Chapter 2 - The Twenty Percent
Four days later, Santorini was painfully beautiful.
Whitewashed walls climbed the cliffs beneath a sky so blue it looked artificial. The Aegean stretched beyond Matteo’s villa like polished glass.
Harper lay beside the infinity pool in a white bikini.
She held her phone above her face, trying different angles.
“Matteo, baby?”
He stood in the bedroom doorway.
“Take a picture of me against the railing.”
He didn’t respond.
“The lighting is insane.”
Still nothing.
Harper lowered her sunglasses.
“What is wrong with you?”
Matteo stared at his encrypted phone.
Nothing.
No messages from Norah.
No angry photographs.
No accusations.
No threats.
Nothing.
He had expected punishment.
Silence was worse.
On the first night, he called Arthur, his head of security.
“Everything quiet?”
“Yes, boss.”
“Norah?”
“Mrs. Rossi said she wasn’t feeling well.”
That made sense.
Pregnancy.
Anger.
Pride.
The second day, Matteo called again.
A housekeeper answered.
Norah had requested tea.
She was resting.
The third day, Matteo called Norah directly.
Voicemail.
He refused to leave a message.
If she wanted him chasing her, she could wait.
By the fourth morning, he had checked his phone fourteen times before breakfast.
“Matteo.”
Harper’s voice sharpened.
He finally looked at her.
“What?”
“You’ve been pacing all morning.”
“I’m working.”
“You’re staring at a blank phone.”
His eyes cooled.
Harper knew that look.
Most people did.
She sat back.
“I’m just saying, you brought me to Greece.”
“And?”
“And maybe act like you want me here.”
Something twisted in Matteo’s chest.
He looked at the pool.
At the champagne.
At Harper.
Four days earlier, this had seemed like freedom.
Now every beautiful detail irritated him.
He saw Norah sitting beneath the kitchen light.
Take her.
He had.
So why did it feel like he had lost?
“Take the picture yourself.”
Harper stared after him as Matteo walked inside.
Four thousand miles away, Norah Rossi sat behind her husband’s mahogany desk.
The penthouse was nearly empty.
She had given the household staff the weekend off with full pay.
Arthur and the exterior guards remained at their posts, but they had been instructed not to disturb her.
Pregnant Mrs. Rossi needed rest.
That was what everyone believed.
Norah inserted the flash drive.
The laptop screen changed.
Four encrypted accounts appeared.
Zurich.
Cayman Islands.
Luxembourg.
Singapore.
Contingency money.
Not operating funds.
Not payroll.
Not money connected directly to the businesses that supported hundreds of employees.
Norah had thought carefully about that distinction.
She did not want innocent people losing jobs.
She did not want retaliation between families.
She did not want to collapse Matteo’s empire.
She wanted enough money to make herself unreachable.
Matteo had once explained contingency accounts during a rare moment of careless confidence.
“If everything burns,” he had said, “that money survives.”
Norah remembered looking at him across their bed.
“What about me?”
He had smiled.
“You’re with me.”
At the time, it sounded romantic.
Now she understood what it meant.
There was no plan for Norah without Matteo.
So she created one.
She entered the first transfer.
Twenty percent.
Then the second.
Twenty percent.
The third.
Twenty percent.
The fourth.
Twenty percent.
She stopped there.
Emptying the accounts would trigger alarms.
Twenty percent would not.
Not immediately.
The first transfer showed:
PENDING.
Norah’s pulse accelerated.
The baby shifted.
“It’s okay.”
She whispered the words more for herself than the child.
The second transfer changed.
APPROVED.
Then the third.
Then the fourth.
Norah stared at the screen.
For the first time in years, the future belonged partly to her.
The prepaid phone rang.
She answered.
“Done?”
“Yes.”
“Then leave the laptop exactly as you found it.”
Norah removed the flash drive.
“Arthur?”
“Still outside?”
“Yes.”
“He can’t know.”
“He won’t.”
Norah looked toward the office doors.
“I don’t want anyone hurt.”
“I know.”
“No confrontations. No tricks.”
“Norah, we planned this.”
“I need to hear you say it.”
The woman on the phone paused.
“No one gets hurt.”
Norah exhaled.
“Good.”
She disconnected.
Then she opened Matteo’s bottom desk drawer.
Inside was a photograph from their wedding.
Not the official portrait.
A candid shot.
Norah laughing.
Matteo looking at her instead of the camera.
She picked it up.
That man had existed.
She was certain of it.
For a while.
Perhaps that was why leaving hurt so much.
If Matteo had always been cruel, she could have hated him.
But he hadn’t.
He had once driven three hours because she casually mentioned missing a bakery from her hometown.
He had once sat on a hospital floor all night when her father was dying.
He had once kissed Norah’s palm and promised that if they ever had a child, that child would never know fear.
