Episode 86
Episode 86
Bad News
JULIANNE
“In my experience, there are only two primary reasons to have someone watched,” Bruno shared in that sexy Greek accent I found incredibly distracting. Not to mention the way he studied me as though he were cataloguing every last detail of me was rather unsettling. “One, because they’ve done something bad. Or two, something bad is about to be done to them.”
I stood up and tapped the top of the desk in front of me with my finger nail. “Are you telling me that right now, my asshole brother is in real danger, and we’re sitting here chatting about it like we’re discussing the fucking weather?” My voice rose as fear and uncertainty started to squeeze my heart into a vice grip.
Gio was behind me in a second, his arm sliding around my waist and pulling me against his solid frame.
“Jules, it’s going to be okay,” he spoke against my neck, his warm breath sending shivers racing down my spine.
I bent over, bumping him with my booty, knocking him back a foot so I could shrug out of his hold. I started to pace the room. “Let me get all of this straight,” I bit out.
“Bianca Cameron isn’t a real person,” I said out loud while pacing.
“No, I didn’t say she wasn’t real,” Bruno stated with a slight hint of mirth I didn’t appreciate, “I said that Bianca Cameron was a fake identity.”
I spun around and glared daggers at the Greek god who I’d thought was rather debonair when we met, whom I now wanted to clobber.
“Not helping, Bruno. Julianne doesn’t take splitting hairs well.”
I shifted my heated gaze to Gio, and he clamped his mouth shut as I put all the pieces Bruno shared together. My mouth opened and closed at the severity of what all of this information meant.
“She’s going to kill him,” I breathed through the horror and shock.
“That is my guess,” Bruno hedged while Gio shook his head, wisely informing Bruno, without words, to shut the ever-loving fuck up.
“She’s really going to do it. Attempt to kill her own husband.” A sour taste hit my mouth as the sick and twisted thought of her murdering my brother became more real. He might be the scum of the earth, but he was still my family.
“I’m not sure she thinks of him as her husband,” Gio said gently.
I stopped mid pace. “What about the baby?” I blurted. “Did she get counterfeit documents for that?”
Please, oh please, tell me that was fake too, I chanted internally.
Bruno frowned deeply. “As much as I’d like to tell you that her pregnancy was a farce, we have multiple different doctor’s reports stating that she is indeed pregnant. The night she attacked you, she was admitted to the hospital and a sonogram performed. An officer I know and trust watched the entire procedure. The due date she provided is also accurate, in case you were wondering.”
“Of course. That couldn’t be fake!” I fisted my hands, which had started to shake.
Gio approached me slowly, spreading his arms out. I went straight into them and tucked my ear against his mighty chest, waiting for the comforting thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat.
“This is so fucked up.” My breath hitched as I clung to my husband.
He wrapped me in the safety of his embrace and nuzzled the top of my head. “Agreed.”
“There’s a piece I’m missing in the data I’ve collected. May I ask how you met Bianca originally? You were the first to date her, correct?” Bruno asked.
Gio let out a haggard sigh. “Yes. She was a paralegal at the law office my family used. We met over a year and a half ago when I went in to sign some documents regarding my parents’ estate.”
“The law offices of Hunter & Dodd?” Bruno clarified.
Gio nodded.
“Well, that confirms something else my team figured out.”
“Which is?” Gio sighed.
“One of my tech experts who was comparing documents realized there were similarities in documents between the Falcos and the Myers that shouldn’t exist.”
“Such as?” he asked.
“I had my team pull every official document within the last five years that has your name, your wife’s, her brother’s, Bianca’s, and both of your parents, along with any of the business contracts from the company you share. We compared them all.”
“That must have been quite the data pull,” Gio surmised.
“It was. It also confirmed that the same individual was forging signatures for the whole lot of you.”
“Excuse me?” I perked up from my safe space against Gio’s chest. “You know that I just won my case regarding my parents’ wills having been forged. You found others?”
“Many others, I’m afraid. Buildings that were purchased using forged signatures. People being paid from separate accounts that were opened up in your names, accounts I’m certain none of you are privy to. This is someone who’s been playing the long game with your family. They were smart about it too. With the size of both of your families’ holdings, it would be easy to leech tens of thousands at a time, shifting money around and moving it from account to account. A lot of it was paid to individuals that didn’t exist, so it looked like normal business expenses. Your families buy and sell a lot of properties from different arms of your business. A few purchased over the past five years were likely to go unnoticed by accountants or financial officers when the sheer amount of business being done is so exorbitant. Unless some of your staff were planted or paid off. We’ll be looking into each employee across all of your holdings and report our findings.”
