Chapter 16 - Marcus Comes Home
The FBI reached Samuel Grant’s cabin fourteen minutes after the call.
The attackers were gone.
Grant was alive.
Barely.
One bullet had torn through his side.
Another grazed his neck.
He survived because an unexpected man had arrived first.
Marcus Vale.
Adrien learned the truth at two in the morning.
Rebecca Shaw called.
“We have Grant.”
Adrien stood from his desk.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
“Thank God.”
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Someone intervened before our agents arrived.”
Adrien immediately understood.
“Marcus.”
Rebecca paused.
“How did you know?”
Adrien looked toward Isabella.
“Because apparently ghosts are becoming predictable.”
Marcus had never boarded the freighter to Singapore.
At the Seattle docks, he overheard two men discussing a contract on Samuel Grant.
Marcus recognized one as a Bellini associate.
He followed.
Then contacted Grant using information remembered from Lorenzo’s old security files.
He reached Montana hours before Bellini’s team.
When they attacked, Marcus returned fire and bought Grant enough time to hide behind a reinforced pantry wall.
Marcus was hit twice.
He was now in surgery.
Adrien did not know how to feel.
The man had betrayed him.
Opened his gates.
Allowed Isabella and Eleanor to be terrorized.
Yet Marcus had just risked his life protecting the witness who could expose Bellini.
Eleanor insisted on traveling to the hospital.
Adrien refused.
She ignored him.
By afternoon, the family entered a secure medical wing in Boise.
Marcus lay unconscious.
Machines surrounded him.
Eleanor stood beside the bed.
Her face changed.
Not forgiveness.
Grief.
“He looks old.”
Adrien said nothing.
Marcus had always seemed indestructible.
Now his skin looked gray.
Bandages covered his chest.
Eleanor touched his hand.
“You foolish man.”
Marcus’s eyes opened slightly.
He saw her.
Tears filled them.
“Mrs. Moretti.”
“Don’t talk.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“I believed…”
“I know.”
His eyes moved toward Adrien.
Adrien stayed near the door.
Marcus swallowed painfully.
“I broke the exile.”
“Yes.”
“Do what you have to.”
Adrien almost smiled.
“Not in a hospital.”
Marcus coughed.
“Samuel.”
“Alive.”
Relief passed over his face.
“Good.”
Adrien approached.
“Why did you go after him?”
Marcus looked at Eleanor.
“Lorenzo protected me when I didn’t know.”
Then at Adrien.
“I thought maybe I could protect one thing he cared about.”
Adrien folded his arms.
“One good act doesn’t erase what you did.”
“I know.”
“But it matters.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
“That’s more than I deserve.”
Samuel Grant was awake the next day.
He requested Adrien.
Grant looked weak but alert.
“Bellini is frightened.”
“I noticed.”
“No. More frightened than you understand.”
Grant explained there was one account Bellini had never been able to locate.
A reserve fund.
Nearly two hundred million dollars accumulated through decades of corruption.
Lorenzo had diverted it.
Not stolen for himself.
Frozen.
“Where?” Adrien asked.
Grant looked toward Isabella.
“Her father created the trust.”
Isabella stared.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
The money had been placed under a legal mechanism requiring three authorization keys.
Lorenzo held one.
Isabella’s father held another.
Samuel held the third.
“The brass key,” Isabella whispered.
Grant nodded.
“The one taken from Lorenzo’s study accesses the physical authorization box.”
“Bellini has it.”
“Yes.”
“But he needs the other keys.”
Grant pointed weakly toward his chest.
“Mine is not physical.”
“What is it?”
“A phrase.”
Adrien frowned.
“And my father’s?”
Isabella suddenly understood.
“The folio.”
Grant nodded.
A section everyone assumed was legal boilerplate contained the second authentication phrase.
Bellini needed three pieces.
He had only one.
“Then why is he hunting you?” Adrien asked.
“To force me to give him mine.”
“Why does he need the money now?”
Grant smiled bitterly.
“Because Victor Salvatore wasn’t the only man drowning in debt.”
Bellini had borrowed heavily through private European lenders to preserve his influence.
He was nearly insolvent.
The respected kingmaker of Chicago was financially collapsing.
That explained everything.
Victor.
Donati.
The ledger.
The key.
Bellini did not merely fear exposure.
He needed Lorenzo’s frozen money.
“How long before his lenders come?” Isabella asked.
Grant looked at her.
“They already have.”
Adrien’s phone rang.
Dante.
“Boss, we have a problem.”
“What?”
“There are four unfamiliar vehicles outside the Chicago estate.”
Adrien’s eyes hardened.
“Bellini?”
“No.”
Dante sounded unsettled.
“European plates on two of them.”
That was impossible.
Unless someone had imported vehicles privately.
“Who are they?”
“One man sent a message.”
“What message?”
Dante read it.
“Tell Adrien Moretti that Stefano Bellini owes us ninety million dollars.”
Adrien looked at Grant.
The old accountant had been right.
A new enemy had arrived.
Not for the Morettis.
May you like
For Bellini.
And if Adrien handled it correctly, Stefano’s creditors might become the pressure that finally forced him into the open.
