Chapter 7 - The True Color of the Brooch
The master guest suite on the second floor was a paradise of white silk and gilded mirrors. Isabella Vale lay in the center of the massive canopy bed, her long blonde hair spread across the satin pillows, her skin glowing beneath the soft morning light that had begun to filter through the heavy velvet curtains.
The sound of a heavy key turning in the lock woke her.
She sat up quickly, pulling the silk sheet to her chest as the double doors swung open.
Vincent entered. He wasn't wearing his suit jacket anymore; his white shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, his tie gone, his expression as cold and gray as the dawn over Lake Michigan. Behind him stood two uniform security guards she had never seen before—men from the Moretti shipping terminals, not the polite house guards she was used to.
"Vincent?" Isabella gasped, her voice thick with sleep, her hand instinctively reaching for the vanity table where her diamond engagement ring sat in a crystal dish. "What is the meaning of this? Why are you entering my room with guards at this hour?"
Vincent didn't answer. He walked over to the vanity, picked up the diamond ring, and dropped it into his pocket without a single glance at the stone. Then, he pulled out the small velvet jewelry box containing his mother’s sapphire brooch.
He threw the box onto the bed. It landed with a soft thud against her knees.
"Open it," Vincent said.
Isabella’s fingers trembled as she picked up the box and opened the lid. The deep blue sapphire caught the morning light, glittering like a dropped piece of ice. "It’s your mother’s brooch, Vincent. I told you, the maid stole it. Why are we bringing this up again?"
"That brooch has been inside my family vault since my mother died in twenty-twelve," Vincent said, his voice dropping into that terrifyingly calm whisper. "The only people who have the biometric codes to that vault are myself, my father before he died, and the senior houseman. Grace Parker doesn't even know where the vault room is, Isabella."
Isabella’s face drained of color, her lips parting as she realized the mistake she had made. "Vincent... Edwin must have given it to her... she must have manipulated him—"
"Edwin is currently sitting in the basement with three federal investigators and a court reporter," Vincent said, stepping closer to the bed until his shadow covered her completely. "He signed his first statement ten minutes ago. He told them about the three hundred thousand dollars your father paid him before Anthony’s plane went down. He told them about the black Mercedes that hit Thomas Parker in Cicero. And he told them exactly how you gave him that brooch last night at seven o'clock to put in Grace’s cleaning cart."
Isabella let out a sharp, ragged scream, throwing the jewelry box across the room. It struck the wall, the sapphire stone popping loose from its platinum prongs and rolling across the white rug like a drop of ink.
"You can't do this to me!" she shrieked, her aristocratic composure completely shattering into a mask of pure, ugly fury. "My father is the senior senator of this state! He controls the judicial committee! He can have your entire shipping license revoked by noon! You are a thug, Vincent! A common Italian thug with a fancy suit! My father built you!"
"Your father built his career on my father’s money, Isabella," Vincent said, leaning over her, his eyes locking onto hers with a lethal intensity that made her breath stop in her throat. "And today, the bank is closing the account. Marcus!"
Marcus Vance entered the room, holding a copy of a federal indictment sheet. "Senator Vale was taken into custody at his lake house forty minutes ago by the FBI, Miss Vale. Corporate extortion, conspiracy to commit murder, and state tax fraud. Your real estate firm’s assets have been frozen by the Department of Justice."
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Isabella collapsed backward against the pillows, her hands flying to her face as a violent, frantic sobbing took over her body. Her empire of white silk, of political influence and high-society galas, had vanished before her morning coffee.
"Get her out of my house," Vincent ordered the guards, not looking back as he walked out of the suite. "And throw her clothes into the street. The cheap ones."
