Chapter 9 - BIANCA MARINO’S LAST WARNING
Nicholas read the letter six times.
Each time, he seemed to become quieter.
Sofia sat on the edge of Bianca's old bed.
“No.”
Nicholas looked at her.
“You knew Whitaker before I did.”
“He was your father's friend.”
“Exactly.”
“He helped us after Bianca died.”
Nicholas's jaw tightened.
Avery understood why that mattered.
Charles Whitaker had not been some distant executive.
He had been family-adjacent.
The man who stood beside Sofia at Bianca's funeral.
The man who advised Nicholas when he inherited control of Marino Atlantic at twenty-six.
The man who later supported Nicholas during the investigation into Luca.
He had voted to remove Grant.
He had publicly condemned the sabotage.
He had presented himself as loyalty in human form.
And Bianca's final warning named him.
Nicholas called company security.
Then stopped.
Avery noticed.
“You don't know who you can trust.”
“Correct.”
“Marcus?”
Nicholas nodded.
Marco Rinaldi had served as his personal security director for seven years.
Unlike many executives around Nicholas, Marco did not care about company politics.
“Call him.”
Marco arrived forty minutes later.
Broad shoulders.
Gray suit.
No wasted words.
He read the note.
Then said, “We assume Whitaker knows we found this.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever took the box left the envelope.”
Avery nodded.
“They wanted Nicholas to find part of the warning.”
Nicholas looked at her.
“Why?”
“To make you suspicious.”
Sofia frowned.
“Of Whitaker?”
“Maybe.”
Avery looked again at Bianca's wording.
Do not trust the person who helps you defeat him.
“Or of everyone.”
Nicholas stared.
Avery continued.
“If the thief wanted to hide Whitaker completely, they'd take the envelope too.”
Marco nodded slowly.
“So either the thief made a mistake—”
“Or this is bait.”
Nicholas walked toward the window.
Rain streaked the glass.
Again.
Somehow, every terrible night in his life seemed to involve rain.
“Find Bellini.”
Marco left.
At 9:20 p.m., Avery returned to Hawthorne House for her Sunday shift.
Nicholas hated it.
She went anyway.
“You just spent the afternoon discovering a potential conspiracy inside my company.”
“And now I have twelve tables.”
“Avery.”
“People booked dinner before Bianca wrote that letter.”
He stared at her.
“You're impossible.”
“So I've heard.”
Table Fourteen remained empty that evening.
Nicholas had not booked it.
Avery found herself looking toward it anyway.
At 10:03, a man entered alone.
Late sixties.
Italian.
Expensive coat.
He asked for Avery by name.
Claire approached immediately.
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
The man overheard.
“You know my former client.”
Avery's stomach tightened.
“Henry Bellini?”
He smiled tiredly.
“Apparently I remain recognizable.”
Avery grabbed her phone.
“Where have you been?”
“Trying not to be found.”
“By who?”
Bellini looked around.
“Not here.”
Claire offered the private wine room.
Bellini shook his head.
“No enclosed rooms.”
Fear.
Real fear.
Avery sent Nicholas one message.
Bellini is here.
His reply came instantly.
Do not let him leave.
Avery almost smiled.
As if Henry Bellini looked capable of sprinting.
She brought him coffee.
He did not touch it.
“Nicholas thinks someone kidnapped you.”
“Someone tried.”
“Who?”
Bellini looked toward the restaurant entrance.
“I don't know.”
“Why come to me?”
“Because Nicholas is watched.”
“So am I now.”
“Not the same way.”
Avery sat across from him.
“What was in Bianca's box?”
Bellini swallowed.
“Proof.”
“Of what?”
“That Luca's father did not act alone.”
“Whitaker?”
Bellini looked at her sharply.
“You found the letter.”
“Part of it.”
He closed his eyes.
“Then this is worse than I thought.”
Nicholas arrived eleven minutes later.
No entourage.
Marco followed several steps behind.
Nicholas sat opposite Bellini.
“You disappeared.”
“I survived.”
