Chapter 6 - Eighteen Million
Dante locked down every Moretti account before noon.
His outside counsel contacted the banks.
Transfer requests were frozen pending authentication.
Seventeen million eight hundred thousand dollars remained in place.
Two hundred thousand had already vanished through four intermediary accounts.
Marco stood in Dante’s office while the company accountant displayed transaction logs.
“The authorization came from my terminal,” Marco said.
The accountant nodded nervously.
“At 4:13 this morning.”
“I was asleep.”
Victor said, “At the mansion?”
“Yes.”
“Camera?”
Marco glared at him.
“Ask your new best friend.”
Dante ignored the provocation.
“Security footage shows Marco entering the residence at 5:46.”
The accountant frowned.
“Then someone remotely accessed his machine.”
Marco shook his head.
“Offline authentication. Physical token required.”
“Where’s the token?”
Marco reached into his jacket.
Empty pocket.
His expression changed.
Dante noticed.
Marco searched again.
“It’s gone.”
Victor laughed once.
“This is becoming insulting.”
Marco grabbed him by the lapels.
Dante moved fast.
“Let him go.”
Marco released Victor.
Victor straightened his vest.
“Someone has your code, your token and your burn scar.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Dante looked at both men.
“This is not a frame job anymore.”
Victor stopped adjusting his coat.
Dante continued.
“Framing Marco for the bug might get him killed. Stealing eighteen million through his division does something else.”
The accountant understood first.
“It makes the theft look internal.”
“And if the transfers had completed,” Dante said, “the money would disappear before anyone knew there was a breach.”
Marco stared at the screen.
“Someone wants me blamed after I’m dead.”
No one contradicted him.
Dante asked the accountant to trace the two hundred thousand that had escaped.
An hour later they had one destination.
A dormant limited liability company called Meridian Wharf Consulting.
Victor stared at the name.
“I know that company.”
Dante looked at him.
“From where?”
“Your father.”
The room chilled.
“Salvatore used Meridian in the nineties for port payments.”
Marco said, “It was dissolved.”
“It was supposed to be.”
The accountant clicked through state registration records.
“Reactivated eleven months ago.”
Again.
Eleven months.
The month Elena had been hired.
The month Victor’s fake security credential had appeared.
The month the administrative network migration had been completed.
Dante felt the timeline tightening.
“Who filed the reinstatement?”
The accountant enlarged the document.
The signature belonged to Salvatore Moretti.
A dead man.
Marco cursed.
Victor sat down.
Dante studied the notarization.
Fake, obviously.
But competent enough to survive automated review.
“Address?”
The accountant read it.
Victor stood again.
“No.”
“What?”
“That building was Nico’s.”
Marco stared at him.
“My brother rented an apartment in Sunset Park.”
“Not his home. His storage garage.”
Marco’s face changed.
Twenty minutes later, they were driving south.
Dante left Lily and Elena at the mansion with Rosa and two guards chosen personally by Dante, not Marco.
He hated himself for making that distinction.
The garage stood behind a tire shop in Brooklyn.
Its metal door had been recently painted.
Marco forced the lock.
Inside was almost nothing.
An old workbench.
Shelves.
A rusted bicycle.
And a wall covered with photographs.
Dante.
Victor.
Marco.
Elena.
Lily.
The tailor shop.
The Moretti mansion.
The five-family representatives.
Dozens of images taken over eleven months.
Someone had been watching all of them.
Marco moved toward a photograph of Lily outside preschool.
His face became dangerous.
“This ends now.”
Victor found a stack of photocopied financial statements.
Moretti Properties.
Security budgets.
Trust documents.
Dante opened a filing cabinet.
Inside sat four copper transmitters identical to the one from his tie.
Beside them was Marco’s missing authentication token.
Victor slowly turned toward Marco.
Marco did not defend himself.
He stared at the token like a man looking at a corpse.
Dante opened the bottom drawer.
Inside was the second ledger.
Nico’s missing book.
Marco reached for it.
Dante stopped him.
“Gloves.”
They photographed every page before touching anything.
The ledger listed payments made by Salvatore Moretti to port officials, shell companies and security contractors.
Then Dante found a later section.
Entries continued beyond Salvatore’s death.
Seven years beyond it.
Someone had kept using the system.
One set of initials appeared repeatedly.
M.B.
Marco Bellini.
Marco read over Dante’s shoulder.
“No.”
Victor said nothing.
Marco turned another page.
Payments.
Dates.
Amounts.
His initials beside all of them.
Then he saw the handwriting.
“This isn’t Nico’s.”
Dante examined it.
Marco was right.
The older pages were compact and angular.
The newer entries had been imitated.
Victor whispered, “Someone extended the ledger.”
Dante turned to the final page.
There was one new line.
TODAY — 10:00 A.M. — SUMMIT RECORDING DELIVERED.
Beneath it was a fingerprint in black ink.
Marco’s.
Marco looked at Dante.
“I never touched this book.”
A phone began ringing.
Not theirs.
The sound came from beneath the workbench.
Dante found a cheap prepaid phone taped underneath.
One incoming call.
Blocked number.
He answered.
Nobody spoke.
Then a distorted voice said:
“You should have let the girl keep cutting.”
The line went dead.
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Outside, the garage door slammed shut.
And someone locked it from the other side.
