Chapter 4
Leonardo watched her read.
Not the highlighted clauses.
Not the executive summary.
Everything.
Footnotes.
Appendices.
Definitions.
Calculation schedules.
Finally she tapped a page.
“This says annual.”
“Yes.”
She turned thirty-two pages.
“This allows monthly recalculation of principal before the annual percentage is applied.”
Leonardo frowned.
“So?”
“So those provisions contradict each other.”
“My attorneys reviewed this.”
“Attorneys read what words permit.”
She looked at him.
“My father taught me to read what numbers reveal.”
Leonardo glanced toward the hallway.
“The suitcase.”
Abigail nodded.
She returned ten minutes later carrying it.
When she opened the worn leather case, Leonardo saw no jewelry.
There were notebooks.
Old ledgers.
Financial textbooks.
Audit files.
Hundreds of handwritten pages.
“My father, Henry Turner, was a forensic accountant.”
Leonardo lifted one notebook carefully.
“For whom?”
“Mostly companies that discovered someone had been stealing from them.”
“What happened to him?”
Abigail touched the worn leather cover.
“He refused to manipulate an audit for a corporation that wanted to hide losses. They couldn’t buy him, so they ruined his reputation. By the time people learned he was right, we’d lost our house, his health was gone, and nobody important apologized.”
“Why keep all this?”
“Because he taught me.”
“You studied accounting?”
“Accounting and financial compliance.”
Leonardo stared.
“You said you could cook.”
“I can.”
“You neglected to mention this.”
“You asked for a wife who could cook.”
For the first time in years, Leonardo Costa laughed.
It was quiet.
Almost startled.
But real.
Abigail smiled.
Then her expression became serious.
“My father used to say numbers leave footprints.”
She tapped the Sloan agreement.
“Everett Sloan left a lot of them.”
For the next nine nights, Abigail followed those footprints.
After dinner, she sat in Leonardo’s office with spreadsheets, repayment schedules, corporate registrations, and banking records.
Leonardo stayed with her.
Sometimes until two in the morning.
She discovered management fees charged twice.
Consulting payments sent to companies with no employees.
Insurance expenses that had no corresponding policies.
May you like
Loan repayments that should have reduced principal but somehow vanished.
Then she found twelve small investment companies quietly buying shares of Leonardo’s legitimate businesses.
