Chapter 3
Giulietta’s breathing became almost silent.
That was when her men knew she was angriest.
Not when she shouted.
When she stopped giving the room anything.
“Name.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“I can't.”
One capo stepped forward.
Giulietta raised two fingers.
He stopped.
Luca looked grateful.
She noticed that too.
“You can.”
Her voice remained calm.
“You're choosing not to.”
Warren shifted his weight.
“Perhaps this conversation should happen after the wedding.”
Giulietta slowly turned.
“The wedding is over.”
Preston’s face hardened.
“You don't get to decide that alone.”
Giulietta looked at him.
For several seconds, nobody breathed normally.
Then she picked up her engagement ring from the vanity.
Preston watched.
She held it between two fingers.
His gaze softened slightly.
Hope.
Giulietta dropped it into a glass of champagne.
The tiny sound was almost delicate.
“Now I’ve decided it twice.”
Preston’s nostrils flared.
Warren looked toward Luca.
Again.
There was something between them.
Giulietta caught it.
“Search his phone.”
Luca stepped back.
“No.”
That answer came too fast.
One of Giulietta’s bodyguards stopped.
He looked at her.
Waiting.
Luca’s hands shook.
Giulietta did not order the phone taken.
Instead she asked:
“What are you protecting?”
Luca stared at the carpet.
“My son.”
The room changed.
Giulietta knew Luca had one child.
Daniel.
Twenty-six.
Recently married.
Running a small shipping brokerage in Newark.
“What happened?”
Luca’s voice became rough.
“Daniel borrowed money.”
Warren looked away.
Giulietta saw it.
“How much?”
“Two million.”
Preston laughed quietly.
Luca’s head snapped toward him.
Hatred surfaced.
Real hatred.
Giulietta followed it.
“From the Hales?”
Luca nodded once.
Warren corrected him.
“From a lender we introduced.”
Giulietta’s eyes hardened.
“Same leash. Different hand.”
Luca continued.
Daniel’s brokerage collapsed after a major client defaulted.
The lender threatened foreclosure.
Then criminal referral over falsified collateral Daniel had submitted in panic.
Warren offered to make the problem disappear.
In exchange, Luca would help with what he described as a harmless contingency.
A camera.
A security adjustment.
One clause in a larger agreement.
Luca told himself nobody would be hurt.
Giulietta looked toward the golf club.
Luca followed her eyes.
His face collapsed.
“I did not know about that.”
Preston smiled without humor.
“Convenient.”
Luca lunged toward him.
Giulietta stepped between them.
“Stop.”
Luca froze.
His chest heaved.
Giulietta looked into his eyes.
“You betrayed me.”
Luca’s voice broke.
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you come to me?”
His mouth opened.
Closed.
Then:
“Because you would have saved Daniel.”
Giulietta frowned.
Luca’s eyes filled.
“And then you would have owned his mistake forever.”
That hurt.
Because Luca believed it.
Perhaps because Giulietta had given him reasons to.
Then her bodyguard handed her Luca’s phone.
He had voluntarily unlocked it.
One recent message sat at the top.
UNKNOWN:
Camera is live. If she fights back, Hale gets the company.
Giulietta looked at Luca.
“You said this came from inside our family.”
He nodded.
She opened the message metadata.
The number had been masked.
But the routing service was billed to a Marconi corporate account.
One she did not recognize.
Account administrator:
May you like
MARCELLO MARCONI.
Giulietta’s uncle.
