CHAPTER 143 - BACKGROUND CHECK

CHAPTER 143 - BACKGROUND CHECK
Bella's POV

I sat at the kitchen table with the laptop like it was a lantern. The house was a soft hush after dinner. My fingers hovered over the keys. I told myself I would be quick. I told myself that looking up a name could not hurt anything.

"I typed Victoria Blackwood," I said out loud, because saying it made it real and because I liked saying things when I was nervous.

The search blew up like a small storm. Pictures first. A wedding photo with Victoria in pearls and a man I had never seen. A gala shot with her arm looped through another man's, satin sleeve and champagne. A headline that read, "Society Couple Announces Split" and then another, "Exclusive: Mrs. Blackwood Donates to Museum After Divorce."

"This is weird," I said, and my voice sounded too loud in the quiet. I clicked another link.

"See anything?" Alex asked on the phone. He had called earlier and his voice had been sheared thin, careful. He was still at the office. I could hear a chair shift in the background.

"Lots," I said. "You looked…off earlier. You looked like someone had given you bad news in a pretty wrapper."

"I read a page," he said. "She sent something. An envelope. There are…old things."

"Old things?" I asked. My thumb tapped the trackpad until it made a rhythm. "Like skeletons?"

"Like conversations I thought were over," he said. He breathed. "Don't go online."

"Too late." I laughed, which surprised me and sounded like a kettle. "I am already in the weeds."

I scrolled and read the small print aloud like a person reading a story to remember the plot.

"She married at twenty eight to a tech investor," I read. "Divorced two years later. Then there was a charity gala, then a foundation appearance, then another marriage to a shipping heir. Divorce again. Cohesive language in every press release. Same phrases. Closure, reinvention, philanthropy."

"So you found the pattern?" Alex asked. His voice was sharper.

"I think so," I said. "She showed up at openings, posed in portraits, then—when something broke—there were legal filings with tidy words, settlements, donations that smelled like…cleanup."

"Cleanup," Alex said slowly. "You mean she marries, then leaves a tidy trail?"

"Not just leaves," I said. "She cleans the stain. Pays lawyers. PR. Moves on with the next house. The same social circles keep cropping up. Men with money, men with names. She wasn't loving. She was strategic."

"That sounds like a plan," he said. "A well executed plan."

I clicked a tab and found a page with a list—short, neat—of charity events she had hosted. Dates, names, a photo of Victoria with a man named Grant Holloway at a museum gala. I read the caption.

"Grant Holloway?" I asked. "That one looks like an investor."

"Does that name link to Sterling or James?" Alex wanted to know.

"It links to companies I did not know," I said. "And to a foundation that approved a large donation right after the divorce announcement."

"Sounds like a cycle," he said. "Money, optics, separation."

I felt my jaw go tight. My fingers hovered like birds. I knew enough to see a pattern and not enough to call it a crime. That made the pattern more dangerous.

"Do you think she could be playing you?" I asked. The question tasted weird and cold.

He was quiet for a long time. I could hear chairs and papers from his side of the line. Charlotte's voice in the background. The murmur of a room made of waiting.

"She had ways," he said finally. "Of making grievances look like confessions. Of weaponizing pity. I know that. We all know that."

"Then why meet her alone?" I asked.

"Because sometimes meeting alone is the only way to learn whether it is a trap or a confession," he said. "And because I am tired of being surprised by people I thought I knew."

I kept scrolling. There were court notices, small notices in papers from other cities, a fancy article about "a woman who reinvented herself." The same phrase showed up like a stitch.

"She used the word reinvention a lot," I said. "It was in a few press pieces. She liked 'starting fresh' and 'closure.'"

"Closure," Alex repeated. "She used that word in the letter."

"Of course she did," I said. My chest felt prickly. "It's neat. It sounds clean. Like a ribbon pulled across a box."

I found a gossip column with a photo that stopped me cold: Victoria leaning close to a man at a private club, her hand on his arm, a diamond bright on her finger. The caption named him as a possible heir. The date matched one of the charity announcements.

"People do this," I said. "They find a way to keep being seen. To keep being wanted. To keep getting—" I stopped because the word wanted sounded too small for the thing it needed to cover.

"You were quiet earlier," Alex murmured. "Are you okay?"

"I am fine," I said, and the lie was small and quick. "I am curious and a little sick."

"Don't dig too deep," he warned. "If there is a legal thread it will pull."

"I will be careful," I said. "I will not forward anything to Roberto. Or to the board."

"Good," he said. "And Bella—"

"Yes?"

"Keep your distance from her in person," he said. "If she shows at a gallery or an event, let security know. Do not engage alone."

"Okay," I promised.

After I hung up I printed one page. Paper made things feel real in a way screens did not. The printed page had a photograph of Victoria at another opening with the name of a small contemporary gallery. My fingers trembled as I folded the paper and slid it into my bag.

A thought landed like a pebble in a pond. If Victoria showed up at any of the public places I planned to go, what would she say? What thread would she pull?

My phone buzzed. It was a message from Diego. You okay, sis? he wrote.

"Yes," I texted back. Then I paused and typed more. Stay calm. If I had to talk to him about Lucien later, I would. For now, I had other things to do.

I closed the laptop and stood. The house hummed. The printed page sat in my bag like a promise. I could not decide whether it was a rope or a lifeline.

From the street outside a car door shut. Then footsteps. Then the sound of someone entering the building who did not belong there, and my stomach flipped because I knew, with a small sureness, that something was going to move very fast.