Thirty
Ciro
The day is winding down, and the numbers in the old company taxes still aren’t sitting right, and they haven’t for the last week. Chiara and I have been on pins and needles since we learned that her mother was still alive.
Suddenly, everyone’s urgency for the arranged marriage between Palo and Chiara finally locks into place.
Palo needs the marriage because he isn’t a blood Gamblé. As the stepson to Chiara’s uncle and only heir, his position is already complicated. Marrying Chiara legitimizes his claim and blocks Massimo from eventually asserting control over both families through bloodline succession.
Which means this was never about Chiara as a person. It was strategy.
My phone vibrates against the desk.
“Ciro Marino.” I push my chair back a fraction so I can see the door.
“We found her,” Jim says, his voice steady through the speaker.
I lean back and brace one hand on the edge of the desk, my eyes still on the open file.
“Where is she?” I ask, tapping once against the trackpad to keep the screen awake.
“She’s in the Malibu Colony, in an oceanfront home,” he says.
I stop tapping and lean forward. “Say that again.”
“She is living in the Malibu Colony,” Jim repeats.
That doesn’t line up with anything we expected. I turn the chair slightly, putting my shoulder toward the desk instead of square to it.
“Has Massimo clocked her?”
“Not from what we can see,” Jim says. “He’s been in Hollywood, and his credit card activity shows clubs and restaurants.”
“That doesn’t tell me where his attention actually is.”
“We haven’t seen anything that puts him near Malibu.”
I let that sit and shift forward again, bringing my forearms to the desk.
“Are you sure it’s her?”
“We’re confident,” he says. “I’ve placed a large team there. Massimo can’t get to her without going through us.”
“So she knows you’re there and she’s been found?”
“No. We’re running security for the Colony.
It’s a gated community in central Malibu.
It sits on a narrow strip of land with homes on both sides of the private road.
One side faces the Pacific Ocean. The other side faces the Malibu Lagoon and inland landscaping.
There are less than a hundred homes, and everyone knows one another. ”
“That’s not what I asked,” I say. “How are you sure?”
There’s a pause before he answers.
“We used the photo you provided and tracked her through a California driver’s license,” Jim says. “She’s under the name Patricia Stephens.”
I pull the pen closer and roll it once under my palm.
“How long has that name been active,” I ask, stopping the pen with my thumb.
“About nineteen years,” he says. “No obvious breaks in the record.”
“People don’t just appear nineteen years ago,” I say, pressing the pen flat against the desk. “They build something to get there.”
“It’s a clean identity,” Jim says, careful now. “It holds under basic scrutiny.”
“Basic doesn’t interest me.” I lift my pen and set it down harder than I need to. “Who is she tied to?”
“She’s married,” he says.
“To whom?” I push my chair back enough that it clicks against the floor.
“A CEO of a mid-size electronics company in Santa Monica,” Jim replies. “Low profile.”
“And no one ever connected her back?” I stare out the window at the traffic on the Bay Bridge crawling along.
“Not that we found,” he says.
“Or not that anyone wanted to find.”
Jim doesn’t answer that. I let the silence stretch just long enough to hold.
“She has a real driver’s license,” I continue. “That means paperwork, history, validation. That doesn’t happen quietly.”
“It can happen if it’s built correctly,” he says. “It’s difficult and expensive, but it happens.”
“Which means she didn’t do it alone,” I say, turning back toward the desk.
“We don’t have anything that confirms that,” Jim says. “But you’re probably right. She didn’t just leave on a whim. It was planned.”
“Does finding her put her at risk?”
“Now that we know she’s alive, yes,” he says. “But it was very hard to find her.”
“That’s not reassuring,” I say, dragging the file window back into place without looking at it. “That means whoever built this wanted it buried.”
Jim doesn’t answer immediately.
“Could they have used Chiara,” I ask. “Let her follow the trail instead of finding it themselves. You said that Massimo was partying in LA.”
“That’s something we’re considering,” he says. “Getting access to driver’s license and facial recognition software isn’t easy.”
“Can your team approach her?”
“We can,” he says. “Controlled contact, low profile.”
“Not yet.” I cut in before he finishes the thought. “She could run, and we’d never find her again.”
“I agree.”
We’re both quiet for a beat.
“If she’s been there for years,” Jim says, slower now, “this isn’t temporary.”
“I know. But I have no doubt she has a plan.”
“Who’s watching her?” I tap my pen once against my desk.
“We have eyes on the property,” Jim says. “No contact until we understand what we’re looking at.”
“I think that’s the best plan for now.”
There’s another pause.
“Do you want Chiara looped in?” Jim asks.
