Chapter 142

Chapter 142
Lowell's POV

Megan's question drove itself into the air of the room like a knife, pulling the already-stagnant atmosphere taut to its breaking point.

"Did your father actually kill her parents, back then?" When I said nothing, she repeated herself. "Before Alina left, she told me something. She said Adams had shown her a videotape, one her parents had left behind before they died. On it, they identified the real controller of that money-laundering company as Sumia Vadalishi."

My mind went blank. Every reason Alina had left me seemed to surface all at once. "She told you that?"

"Yes." Megan nodded. "At the dinner after the signing ceremony. I went out to the terrace to find her, and she told me herself. She said she knew her own parents' faces, knew their voices. That recording couldn't have been faked. That's why she refused to come back."

I leaned back against my chair, my chest tightening with every word she spoke. My eyes fell on the West District project report spread open across the desk, but the numbers and characters on it had all dissolved into blurred smears of color. I couldn't take in a single word.

A videotape. A tape Alina's parents had left behind in their final moments. Adams had shown it to her, and then turned every accusation toward my father.

I drew a deep breath and told Megan the truth of what had happened. "I don't know exactly what was on the tape Adams showed her, but my father did take over the operation of that company back then. That's a fact. What I've dug up confirms the company was once used as a channel for illegal money transfers. It's just that later, after my father discovered it, he tried to cut that line off."

Megan was quiet for a moment, as if digesting what I'd said. "So did your father actually take part in it, directly?"

"He took over the company, but he was forced into it." I turned, my gaze settling on her face. "Antonio and Marco used that company as a conduit, laundering the illegal profits from the underground boxing trade. When my father found out, he wanted out. But Antonio threatened him with the whole family's reputation. He said if my father walked away, he'd expose everything and drag the family name through the mud. My father had no choice but to keep his name on it and try to clean things up quietly from the inside."

I paused, my voice dropping. "He never managed to sever that line completely. Then someone got in his ear, and he inadvertently let slip information about Alina's parents. That's what led to their deaths, and left everyone believing my father had controlled that company from beginning to end. The man who whispered in his ear and pushed him to it was Antonio."

Megan's eyes widened slightly. Her lips moved, but it took her several seconds to force out a sentence. "So the controller Alina's parents traced... was actually Antonio?"

"It was Antonio, but under my father's name," I said. "The company mentioned on that tape really was registered to Sumia Vadalishi. But that was because Antonio manipulated every document behind the scenes, steering all the decisions and the execution onto my father."

Megan clenched her fists, drew a deep breath, then asked slowly, "And everything you've uncovered, do you have proof?"

"I do." I looked at her. "But the most crucial piece is still missing. The company registration document Antonio signed with his own hand, and the records of the funds he moved in private. Both are in his possession, and I haven't gotten hold of them yet. But it's a matter of days now."

"And if you do? Once you have them, what are you going to do?"

"I'll make Antonio stand in front of Alina himself and lay out everything that happened. I'll make him admit with his own mouth that he did those things, not my father. Then I'll put all the evidence in front of her and let her judge for herself."

After Megan left, I began to move.

That very night, Jason took a few men and pinned down where Antonio was hiding. Since the purge of the family, Antonio had escaped with his life, but he'd lost his old power and standing. He was holed up in an unremarkable old house on the city's outskirts, with only a handful of his most trusted men around him, living nothing like the way he once had.

I took Jason and a few others to the rear wall of that old house in the small hours of the morning. Getting over the wall went more smoothly than I'd expected; Antonio's defenses were nowhere near as tight as before. We subdued two of his men keeping watch at the back door without alerting anyone else.

When we dragged Antonio out of his sleep, the look on his face went from shock to rage, then from rage to fear. That fear deepened fast the moment he made out my face. His lips trembled twice, as if he wanted to say something, but only a few muddled gasps came out of his throat.

I didn't waste words on him. I had him hauled into the dungeon of the family's old estate.

Marco wasn't staying with Antonio. He had another place in the south of the city, and Jason had already sent men there.

The interrogation room was small, its light a sickly white, the paint on the walls peeling in patches. Antonio was bound to a chair, wrists and ankles fixed with zip ties. His hair was disheveled, and in his rumpled pajamas he looked ten years older than he had a few months ago.

"What do you want?" His voice was hoarse. "I've already got nothing left. What more do you want from me?"

"I want you to sign a confession." I lifted the document from my knee, unfolded it, laid it on the table in front of him, and set a pen down beside the paper. "About the money-laundering company. About how you controlled every transfer of funds under my father's name. About how you dumped all the filth onto him. Write it, sign it, and I'll leave you alone. Don't, and your son will pay in your place."

Antonio's eyes fell on the blank document, his pupils contracting sharply.

"You want me to admit I did all of it?" His voice climbed, ragged with the desperation of a cornered man. "Why should I trust you? What if I sign and you still don't let me go?"

"You don't have a choice," I said, watching him. "If you don't sign, I'll pry it out of Marco just the same."

Antonio jerked his head up, a flash of bloodshot light in his eyes. "You're using my son to threaten me? He's your cousin! I'm your uncle!"

"You didn't think about being his own brother when you got my father killed." My voice was cold as I took a pair of pliers down from the shelf beside me. "I wouldn't mind pulling his fingernails out one by one, right here in front of you."

Antonio shuddered, and the air sank into a long silence.

Then I took out my phone and dialed a number. When the call connected, I set the phone on the table and pressed the speaker button.

Marco's voice came through the other end, wretched and terrified after being restrained. He was shouting something, but his voice was muffled by whatever was stuffed in his mouth, the words unclear.

Antonio's face changed completely in that instant. His whole body lunged forward, the zip ties cutting into the flesh of his wrists and leaving deep red welts.

"Let him go!" His voice was raw, his eyes red. "He doesn't know anything. Come after me!"

"Then sign." I nudged the pen toward him again. "Sign it, and I won't hurt your son."

Antonio lowered his head and stared at the blank confession on the table, his breathing heavy as a trapped beast's. Several seconds passed before he reached out, took the pen, and began to write, his fingers shaking so hard he could barely keep his grip.

One by one, he wrote out the things he'd buried for over a decade. The more he dredged up, the paler his face grew, because he knew that once these crimes were down on paper, there would be no coming back for him, ever.

I sat across from him, watching the despair and ruin settle over him as he finished.

I stood, picked up the confession, and had it put away safely.

"Lowell." Antonio's voice was dead as ash. He looked up at me. "Will you really let him go?"

"Of course. But I need you to do one more thing."

"What?"

"I want you to repent in front of Alina."