Chapter 5: What Warren Recorded
Gould leaned forward.
"He was recording the room."
"From the moment he walked in," Giulietta said.
"Maybe before."
The associate at the end of the table — young, careful, not yet trained out of showing what she was thinking — looked between them.
"Does that change your position?"
"It changes his," Giulietta said.
She rewound the recording again and listened to the low exchange between Warren and Preston that she had half-registered at the time.
Warren's voice was close to the phone.
He had been speaking quietly, but not quietly enough.
*"Don't say anything about the Fenwick properties.
Not one word."*
Preston's response was lower still, almost inaudible.
But the word *why* was clear.
Warren's answer: *"Because she doesn't know about those yet."*
Giulietta stopped the playback.
Gould was already writing.
"Fenwick properties," he said without looking up.
"Do you know what that refers to?"
"No."
"Neither do I.
But Warren does, and he was afraid you were about to find out." He set down his pen.
"Whatever the Fenwick properties are, they are connected to your family's money in a way Warren has not disclosed."
"Or connected to something he did with it."
Gould looked at her.
"Yes.
That is the more likely reading."
She stood.
"How quickly can you run a property search on anything linked to the Fenwick name — purchases, transfers, holding companies, anything in the last fifteen years?"
"By this afternoon."
"Do it." She picked up her phone.
"And I need you to file a motion to lift the administrative delay on the breach notice.
Even if we don't win it immediately, I want Warren to see us moving."
"He'll see it as escalation."
"Good.
I want him looking at us.
I don't want him looking at what we're about to find."
She left Gould's office and took the elevator down alone.
In the lobby, she stood for a moment near the door.
Outside, the morning had turned gray.
A light rain was beginning.
Her phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
Preston.
She let it ring.
Four times.
Five.
On the sixth ring, she answered.
"Preston."
"I need to talk to you." His voice was different from yesterday.
The entitlement had been replaced by something rawer.
"Not about the contract.
Not about my father.
I need to talk to you about what you don't know yet."
"Then talk."
"Not on the phone." A pause.
"I know what the Fenwick properties are, Giulietta.
And if my father finds out I told you, it won't just be the business that's finished."
She was very still.
"Where?" she said.
He named a coffee shop near the waterfront.
Neutral ground.
Public enough that neither of them would do anything they couldn't explain later.
"One hour," she said.
She ended the call and stood for a moment in the lobby, rain beginning to streak the glass doors in front of her.
Preston had something to trade.
That meant he was afraid of his father.
And a man afraid of his father was either about to become her most useful witness — or the most dangerous trap she had walked into yet.
She pushed through the door into the rain.
Caruso was already at the curb with the car.
May you like
"The waterfront," she said.
"And stay close."