I don’t answer right away. “Not yet.”
“If she finds out another way,” he starts.
“She won’t,” I say. “Unless you or someone on your team tells her.”
“My team won’t say anything,” Jim says.
“I need to tell her in a way that doesn’t send her straight to Malibu,” I say, leaning forward again. “If she walks in blind, she puts both of them at risk.”
“Agreed,” he says. “We’re confident that they’re watching for her to arrive and follow her right to her mother.”
The line goes quiet.
I lower the phone and set it on the desk, my hand staying there a second longer than necessary before I pull it back.
The old taxes are still open, and they still don’t sit right. I can’t figure out how they got from one point to the other.
Dante walks in without knocking, and it takes seconds for him to see the bankers box of paper on my desk. “What are you working on?”
“Paperwork from storage,” I say, resting my hand flat over the page so it doesn’t move when he looks at it.
Dante crosses the room and stops at the corner of the desk, his fingers hooking over the back of the chair without pulling it out.
“Are those company taxes?” he asks, angling his head down toward the box instead of the screen.
I nod once and shift in the chair so I’m facing him instead of the desk.
“The year before and the year after they died,” I say, tapping the edge of the folder with one finger.
“What are you looking for?” He walks over to the bar in the corner of my office and pours himself a bourbon.
I slide the folder forward an inch and press the margin flat again.
“A connection that should be there,” I say, keeping my hand on it. “The year before, there’s nothing—no employees, no insurance. Marino Holdings was a shell company. The year after, it’s fully built. That doesn’t line up.”
“That was written at a point in time,” he says. “This is what we have. Tax laws have changed as has the company.”
“That still leaves a gap.”
“It moves past it because it doesn’t matter to what we’re doing,” he says, holding my gaze without stepping in.
I let that sit, and then change the angle instead of repeating it.
“You’re not curious about that,” I say, my hand still resting on the desk between us.
Dante doesn’t answer right away. He stays near the window with one hand braced against the frame, looking down toward the Embarcadero while the late afternoon light cuts across the office behind him.
“No,” he says finally, turning back toward me. “I’m not digging into a twenty-year-old problem that isn’t affecting us now.”
I look down at the audit spread across the desk between us—missing filings, payout timelines, ownership transfers that move too cleanly after the accident—and then back at him.
I push away from the desk and start toward him, the file still open in my hand. “There’s no transition here. No restructuring period. No transfer documentation. Marino Holdings goes from almost nonexistent to fully capitalized within months of Mom and Dad dying. Doesn’t that sound fishy to you?”
Dante exhales once through his nose and reaches for the whiskey sitting untouched beside the window. “Then it was handled privately.”
“That isn’t how this works.”
“It is when people with money want things contained.” He takes a drink before looking back at me. “You know that.”
For a second, neither of us says anything.
Dante sets the glass down harder than necessary. “What exactly are you trying to prove here?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That’s the problem.” He points toward the file in my hand. “You’re tearing into decades-old records without even knowing what outcome you want.”
“I want the missing pieces.”
His jaw tightens slightly at that.
“There are always missing pieces,” he says. “Dad built half this company through handshake deals and offshore partnerships before any of us were old enough to understand what he was doing.”
“That doesn’t explain deleted records.”
Dante’s eyes flick toward the desk before returning to mine.
“The mechanical report existed,” I continue. “Someone removed it after the accident.”
He looks away first, toward the water.
“Ciro—”
“No.” I close the distance before he can shut it down. “You don’t get to do that. Not this time.”
His attention snaps back to me immediately.
“Do what?”
Dante drags a hand over his mouth and looks suddenly older than he did five minutes ago.
“When Mom and Dad died,” he says quietly, “Matteo still slept with the hallway light on for almost a year.”
The fight leaves the room just enough to change shape.
“He was eleven,” Dante continues. “Luca wouldn’t get in the car unless Rebecca came with us. Gianna barely remembers them at all.” His eyes hold mine now. “You know what I remember? Trying to keep this family from collapsing while lawyers fought over assets we didn’t even understand yet.”
I don’t say anything. I was nine, and I remember it too.
Dante straightens again, some of the softness disappearing from his face. “So no, I’m not interested in ripping open old graves unless you can tell me there’s something inside worth destroying all of this over.”
I look past him toward the skyline, the reflection of the office ghosting across the glass.
“If I keep pulling on it,” I say carefully, “I’m going to find something.”
“I know.”
The answer comes quiet enough that I look back at him immediately.
Dante holds my gaze for another second before reaching for the door.
“But finding it,” he says, “doesn’t mean you’re going to like what it costs.”