“Oh my God! So what you’re saying is that Bianca was the one that forged my parents’ wills?” I swallowed the bile trying to coast up my throat and breathed through my nose.
“She’s been stealing from both families for a long time. Since before she had ever laid eyes on Giovanni or Brenden for that matter. My guess is they were both a means to an end. A way to get whatever it is she’s after.”
Gio and I separated. I went back to pacing and he walked over to the chair and slumped into it, seeming more defeated than I’d ever seen him before.
“How could I have been so blind to her antics?” he grated out, anger taking over his normally cool and calm exterior.
“Con artists are usually exceptional at their craft. With how much I’ve found, she’s extraordinary and more than that, she has a lot of hate in her heart toward both of your families.”
“But why?” I croaked, emotion tearing through the defenses I’d built. “What did we do to her?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure that out. There are pieces of the puzzle missing. I’m slowly uncovering those pieces and putting things together, but it takes time.”
“Which is something we don’t have a lot of. Especially since she fled the country. Do we know where she went?” Gio interrupted.
“Yes. And it doesn’t make any sense.” Bruno sat back in the leather chair, clasping his hands in a prayer position at his chest, his extended fingers just brushing under his chin.
“Where did she go?” I asked.
“She was followed from the airport to a small town outside of Paris called Mouroux. There are only five thousand residents who live there. My team hasn’t figured out why she’d have any reason to go there.”
“I do,” I whispered, the hair on the back of my neck standing up as gooseflesh rose across the surface of my skin. Dread tightened my gut, and the bile I’d been holding down tried to resurface once more.
“Do you know someone who lives there?” Bruno asked.
“Near there,” I nodded. “Yeah. My godmother.”
Giovanni’s eyes widened, and he instantly pulled his phone out of his pocket to make a call.
“Who’s your godmother?” Bruno asked.
“Alana Toussaint, but most people know her as Madam Alana.”
“Fucking hell!” Bruno grunted and jumped out of his chair and stormed to the study door. He opened it and disappeared through it, likely connecting Joel and Faith’s marriage and my godmother having been the one to introduce them.
“Alana’s not answering,” Gio barked as he pulled his phone from his ear and pressed a few more buttons. “I’m trying Christophe.”
What in the world would Bianca have to do with Alana?
My mind was spinning a mile a minute when Bruno returned with Joel and Faith in tow.
“What’s going on?” Joel asked, his loose demeanor from before replaced with a cold, calculating one.
“Besides the fact that my brother’s wife is not really his wife. She may or may not be carrying his or my husband’s baby. She just fled the country after going to jail for assaulting Gio. She forged a bunch of shit in our names, has been stealing from us for years, wants to kill my brother for a big insurance payout, and is likely now going after my godmother.”
“Who’s your godmother?” Faith asked.
“Alana.”
Faith’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. “Madam Alana is your godmother! That is sooooooo cool,” she breathed in awe.
Joel grabbed Faith’s hand and kissed each of her fingertips, reminding me of the way that Bruno had taken a similar liberty with my hand. “My love, now is not the time to gush over Julianne’s familial connections. She is worried about their safety.”
“Jeez Louise, I’m so sorry Jules. Is there anything we can do to help? Alana is beloved by all of us.”
“I don’t… I don’t know. Gio?” I asked.
Gio tucked his phone into his pocket and shook his head. “He didn’t answer either.”
“What is going on? This is insane!” I tunneled my finger into my hair and tugged at the roots, waiting for the pinch of pain to bring me back to the here and now where I could think straight instead of the spiral of misery I was headed for.
“I’m having my team watch Bianca closely. I’ll have another group go to the Toussaint’s home and check on them,” Bruno promised as he grabbed his cellphone and walked out of the room.
“I can’t believe this is happening. Why does she hate us so much?” I shuddered as the emotion within me swelled and broke, tears slipping down my cheeks.
Faith wrapped her arms around Joel and sniffled, her emotions getting the better of her too.
Gio’s phone rang at the same time as mine.
“God, what now!” I bitched, looking up at the Heavens. I didn’t think I could handle any more hits.
Gio answered while I ignored mine.
“When? Right now? We’re on our way,” he said. “We gotta get to the office.”
“Work?” I blurted. “Why? It’s a Saturday.”
“The alarms have been tripped. Someone’s broken in.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Let’s go!”
