Chapter 3 - NINE O'CLOCK
By six-thirty the next morning, the wedding cake was on every phone in Chicago.
The video began with me raising the knife. It ended before the diamond ring fell from the sugar roses. Someone had added a caption: ROMANO MAID ATTACKS BRIDE'S WEDDING CAKE IN JEALOUS RAGE.
I watched it in the downstairs kitchen while a pot of coffee burned on the stove. My cheek was swollen, and Dr. Patel had ordered me to rest, but sleep had lasted less than an hour. Each time I closed my eyes I heard the crash of the cake and Bianca shouting my name.
A cook named Tessa took my phone gently out of my hand.
“Stop reading the comments,” she said.
“My address is in them.”
Tessa's face changed. “What?”
Someone had posted a picture of my apartment building and claimed I was a stalker who'd been planning to ruin the wedding for months. Others were calling me a criminal. One person had written that someone should teach me respect.
Tessa switched off the screen. “We're telling Elias.”
“I don't want any more attention.”
“You're already getting attention. The question is whether you get help.”
She put a warm mug between my hands. Tessa had worked in the Romano kitchen for seven years and believed that almost any crisis could be improved by breakfast. That morning I wasn't hungry, but the smell of buttered toast reminded me I was still a person with a body that needed care.
At seven, Matteo came into the kitchen.
He had changed into a dark blue shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. I had rarely seen him below the main floor. He paused in front of the coffee machine as though he couldn't remember why he had come.
“Tessa,” he asked, “has everyone who worked yesterday been paid?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Even the temporary staff?”
“I'll double-check.”
He turned toward me. His gaze stopped at the bruise, and I saw anger flicker across his face before he mastered it.
“I saw the video,” he said.
“So did everyone else.”
“The original recording is safe. Dana is contacting the platforms with the full context and reporting the threats. Elias can help secure your apartment. You don't have to stay here, but you don't need to go there alone.”
I stared at him. “You don't think I should defend myself?”
“You may, if that's what you want. But you don't owe strangers a performance of your pain.”
The sentence settled somewhere deep in me.
I had spent the night rehearsing speeches to people I would never meet. None of them knew what it felt like to have Bianca's diamond strike my face. None of them had seen Matteo hold his mother's ring as though he were afraid it might disappear again.
“I have a friend I could stay with,” I said.
“Then Elias will make sure you get there safely.”
He hesitated. “I owe you more than a ride, Grace. I'll discuss the employment situation after the fund meeting, when you're ready.”
I almost told him it didn't matter. But my rent was due in twelve days, and it mattered very much.
At eight-ten, Dana's team had gathered in the library. Nobody wore wedding clothes. The chandeliers were off, and gray morning light made the floral arrangements look strangely abandoned. Two accountants were reviewing records; an assistant arranged certified copies of the trust charter.
Dana explained the immediate plan. “We're applying for emergency relief to stop any transfers while the signatures are investigated. The trustees also need notice that their apparent votes are disputed. The bank has been asked to flag the accounts. There are procedures we must follow, even when we're certain something is wrong.”
Matteo nodded. “Do it properly.”
I stood near the door, feeling out of place. I had brought water for the meeting, a habit I couldn't quite shake, but Tessa had told me not to carry trays while my shoulder healed.
Dana looked toward me. “Grace, Elias says you noticed a woman with a crescent pin near the west office. Can you describe exactly what happened, without guessing?”
I did. I remembered the mirror, the document case, the way the woman had paused when Carlo entered the corridor. I even remembered the faint smell of orange blossoms that followed her.
“Good,” Dana said. “We'll record that as your observation. We won't call her a conspirator without proof.”
The care she took with words made me trust her more.
At eight-forty-three, Owen Rusk arrived at the mansion. He was a tidy man with pale lashes, wire-rimmed glasses, and a leather portfolio pressed against his chest. He had managed the family office for eleven years and knew more about the Romano finances than almost anyone outside the family.
“I don't understand the panic,” Owen said. “The transfer is a routine restructuring.”
“Then explain the dead trustee's signature,” Matteo said.
Owen blinked. “There must be a clerical error.”
“Three clerical errors?” Dana asked. “Two of the trustees say they never signed. The third is deceased.”
Owen's lips tightened. “Those signatures came through the system. I don't personally witness every electronic approval.”
“Who controls the system?”
“My staff. Several people. You know how offices work.”
Dana slid a printout across the table. “The approval requests were initiated from the west office terminal last night while Carlo DeLuca was seen entering the room.”
Owen didn't look at the paper. “Carlo is a guest of the family. He may have been looking for somewhere private to make a call.”
“Did you authorize him to use that computer?”
“No.”
“Then we're reviewing access permissions and suspending your ability to process trust transactions until this is resolved.”
“You can't just—” Owen began.
