Page 68 of Betraying Family Vows

HSPayHim2.pdf

HSPayHim3.pdf

All the way to HSPayHim15.pdf.

I drag my mouse and click on the final file, HSPayHim15.pdf.

The document opens to a wire transfer receipt. To a Cayman Islands bank account. I read it carefully and something catches my eye.

Recipient: H. S. Holdings.

Notes: To S – installment 15. Complete.

My eyes go wide and I gasp. I read the note twice. Three times. My mind tumbles over itself trying to parse it.

S.

The same "S" Dimitri told me about. The person who pressured my father into ordering the hit that killed Dimitri's father.

I open the other files. Each one a similar transfer, varying amounts, but all substantial. All to the same recipient. All with similar notes: "To S – installment 1, 2, 3, etc."

So fifteen payments. For what? Silence? Blackmail? Compliance? Murder?

I need to know where this money went. Who "S" is.

I copy the account number. My hands are shaking as I pull up the secure terminal. I enter my old login credentials for Spartan Holdings from my summer internships. I'd spent most of it playing the part of the pretty distraction. Low-cut dresses. Sweet smiles pretending not to notice the way George, the senior accounts rep, watched me.

I was hoping to learn something about my father from him. Hoping to understand who he really was under all that polished charm.

God, that was naive.

To my surprise, the system accepts my login. Apparently, no one bothered to deactivate my account.

I navigate to the financial records section and paste the account number into the search bar.

Fourteen previous payments show up, identical to the ones I found in the deleted files. Regular installments staged over the past year, totaling millions of euros.

My father was bleeding money to this "S" person. But why?

I swallow hard. That can't be it. There has to be more.

I add a second query, H. S. Holdings plus the same account number, and press enter.

The result loads. My stomach drops.

The search reveals thirty-seven transfer requests. All fulfilled within two days after my father's murder. Spread over thirteen separate accounts, all drained completely.

"What the fuck," I say.

This isn't just someone pulling strings behind the scenes. This is a predator, someone who did much more than just manipulate Cosmo.

This "S" person didn't just pressure him. They cleaned him out after he died. The same person who was behind the murder of Dimitri's father took everything my father had and erased whatever power he had left.

Which means?—

"S" isn't just the architect of Dimitri and the rest of the Kastaris family's pain. He's the architect of mine too.

I'm so close to uncovering something huge. Something that could change everything between me and Dimitri. Something that could finally give me and him the answers we've been searching for.