Those memories had become the chains keeping her there.
Every betrayal was followed by a glimpse of the man she had married.
Enough hope to reset the clock.
Norah placed the photograph back.
“No more.”
At 6:10 that evening, she packed one suitcase.
Not the jewelry.
Not the designer bags.
Not the clothes Matteo had bought because he liked seeing her wear them.
She packed comfortable dresses.
Documents.
Medication.
Prenatal records.
Three books.
A photograph of her father.
A pair of baby socks she had purchased before she knew whether she was having a boy or girl.
Then she removed her wedding ring.
She stared at it for nearly a minute.
Finally, she put it back on.
Not because she had changed her mind.
Because taking it off now would alert Arthur.
She needed another twelve hours.
In Santorini, Matteo was at dinner when his phone buzzed.
His financial manager.
He ignored it.
The phone buzzed again.
Then again.
Harper frowned.
“You going to answer that?”
Matteo looked at the screen.
VINCENT — URGENT.
He stood.
“Excuse me.”
On the terrace, he answered.
“What?”
Vincent spoke quickly.
“We have an irregularity.”
“What kind?”
“Four contingency accounts.”
Matteo’s posture changed.
“How much?”
“Not enough to trip the automated freeze.”
“How much, Vincent?”
“Twenty percent from each.”
Matteo became completely still.
“Who authorized it?”
“That’s the problem.”
“What problem?”
“The authorization came through your credentials.”
“I didn’t authorize anything.”
“I know.”
Matteo turned toward the dark sea.
“Who has access?”
“You.”
“Who else?”
“No one.”
Matteo’s grip tightened around the phone.
Then an impossible thought entered his mind.
Norah.
He almost laughed.
Norah did not know those accounts existed.
Norah did not understand routing protocols.
Norah—
Money whispers.
He remembered her father.
The quiet bookkeeper.
Matteo’s stomach tightened.
“Freeze everything.”
“We can freeze what remains. The transfers already cleared.”
“Where?”
“Layered destinations.”
“Find them.”
“We’re trying.”
Matteo ended the call.
He immediately called Norah.
Voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
Again.
Nothing.
Harper stepped onto the terrace.
“Matteo?”
He ignored her and dialed Arthur.
The security chief answered immediately.
“Boss.”
“Where’s my wife?”
A pause.
“Upstairs, I assume.”
“You assume?”
“She asked not to be disturbed.”
“When did you last see her?”
Another pause.
“Yesterday afternoon.”
The world seemed to narrow.
“Go upstairs.”
“Boss?”
“Now.”
Matteo listened to Arthur moving through the house.
Footsteps.
A door.
Another.
Then silence.
“Arthur.”
Nothing.
“Arthur!”
“Boss…”
Matteo’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“What?”
“She’s not here.”
For several seconds, Matteo forgot how to breathe.
“Find her.”
“We’re checking cameras.”
“Lock the gates.”
“She may already—”
“FIND MY WIFE.”
Harper flinched behind him.
Matteo ended the call.
Thirty seconds later, a photograph arrived from Arthur.
The master bedroom.
Norah’s closet.
A small section empty.
Another photograph.
Her prenatal records gone.
A third.
The nightstand.
Her passport missing.
Matteo stared at the images.
Then Arthur called again.
“We found something else.”
“What?”
“The interior camera archive.”
Matteo’s jaw clenched.
“What about it?”
“Someone looped eleven minutes of footage early this morning.”
Eleven minutes.
That was all Norah had needed.
Matteo walked back into the villa.
Harper followed.
“Where are you going?”
“Boston.”
“What?”
He opened the safe.
“Matteo, we’ve been here four days.”
He grabbed his passport.
“You said two weeks.”
He stopped.
Looked at Harper.
For the first time since arriving, he understood the absurdity of the scene.
His mistress standing in a villa meant for his wife.
His unborn child four thousand miles away.
His wife gone.
His emergency money disappearing.
And Matteo Rossi—the man who planned for every betrayal—had seen none of it coming.
Harper crossed her arms.
“So she throws a tantrum and you run home?”
Matteo looked at her.
“No.”
His voice was barely above a whisper.
“She didn’t throw a tantrum.”
That was what terrified him.
His phone buzzed.
Arthur.
A security photograph appeared.
It showed the private garage at 5:42 that morning.
Norah stood beside a dark sedan.
One suitcase.
One hand against her pregnant stomach.
The driver’s face was hidden.
But Norah’s face was perfectly visible.
She was not crying.
She was not looking back.
Matteo enlarged the image.
And for the first time in his adult life, Matteo Rossi understood what helplessness felt like.
Because Norah had not left in anger.
She had left prepared.
May you like
And if she had prepared this carefully, the missing money was only the beginning.
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