“I can request that of the trust's remaining valid trustees,” Matteo interrupted. “And I have.”
Owen pulled out his phone. Dana stopped him with a look.
“You may call your counsel. Please don't delete or alter records. A preservation notice is being served.”
For the first time, Owen looked genuinely frightened.
At nine o'clock, the scheduled board meeting didn't begin. The video call opened to an empty virtual room, then a formal notice appeared saying the meeting was postponed pending a court application and verification of the trustees' authority.
I released a breath I hadn't known I was holding.
“Did we stop them?” I asked.
“For this morning,” Dana said. “That is not the same as solving the problem.”
Twenty minutes later, she received confirmation that the court had granted a short temporary restraining order against disposition of specifically identified trust assets while the parties could be heard. No triumphant music played. Nobody cheered. Dana simply nodded, wrote down the hearing date, and instructed the accountants to keep working.
Matteo sat alone at the far end of the table. His mother's notebook lay open before him. I watched him read a name written on the first page.
“Who is Evelyn Ortiz?” he asked.
Teresa, sitting beside the fireplace, answered. “A dock electrician. Her husband died in the collapse. Elena promised their twins college tuition.”
“Did they get it?”
Teresa looked away. “I don't know.”
That was when the victory began to feel hollow.
Matteo closed the notebook. “Then we find out.”
A sound came from the library door. Elias turned, putting a hand lightly against the radio at his belt.
A woman stood in the hall, damp from the rain. She was in her fifties, with cropped black hair, a plain gray coat, and a crescent-shaped gold pin fixed to her collar. She held a flat document case in both hands.
I stepped forward before I could stop myself. “That's her.”
The woman looked at me, then at Matteo.
“My name is Marian Pike,” she said. “I came yesterday hoping to speak to you before the ceremony. Carlo had men watching every entrance. I had to put on a vendor's jacket just to get near the west office.”
Elias kept his voice calm. “How did you enter this morning?”
“Your aunt invited me.”
Teresa rose. “I did. I found her number in Elena's old address book.”
Marian looked exhausted. “I'm not here to steal anything. I'm here because the wedding was cover for a theft that started years ago.”
Matteo pulled out a chair. “Sit down and tell us what you know.”
Marian didn't sit immediately. She stared at Elena's portrait above the fireplace.
“I kept records for your mother until she died,” she said. “She made me promise the children would still receive their grants if the family business failed. After her funeral, Owen took control of the accounts. Payments became late. Then they stopped.”
“Why didn't you come to me?” Matteo asked.
“I tried. Twice. Both letters were returned by the family office with a notice saying outside correspondence had to go through Owen. Then someone accused me of stealing. I left Chicago.”
Dana leaned forward. “Do you have evidence?”
Marian opened her case. Inside were copies of bank statements, old grant approvals, and an index of accounts bearing the name ELENA ROMANO HARBOR FUND.
“Not everything,” she said. “Enough to know what questions to ask.”
She spread a set of statements across the table. I recognized the names from the blue notebook: Evelyn Ortiz. Jonah Price. Lila Ramos. Beside each was a promised annual amount. On later pages those payments became zero.
“But the money was still being transferred out,” Marian said.
“To whom?” Matteo asked.
Marian pointed to a company called Northline Preservation LLC.
“Owen called it an investment vehicle,” she said. “Northline bought distressed waterfront properties for Carlo DeLuca. Most of the money never came back.”
Matteo's jaw tightened. “How much?”
“We haven't reconciled every account,” Marian replied. “The records I've gathered suggest at least nine million dollars was diverted. There may be more.”
Nine million dollars.
I looked at the carefully written names in Elena's notebook. The size of the theft was almost impossible for me to comprehend, but I understood the empty space beside the scholarship payments.
“What does that have to do with the ring?” I asked.
Marian answered without hesitation. “The ring was supposed to be the most visible piece of proof that Carlo could take something untouchable from this family. The rest of the transaction paperwork would follow the same false authorization pattern.”
Matteo's gaze settled on his mother's portrait.
“And my marriage?”
Marian's hands shook as she folded the final document. “Carlo wanted Bianca inside your life when the missing money was discovered. Someone close enough to persuade you the records were just a misunderstanding. Someone who could argue the family should settle privately rather than let outsiders investigate.”
A phone vibrated on the table. It was Owen's, left behind when Elias had escorted him to a waiting room with his counsel on the line.
The screen displayed a new message. Dana glanced at it without touching the device.
Only the notification preview was visible.
FROM CARLO: IF THE VOTE FAILED, USE THE OTHER FILE. MAKE HER LOOK LIKE THE THIEF.
I felt every eye turn toward me.
My bruised cheek seemed to burn.
May you like
I had thought the worst thing they could do was take the ring.
Now I knew they intended to take my name.
