Chapter 6: The Man Who Chose Wrong
Marcello switched on his phone light.
“You helped her?”
Thomas pressed both hands against the wall.
“I found your profile in a private grief group.
I told Vanessa you owned hotels and had no children.”
Sarah’s expression tightened.
“You handed her a grieving man.”
“I thought she would charm him, take gifts, and leave.
I didn’t know about the pregnancy story or the foundation.”
“You knew enough,” Marcello said.
Thomas met his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Then why warn me?”
“Vanessa and Rebecca emptied my mother’s retirement account.
She had to sell her home.
When I confronted them, Vanessa said weak people deserved what happened to them.”
Lily tugged Sarah’s coat.
“Mommy, Mrs.
Greene has a key.”
Marcello crouched beside her.
“Who is Mrs.
Greene?”
“The lady who gave me juice.”
Sarah touched the door.
“The housekeeper.
Lily saw her using a master key upstairs.”
A key scraped in the lock.
Mrs.
Greene opened the door and held one finger to her lips.
“Victor told me to go home.
I have worked here for twenty-seven years.
He does not tell me when to leave.”
Marcello stepped into the corridor.
“They’re headed for the airport.”
Mrs.
Greene handed him a small memory card.
“Victor erased the main cameras, but he forgot the nursery camera you installed for your niece.
It faces the dressing-room mirror.”
“You copied it?”
“I watched Celeste hide the pad and the phone.
Then I watched Victor take your envelope.”
Marcello closed her fingers around the key.
“Why risk your job?”
She looked at Lily.
“Because a child told the truth, and every adult with a salary found a reason not to hear her.”
At the private terminal, Celeste stood beside Rebecca while Victor loaded bags into a waiting car.
Marcello walked across the floor with Sarah, Thomas, Lily, and Mrs.
Greene behind him.
Celeste stared at Mrs.
Greene.
“You should have gone home.”
Mrs.
Greene held up the memory card.
“So should you.”
Rebecca snapped her laptop shut.
“Marcello, this is a misunderstanding.”
“You moved $2.4 million.”
“You authorized it.”
“Play the recording,” Sarah said.
Victor stepped toward her.
“Keep your child out of this.”
Sarah moved Lily behind Marcello.
“You used my daughter as a shield for your lies.
You will not frighten her now.”
Celeste held out one hand.
“Marcello, let us board the plane.
I will return half the money and disappear.”
“All of it,” he said.
“Half is more than you’ll recover after Rebecca proves you approved the transfer.”
Thomas placed the marriage certificate on the counter.
“She cannot prove Celeste exists.
Vanessa Reed is still legally my wife.”
Rebecca smiled.
“That only proves my sister used another name.
It does not prove Marcello’s signature was forged.”
Marcello called the bank and put the conversation on speaker.
The investigator said, “Mr.
DeLuca, we traced the security code to a device registered to Rebecca Shaw.
The receiving account has been frozen.”
Rebecca’s smile vanished.
“That is privileged client information.”
“You stopped being my attorney when you stole my authorization,” Marcello said.
Celeste grabbed the red phone from Victor and hurled it onto the floor.
Her heel came down on the screen.
Mrs.
Greene lifted the memory card.
“That camera records sound too.”
Victor stepped away from Celeste.
She turned on him.
“Do something.”
“No.”
“I paid you.”
“And now the bank has your messages.”
Airport officers entered through the security doors.
Celeste backed toward the gate.
“You wanted a child,” she said to Marcello.
“I gave you three months of believing you mattered to someone.”
Marcello’s face went white, but Sarah took his hand.
“You mattered before she arrived,” Sarah said.
One officer asked Celeste to place her passport on the counter.
She threw it down.
“This is not over.
Rebecca prepared more than one set of papers.”
Rebecca looked sharply at her sister.
Marcello’s phone rang.
His accountant spoke so loudly that everyone heard him.
May you like
“Marcello, they didn’t only target the foundation.
Someone filed documents transferring your home this morning.”
