My Boss’s Hidden Heir (Elara and Marcus) novel Chapter 155

Chapter 155

Dante’s POV

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Dante had been a lawyer for twelve years and he’d seen plenty of terrible things. Corporate fraud, embezzlement, insider trading. He’d defended people who probably deserved prison and prosecuted people who probably didn’t.

But this was different. This was personal.

He looked down at the file spread across his conference table and felt sick. These weren’t just documents. This was proof that his best friend’s mother had been murdered, and the killer had been living under the same roof as Marcus for years.

The office door burst open and Marcus stormed in with Elara right behind him. Dante had never seen his friend look like this before, rage and grief written across every line of his face.

“Tell me,” Marcus said without preamble. “Tell me everything you found.”

Mimi was already there, sitting in the corner looking pale. She’d been with Dante when he’d uncovered the final piece of evidence an hour ago and had immediately called Elara.

“Sit down first,” Dante said.

“I don’t want to sit down. I want to know what you found about my mother’s death.”

Dante gestured to the chairs anyway. “Marcus, please. This is going to be hard enough without you pacing around my office like a caged animal.”

Marcus finally sat, pulling Elara down next to him. His hand found hers automatically, gripping tight like she was the only thing keeping him anchored.

Dante took a breath and picked up the first document. “Fifteen years ago your mother died in what was ruled a hit-and-run accident. She was crossing Park Avenue at 73rd Street around ten PM when a car struck her and kept going. She died at the scene.”

“I know all this, this is not the news I came for,” Marcus said through gritted teeth. “I was seventeen when it happened. I know every detail of that night.”

“Then you know the police investigation went nowhere. No witnesses came forward, no security footage was found, the driver was never identified. The case went cold within six months.”

“So what changed? Why are we talking about this now?”

Dante pulled out a thick folder and set it in front of Marcus. “Three weeks ago I started digging into Penelope’s background. Looking for anything we could use against her in the shareholder dispute. What I found was a two-year gap in her documented history right around the time your father married her.”

Marcus opened the folder and started flipping through pages. Bank statements, travel records, medical bills.

“Penelope was in New York fifteen years ago,” Dante continued. “She was working as an executive assistant at a

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financial firm in Midtown. But six months before your father met her, she disappeared. Quit her job, moved out of her apartment, dropped off the grid completely.”

“People take breaks between jobs all the time.”

“Not like this. She didn’t just take a break, Marcus. She ran. And I needed to figure out why.”

Dante pulled out another document, this one older and more worn. “This is the original police report from your mother’s accident. I pulled it from archives last week. Most of it is standard stuff but there’s one detail that caught my attention. A witness who called 911 reported seeing a black Mercedes sedan fleeing the scene.”

“The police followed up on that, didn’t they? I remember them asking about Mercedes owners.”

“They did a cursory check but nothing came of it. The witness couldn’t remember the license plate and there were thousands of black Mercedes in Manhattan at the time. But here’s what’s interesting.” Dante pulled up his laptop and turned it toward Marcus. “I found the witness. Took me weeks but I tracked him down. He’s retired now, living in Connecticut. I went to see him yesterday.”

The screen showed an elderly man sitting in a living room, Dante’s camera recording him.

“His name is Robert Walsh. He was walking his dog that night and saw the whole thing happen. He gave a statement to the police but they never followed up with him after the initial interview.”

Dante clicked play. Robert Walsh’s voice filled the room, shaky but clear.

“I saw the car coming fast, too fast for that part of Park Avenue. The woman stepped into the crosswalk and the car didn’t even try to stop. Just hit her and kept going. I’ll never forget the sound of the impact. Or the way the car’s brake lights came on for just a second, like the driver thought about stopping, and then sped up instead.”

Marcus’s face had gone white. Elara gripped his hand tighter.

Dante paused the video. “Walsh remembered more details than what made it into the police report. He remembered the Mercedes had a distinctive dent in the rear bumper on the driver’s side. He remembered the license plate started with the letters HNK. And he remembered seeing blonde hair in the driver’s seat.”

“That’s not enough,” Marcus said, but his voice sounded hollow. “Half the women in New York are blonde and have Mercedes.”

“You’re right. It’s not enough on its own. But then I found this.”

Dante pulled out a photograph and placed it on the table. It showed a black Mercedes sedan with a visible dent in the rear bumper.

“This photo was taken by a traffic camera three blocks from the accident scene eighteen minutes before your mother was killed. I spent two weeks going through archived traffic footage from that night. The city was supposed to destroy these files after seven years but someone misfiled them. Pure luck that they still existed.”

Marcus picked up the photo with shaking hands. “Can you see the license plate?”

“Partially. The camera angle isn’t great but you can make out H-N-K and what looks like a seven. I took this to

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Chapter 155

a digital forensics expert who was able to enhance the image.”

Dante pulled out another photo, this one clearer. The license plate was visible now: HNK-7842

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