Chapter 3: What Marcus Knew
The bodyguards hadn't moved Marcus toward the door.
They had positioned themselves around him in a loose half-circle, the way men do when they are waiting for an instruction rather than executing one.
Marcus stood with his jacket still buttoned, a glass of champagne still in his hand, as if he had decided that appearing calm was the last card he had left to play.
Rocco looked at him across the room.
"Put the glass down, Marcus."
Marcus set it on the nearest table without a word.
Rocco turned to the nearest guard — a broad man named Sal who had worked for the Caruso family for eleven years.
"Clear the room.
Catering staff, guests, everyone.
Leave the doors open."
Sal moved.
The room began to empty in the way rooms do when people understand that what is about to happen is not for them to witness.
Chairs scraped.
Heels clicked.
Someone near the far window whispered something that went unanswered.
Within two minutes, the only people remaining were Rocco, Noah, Victoria, Marcus, Maria, and Sal standing just inside the doorway.
Victoria had not moved from the sofa.
She sat with her hands folded in her lap, her expression resettled into something that almost resembled patience.
Rocco pulled a chair from the nearest table, turned it around, and sat facing her.
"I'm going to ask you once," he said.
"How long has the account been active?"
"I already told you.
There is no account."
"Maria has the statements."
"Maria has printed pages she could have produced herself.
She's been jealous of me since the day you introduced us.
Everyone in your circle knows it."
Maria didn't react.
She stood near the table with the document still sitting open between them, her arms at her sides.
"The account number on that statement," Maria said, "matches the routing information on the wire transfer your assistant flagged in March.
I gave that flag to your CFO, Rocco.
He sat on it."
Rocco went still.
"Dante sat on it?"
"For nine weeks."
Rocco didn't look away from Victoria.
"Did you know Dante was involved?"
Victoria's jaw tightened by a fraction.
"This is a performance.
Maria wants to humiliate me at my own engagement reception and you're letting her do it."
"It's not your reception anymore," Rocco said quietly.
"Answer the question."
"I don't have to answer anything."
"No," Rocco agreed.
"You don't."
He stood, walked to Marcus, and stopped two feet in front of him.
Marcus was forty-one, lean, with the careful grooming of a man who spent money on appearing effortless.
He had been Rocco's business partner for six years.
They had built three companies together.
Rocco had been the best man at Marcus's first wedding.
"How much?" Rocco said.
Marcus looked at a point just past Rocco's shoulder.
"I don't know what she told you."
"I'm not asking what she told me.
I'm asking how much you moved."
A pause.
Long enough to be its own answer.
"Marcus." Rocco's voice dropped lower.
"How much."
"Two point four," Marcus said.
"Million."
The number landed in the room like something physical.
Noah had stopped crying.
He sat on a chair near the wall, watching Marcus with the focused, unblinking attention of a child who has learned to read the world through faces because sound alone was never enough.
"Two point four million," Rocco repeated.
"And the plan was to finish the transfer after the wedding.
After I had no legal standing to act without her signature on the accounts."
Marcus said nothing.
"That was the plan, wasn't it?
She marries me.
Gains access to the joint holdings.
You move the rest.
And by the time I noticed, it would be structured across enough entities that recovery would take years."
Still nothing.
Rocco turned back toward Victoria.
She was looking at Marcus with an expression Rocco had never seen on her face before.
Not fear.
Something colder than fear.
She was calculating whether Marcus had just given enough away to sink them both, or only himself.
"There's more, isn't there," Rocco said.
Not a question.
Maria picked up the folded document from the table and turned to the second page.
"The account in Victoria's name is a holding account," she said.
"The destination account is registered in the Cayman Islands.
The beneficial owner on that registration—"
She stopped.
May you like
She looked at Rocco.
"—is not Victoria."
