Chapter 2 - The Scent of Cold Espresso
The back room of Fiora smelled of aged cedar, roasted espresso beans, and gun oil. It was not a bustling restaurant dining room at this hour. The chairs upstairs remained inverted on the polished tables, and the heavy velvet curtains shut out the pale morning sun. Downstairs, through a reinforced steel door disguised as an antique wine rack, lay a bright, climate-controlled office that looked more like an intelligence bunker than an Italian eatery.
Marco Bellini sat behind a dark mahogany desk, his tailored sleeves rolled up to his forearms. A scar ran faintly along his left wrist, disappearing beneath a heavy silver watch. Standing silently by the wall was a woman in a fitted black suit, her hair pulled back tightly, eyes scanning me with the sharp detachment of a seasoned bodyguard.
""Sit,"" Marco said, motioning toward a leather wingback chair. On the desk between us sat a bowl of fresh fruit, a plate of warm brioche, and a glass of chilled mineral water. ""Eat first. You did not touch breakfast at the hotel.""
""How do you know that?"" I asked, settling onto the edge of the leather cushion, my posture stiff and defensive.
""Because the room service tray was left untouched outside room 412,"" he replied calmly. He slid an open manila folder across the desk toward me. ""Look at the names on the top three corporate accounts. Don't look at Graham’s signature. Look at yours.""
My hand trembled slightly as I reached out and pulled the folder closer. The first document was a corporate incorporation filing for an entity named Vesper Maritime Holdings. The registered address was an industrial lot by the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Beneath the corporate declaration was my signature—forged in smooth, bold strokes that resembled my hand closely enough to pass any superficial bank inspection. Below it were transfer authorizations moving twenty-two million dollars through unregulated accounts in Panama and the Cayman Islands.
""Graham is not a partner at his investment firm,"" Marco explained, his voice low and dangerous. ""He is an asset manager for the Moretti family. Or rather, he was, until three months ago when he began stealing from their shipping logistics fund to pay off his own private debts. When the Morettis discover the missing capital, they will trace the documentation directly to you. If the police look first, you take the federal fall for grand fraud. If the Morettis look first, you vanish from the harbor.""
The room seemed to spin. I pressed both hands against my flat belly, my fingers digging into the wool of my sweater. My baby was growing inside a web of grand theft and violent crime, completely innocent of the monsters who had designed its cradle.
May you like
""Why are you telling me this?"" I asked, meeting Marco’s dark, unreadable eyes. ""You said you help people whose problems have teeth. What are you to the Morettis?""
Marco leaned back, a slight, humorless smirk touching his lips. ""The Moretti family runs their business like butcher dogs with no leash. I am the man who controls the distribution docks they rely on to stay alive. I don't work for them, Nina. They owe me twelve million dollars, and your husband just tried to use your forged name to intercept that shipment."" He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the wood. ""Graham didn't just abandon you on your anniversary. He set you up to be murdered so he could fly to Zurich with his mistress and twenty million dollars of stolen mob money.""
