Chapter 5 - The Company That Barely Existed
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Belmont Restoration had an office.
Technically.
Suite 402 in a commercial building downtown.
Carmine sent an independent investigator.
The office contained one desk.
Two chairs.
No repair equipment.
No warehouse.
No employees.
The receptionist worked for six different shell companies.
Carmine stared at the photographs.
“Nearly a million dollars.”
Frank nodded.
“For this.”
Helena’s attorney advised her not to answer questions.
So Carmine stopped asking her.
He started following paper.
Every Belmont invoice included photographs of damage.
A cracked marble slab.
A ruined rug.
A broken antique cabinet.
A damaged golf cart.
A smashed greenhouse panel.
Many damages were real.
But the repair costs were inflated.
Others were worse.
The damage itself appeared staged.
One invoice claimed a housekeeper named Maria Santos shattered a $22,000 chandelier.
Carmine called her.
Maria started crying immediately.
“I paid for that.”
Carmine frowned.
“What?”
“Helena took money from my wages for nine months.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred every paycheck.”
Carmine went silent.
The mansion service division had no authority to dock wages for accidental damage without formal review.
Yet Helena had done it repeatedly.
Drivers.
Kitchen staff.
Cleaners.
Groundskeepers.
People who were afraid to challenge the family name.
Carmine asked the same question every time.
“Did you actually cause the damage?”
Sometimes yes.
Usually no.
But everyone told him the same thing.
Helena already had paperwork.
Already had photographs.
Already knew the “amount owed.”
And if anyone protested—
She threatened their jobs.
Housing.
Recommendations.
Family support.
Carmine finally understood what Leo represented.
Helena had been using fear as an accounting system.
Create damage.
Blame someone vulnerable.
Submit inflated repair claims.
Collect from the mansion service fund.
Then sometimes collect again from the person she blamed.
But why blame Leo?
He had no wages.
No money.
No reason to pay.
Unless the point was not repayment.
Unless the point was something else.
Carmine returned upstairs.
Leo was building a tower with wooden blocks.
Carmine sat beside him.
“Buddy.”
Leo looked up.
“Did Helena ever ask you to tell me anything?”
He nodded.
“What?”
Leo put down a block.
“That I break stuff.”
“Anything else?”
A long pause.
“That I’m bad.”
Carmine’s chest tightened.
“Why?”
Leo whispered—
“So you don’t take me to work.”
Carmine frowned.
He rarely brought Leo to business meetings.
But once a month, he visited the family foundation office and sometimes brought him.
“Did Helena say where you shouldn’t go?”
Leo thought.
Then pointed toward Carmine’s briefcase.
“Money office.”
The accountant’s office.
Carmine looked at Frank.
Why would Helena care whether a three-year-old visited accounting?
Then Leo said—
“She said I saw the red book.”
Carmine went completely still.
“What red book?”
Leo pointed downstairs.
“Her desk.”
May you like
👉 Helena wasn’t only afraid of cameras and invoices—she was afraid a three-year-old had seen something in her office that she believed could expose the entire scheme.
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