
Her face went blank.
"You don't understand what Victor promised me," she said.
"I understand what you did to a pregnant woman," the investigator replied.
At the mansion, Clara packed Daniel's watch and the small silver star pin into a box. She would not stay in the room Vanessa had assigned her. Vincent offered her a guest suite near the hospital, but Clara chose a small house on the estate with its own entrance.
"I'm not your employee anymore," she said.
"No," Vincent replied. "You're family, if you want that word."
She looked at him carefully.
"Then treat me like someone who gets to choose."
He nodded.
That night, the investigator called with news: Victor had been arrested at a warehouse near the river.
He had one last demand.
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The investigator found a second passport in Vanessa's bag and a list of accounts under false names. One account had been opened the week after Elena disappeared. Another had received a payment on the night Daniel died. The pattern was no longer a guess.
He wanted to speak to Vincent alone.