* * * *
Bruno offered to drive us to my office. I say mine, because I was the one who now owned seventy-five percent of it.
It took twenty minutes in New York traffic to get literally five miles down the road. Bruno, without being told, rolled up to a screeching halt in the yellow loading zone directly in front of the building, risking his vehicle being towed as the three of us jumped out of the black SUV and ran into the lobby.
“Come on, come on, come on.” I pushed the elevator button over and over until it finally opened.
I held Gio’s hand as the elevator rose and stopped at our floor. I was out the second my body could fit through the opening and raced down the hall as fast as my stilettos and tight-fitting skirt would allow.
“Julianne! Wait for me. Dammit!” Gio hollered as he caught up to me and gripped my elbow, forcing me to stop as Bruno raced on ahead, a shiny black gun already in hand.
I pulled and tugged, trying to get him to let go so I could chase after Bruno.
“Stop it!” he barked right in my face. “We don’t know what we’re going to find. Be smart. Let Bruno, who has a gun , go in first! The police aren’t even here yet,” he whisper-yelled, bringing the reality of what I’d been about to risk to light.
“Okay, okay, yeah.” I licked my lips and tried to breathe. That was until I heard my brother yell, “Who the fuck are you?”
Which had me forgetting all reason and racing to our offices. Thankfully, he was standing in the middle of the reception area, no burglar in sight, his hands up, palms facing out as Bruno held the gun on him.
“Bruno, it’s okay. He’s my brother,” I panted. “What are you doing here?” I asked, gulping breaths of blessed air.
“The alarm company called. Same as you two, I suspect.” Brenden pointed at me and then at Gio, who was leaning against the doorframe. “Who’s Rambo?”
Giovanni chuckled and then abruptly stopped when I jerked my head and glared in his direction.
“He’s a friend,” I answered.
“Friends who carry guns. Some nice company you’re keeping as of late,” he sneered.
“You’re an ass, you know that?” I huffed. “And to think I was worried about you. I need to get my head checked.”
“Now that I can agree with. Maybe a shrink will tell you to drop the schmuck you’re married to.”
“Do you have any idea what is going on?” I snapped, losing every last ounce of my control, anger vibrating and sizzling through my blood like acid.
Brenden shook his head and turned toward the hall that led to his office. “There’s no one here. Maybe some kids jiggled the handle too hard or something. Honestly, I don’t really care. I just came to make sure we weren’t robbed. I’ve got my own problems to deal with. Just go.”
“You mean like the fact that your wife up and left you, fleeing the country in a private jet to France?” I scoffed, wanting to get him fired up so he’d talk to me. Really talk to me like a decent human being. Maybe ferret out the brother I once loved so dearly.
“She’s in France?” he asked, stopping before his office door.
“I’m going to go meet the police and let them in,” Bruno stated and then left the office.
“Brenden, there is so much you don’t know about Bianca. If you’d just listen to me. We had her checked out and not only has she been lying to you, she’s been lying to all of us. She’s not even Bianca Cameron or Bianca Myers. It’s a fake identity she created—”
“You know, Jules, I thought you couldn’t get any lower. Marrying my enemy. Taking the business away from me. Having my wife put in jail for some trumped-up bullshit charges. And now you’re spewing this garbage? To what end? What are you going to get out of all this? You’ve already destroyed my life. Without Bianca, our baby, and this company, I’m fucking nothing!” he screamed.
“That’s not true. You own twenty-five percent. We can fix all of this.”
“Oh, fuck you, Jules. I can’t believe I used to worship the ground you walked on. Believed that I had the smartest, prettiest, coolest little sister in the whole world. I loved the fact that we were so close, could tell one another everything, and now look at us. Just take your husband and get the fuck out of here and leave me alone.” He opened the door to his office, and an ominous beeping sound crackled through the air.
“Brenden!” I screeched, reaching my arms out toward him.
“Julianne!” Giovanni roared, his arm wrapping around my waist and pulling me backward with such force my spiked heels grated along the carpet. Suddenly, he veered us to the right and pushed me behind him.
A blast of hot air catapulted us up and off our feet as though we were flying through the air in slow motion. The world around us exploded into bright reds, oranges, and yellows before turning completely black.
The Marriage Auction saga continues in the fourth and final book for Season 2. You can read book 4 now .
Also, if you haven’t read Madam Alana (A Marriage Auction Novella) you might want to rectify that by clicking here ! Madam Alana will continue to be featured in the coming books throughout the rest of this season and it’s more exciting to have read her beginning but it is in no way required to continue reading the novels.