Chapter 4 - Unraveling the Lies
While Roman was waging war in the financial district, I refused to stay helpless in bed.
With the help of Sarah, the private nurse Roman hired, I managed to stand up and walk to the bathroom mirror. It was the first time I had really looked at myself since the assault.
The reflection looking back at me was jarring. My beautiful long hair, which I had taken care of my whole life, was chopped down to jagged, half-inch patches. Red, irritated scrape marks lined my scalp where Eleanor’s stylist had aggressively pulled the shears. I looked stripped, raw, and altered.
I squeezed my eyes shut, taking a deep breath. I am Bianca. I managed forty chaotic employees at Bellafonte every single night. I don't break.
I opened my eyes, picked up a soft pair of clippers from Roman’s grooming kit, and slowly, methodically, shaved the remaining jagged patches until my head was completely smooth and clean. It was a bold, dramatic change, but as I looked in the mirror again, I didn't see a victim anymore. I saw a warrior preparing for combat.
I put on a comfortable black turtleneck dress that hugged my pregnancy bump, threw a sleek cashmere wrap around my shoulders, and walked into Roman’s private study.
If Eleanor Kane wanted to play dirty, I needed ammunition. And the best ammunition always hid in the dirt of the past.
I logged into Roman’s secure home server using the access codes he had given me months ago. Knowing how wealthy families operated, I began digging through the legacy archives of the Kane family estate—specifically looking at the historical financial records from twenty years ago, around the time Roman's father, Harrison Kane, died under mysterious circumstances.
For three hours, I cross-referenced bank transfers, offshore holding companies in the Cayman Islands, and private medical records. My background in hospitality management had taught me how to read complex inventory and financial ledgers—I knew how people hid stolen money.
And then, I found it.
A series of monthly payments totaling over fifty million dollars, wired from Harrison Kane’s personal estate to an anonymous private trust in Switzerland, signed off exclusively by Eleanor Kane immediately following her husband's death. But the recipient of that trust wasn't a bank or an investment firm.
It was a private sanatorium in upstate New York.
I opened the attached confidential medical file, and my heart stopped.
Harrison Kane hadn't died of a sudden stroke as the public and Roman had been led to believe twenty years ago. He was alive—or at least, he had been kept hidden away under medical sedation for over a decade while Eleanor forged his signature to take control of the Kane fortune.
My hands shook as I printed out the documents. Eleanor wasn't just a bitter, cruel elitist. She was a criminal who had committed massive fraud, medical kidnapping, and treason against her own family.
Just as the printer finished outputting the final page, the study door swung open.
Roman stepped inside, his dark coat damp from the rain. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me. He looked at my fully shaved head, his eyes widening in raw admiration and sorrow.
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"Bianca..." he breathed out.
"Don't feel sorry for me, Roman," I said, my voice steady and deadly serious as I picked up the printed papers from the desk. "Because I just found the dagger that is going to put your mother away forever."