“What was in the box?”
Bellini looked toward Avery.
Nicholas noticed.
“She stays.”
Bellini nodded.
“Your mother discovered Charles Whitaker had been stealing from Marino Atlantic for almost twenty years.”
Nicholas stared.
“That makes no sense.”
“He was already wealthy.”
“Greed rarely checks net worth.”
Sofia arrived minutes later.
Bellini continued.
Whitaker had quietly acquired interests in several Marino competitors.
He profited whenever Marino contracts failed.
Whenever projects were delayed.
Whenever investors lost confidence.
But financial sabotage was only part of it.
Bianca discovered he had manipulated Luca's father, Antonio, into believing Nicholas's branch of the family planned to remove him.
“Antonio became paranoid,” Bellini said. “Whitaker fed it.”
“And Luca?” Nicholas asked.
“Raised inside the paranoia.”
Avery frowned.
“So Luca still chose what he did.”
“Yes,” Bellini said. “But Whitaker built the environment that made him useful.”
Nicholas's voice hardened.
“My mother's death?”
Bellini looked down.
“That was the reason she made the box.”
Sofia stopped breathing.
“What are you saying?”
“Bianca discovered Whitaker's offshore accounts.”
Nicholas stood.
Bellini continued quickly.
“She planned to confront the board.”
“You told me her death was an accident.”
“I believed it was until three months afterward.”
Nicholas leaned across the table.
“Three months?”
Bellini's face crumpled.
“I found a copy of a payment.”
“To who?”
“A mechanic.”
Silence.
Avery felt cold.
Bianca had died in a car crash.
Nicholas's eyes became almost empty.
“Whitaker paid someone to sabotage my mother's car.”
“We don't know whether he ordered the crash directly.”
“That distinction matters to lawyers.”
Nicholas turned away.
Avery watched his hand go toward his wrist.
Not because of pain.
Memory.
Fear.
The old gesture.
She stood beside him but did not touch him until he looked at her.
Then she held out her hand.
Nicholas took it.
Bellini continued.
“Bianca made copies. She wanted evidence no one could erase.”
“Where is it?”
“In the stolen box.”
Nicholas looked back.
“Then why didn't she expose him while she was alive?”
Bellini's answer came quietly.
“Because Whitaker threatened you.”
Nicholas went still.
“You were twenty-three. Sofia was still in college. Bianca believed waiting would keep you alive.”
Sofia began crying.
Bellini opened his coat.
“I kept one document separately.”
He pulled out an old photograph.
A younger Charles Whitaker stood beside Antonio Marino outside a warehouse.
A third man stood between them.
Grant Keller.
Avery stared.
“Grant was involved that far back?”
“No,” Bellini said.
The photograph was dated almost twenty years earlier.
Grant would have been barely out of college.
Nicholas looked closely.
“What is this?”
“Whitaker recruited Grant.”
Bellini swallowed.
“He put him inside Marino Atlantic from the beginning.”
The betrayal expanded again.
Grant had not simply become corrupt.
He had been planted.
Nicholas's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
“Marino.”
A distorted voice spoke.
Avery could not hear the words.
But she saw Nicholas's face change.
“Who is this?”
More words.
Then Nicholas slowly looked at Bellini.
The call ended.
“What?” Avery asked.
Nicholas stared at the dark screen.
“They have the box.”
“Who?”
“They didn't say.”
“What do they want?”
Nicholas looked toward her.
“Me to resign as CEO by Monday morning.”
Sofia stood.
“That is two days away.”
Nicholas nodded.
“And if I don't—”
His voice faltered.
Avery had never heard that before.
“If you don't what?”
He looked at the letter from his mother.
“They release evidence proving Bianca discovered the conspiracy.”
“That helps you.”
“No.”
His expression turned cold.
“They also claim they have evidence making it look like I knew about it.”
Avery stared.
“Before she died?”
“Yes.”
And suddenly she understood the trap.
If Nicholas refused to resign, someone would try to make the world believe he knew his mother was in danger—
May you like
and did nothing.
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