Chapter 5 - The Dead Man's Ledger
The wedding guests were still drinking champagne when Giulietta returned upstairs.
No announcement had been made.
That was deliberate.
Let them wait.
Giulietta changed into black trousers, a white shirt, and her father's old navy blazer. The sleeves were slightly too long. She rolled them once.
Marco came in without knocking.
"Rafael got away."
"Of course he did."
"You don't sound surprised."
"He had a route planned before we went downstairs."
Nico placed Elena's phone on the desk.
"We pulled the photo metadata. It was taken yesterday at Marconi Tower. Records floor."
Giulietta zoomed in on the ledger image.
Her father's handwriting filled the page in tight black lines.
Numbers. Dates. Initials.
HALE.
It was a payment.
Seven million dollars transferred from a shell company controlled by Warren Hale into an account marked BELLFLOWER.
"What's Bellflower?" Nico asked.
Giulietta stared.
At her father's funeral.
An old union boss had leaned over the casket and whispered, "Bellflower stays buried."
At the time, she thought grief had made the man strange.
Marco read the date.
"This payment was four years ago."
"Before Preston and I ever met."
"Then this marriage wasn't the beginning."
"It was the cleanup."
A knock sounded.
Warren stood in the open doorway.
Warren's smile was gone.
"The ballroom is waiting."
Giulietta closed Elena's phone.
"Then tell them to eat the cake."
Preston pushed past his father.
"You humiliated me."
"You swung a golf club at me."
"You think people will believe that?"
"I think the hallway camera will show you carrying it into the suite at 9:04. I think the room service attendant will remember you ordering everyone out. And I think your father will have trouble explaining why he had a duplicate key."
Preston's face went red.
Warren remained still.
"You have no idea what you're destroying."
"Then explain Bellflower."
The name hit him harder than any weapon could have.
Warren's eyes sharpened.
Marco saw it too.
"There it is."
Warren recovered quickly.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You will."
Preston called after her.
"Where are you going?"
"To cancel my wedding in front of everyone."
May you like
Warren finally lost his composure.
"If you do that, Elena dies."
