Forty-three
Ciro
We haven’t even left the gated community of the Malibu Colony, and I’m already on my phone.
My thumb slides across the screen as the driver pulls away from the curb. “Make sure they’re safe.”
Jim’s voice comes through tight, no greeting. “Got it.” Wind cuts across the line. “I won’t leave until it is, and my team is here working the gate and doing foot, boat, and car patrols.”
“Perfect.” I disconnect the call. I notice I have three missed calls. Six messages. One flagged priority.
I open the flagged one first.
Luca: Need confirmation on emerald shipment before we lock insurance.
I type as the car merges onto PCH heading south.
Me: Hold position. No movement until I review.
The reply comes before I can lock the screen.
Luca: That delays the schedule.
I glance at the timestamp and then type without slowing.
Me: Then adjust the schedule.
The phone buzzes again, but I don’t open it. I move to the next message instead.
Luca: You off the grid today?
I stare at it for a beat, and then type.
Me: In transit. I should be back at the office by 3.
Three dots appear immediately.
Disappear.
Reappear.
I lock the screen before he sends whatever comes next.
The private plane airport comes into view, glass and steel cutting across the horizon. I lean forward, bracing a hand against the seat in front as the driver slows into the drop lane.
“Two minutes,” he says, glancing at me in the mirror.
“I see it,” I answer, already pulling up the boarding pass.
“Welcome Mr. Marino.” The flight attendant hands me a glass of Jonny Walker Blue.
“Thanks.” I take it from her and throw it back. It burns, but I don’t care.
The elevator doors slide open on the top floor, and the City drops out beneath the glass.
Luca’s already in the chair at the head of the table, one arm hooked over the back, ankle crossed loose. Matteo stands at the window with a tablet in his hand, thumb scrolling without looking like he’s reading.
They both look up when I walk in.
“Is Chiara in the office today?” Luca tips his chair back a fraction as I cross the room.
I set my phone on the table and flatten it with my palm, the glass tapping once against the surface. “No. I don’t think she’s coming back.”
Matteo’s thumb stills on the screen. He turns his head, not his body. “Temporary?”
“No.” I sit in my regular seat and open my portfolio ready to discuss the numbers.
“She confronted Heather this morning, and there is some fallout,” Luca says.
I look up. “And?”
“Heather admitted that she took credit for her work and human resources is advising that we terminate Heather. I was thinking we might promote Chiara. Do we want to hold the job open for her?”
“She’s down in LA.” I walk to the corner and reach for a glass. “But we only have a few weeks before the GEM show. I need to concentrate on that.”
The chair legs hit the floor as Luca leans forward, elbows landing on the table. “You left her in Los Angeles?”
“I didn’t leave anything.” I open the file in front of me and drag it into position. “She made a choice.”
Matteo pushes off the window and sets the tablet down near my hand but doesn’t let it go. “You let her stay?”
I don’t look up from the file. “I’m not forcing her out of her mother’s house.”
“That wasn’t the question.” Luca taps the table once with two fingers. “She did great work. I liked her.”
I reach for the pitcher of water at the center of the table and pour myself a glass. “She’s where she needs to be right now.”
Matteo’s eyes narrow as he watches me. “And you’re where you need to be.”
“Yes.”
Dante pushes through the door. “Sorry I’m late. I was meeting with some of our mineral suppliers this morning.”
He sits down at the table, and his focus falls to me. “How’s Chiara doing?”
“She’s fine.” I slide my phone an inch to the side and unlock it, pulling up the shipment schedule. “Emerald consignment is on hold.” I angle the screen toward them. “Nothing moves until I clear it.”
Matteo doesn’t look at the phone. “We discussed this.” He taps the tablet once like he’s closing the topic he doesn’t like.
I shift the screen back to me. “We have what we need for whatever happens at the GEM show.”
“We’ve been carrying that exposure for weeks,” Luca drags a hand down his jaw. “Now, it’s a problem.”
“We’re less than two weeks out from the show, and we’ve cornered the market,” I swipe through the schedule. “That changes the math.”
Luca studies me for a moment and then leans back, chair tipping just enough to test the balance. “She’s not coming back.”
I don’t answer.
Matteo’s eyes move between us. “That’s a major loss for us. She was good.”
I close the file and slide it forward an inch.
“We’re done with this.” I rest my hand flat on the cover. “We have a show to lock.”
Matteo’s mouth tightens, but he nods once, pulling the tablet back to him. “Insurance needs confirmation by end of day.”
“They’ll have it,” I reach for my phone and stand.
Luca doesn’t move right away. He watches me for a moment. “Fine.” He pushes back from the table. “But if we put it off any longer, we’ll have to reapply, and it will cost us more.”
“I got it.” I turn toward the door and head to my office.
The office clears out in layers. Voice murmurs become lower, and then lights turn off. It’s been a long day, and I’ve been distracted, watching the feed at Patrizia’s house that Jim sent me.
I push the GEM files aside and pull the archive drawer open.
A stack of older folders sits untouched at the back. I take the first one and drop it on the desk, flipping it open with my thumb.
The door opens without a knock before I can open the first page.
“Are you planning on sleeping here?” Matteo steps inside with a tablet tucked against his side.
I don’t look up. “No.”
He closes the door behind him with his foot and walks in, setting the tablet on the desk near my hand. “That looks like the accident file.”
“It is,” I slide the page over so he can’t read it from that angle.
He pulls the chair across from me and sits, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees. “Are you still looking at Mom and Dad’s accident?”
“Now that Chiara’s not distracting me, I can give it my whole attention.” I flip to the next section.
“Why?” He sits back in the chair. “There isn’t much we can do except wake a sleeping bear.”
I reach for a second file and drop it beside the first. “Because it’s incomplete.”
“That’s not new information.” He folds his hands in his lap. “We already went through this.”
“Not like this.” I open the second file and cross-reference the page numbers with a quick glance.
Matteo leans back a fraction, chair creaking under the shift. “You’re stacking it on top of everything else—GEM, Chiara, your job as CFO of our company, and now, this.”
“I’m consolidating,” I say, sliding one document under another and lining up the margins.
“That’s not consolidation,” he says, reaching out and stopping the top page before I can move it again. “That’s overload.”
I pull the page free from his hand and set it back in place. “Then keep up.”
He lets out a breath and drops his hand to his thigh. “You don’t even have the original ledgers. Half of these are scanned copies.”
“Which is the problem.” I point to the timestamp on the header. “These were processed after the fact.”
“We know that,” he says, sharper now. “We flagged it years ago.”
“And then we dropped it.”
“Because it didn’t go anywhere.” He pushes back in his chair. “There was nothing to connect.”
“I’m looking again.” I drag my finger down the column. “Processing delay and then acceleration after Tom steps in.”
“That was explained,” he says, straightening.
“It was documented,” I correct, tapping the margin. “Not explained.”
He sits back, watching me instead of the file now. “You’re not going to let this go,” he says.
“No. I can’t.” I flip the page. I know if I look at it long enough I’ll be able to figure it out.
Matteo watches me for a second longer and then shakes his head once and stands, grabbing the tablet. “You’re going to burn the floor out from under yourself.” He steps back toward the door.
“Then I’ll reinforce it.”
He stops at the door, hand on the handle. “Or it collapses.”
The door closes, and I don’t look up.
I pull another file from the drawer and keep going.
The building goes quiet after midnight.
Not silent. Never that. The ventilation still moves through the walls, and the elevators still hum behind the glass. But the office empties enough that every paper shift on my desk sounds deliberate.
I pull the accident file from the bottom drawer and set it in the center of the desk.
The label is worn at the corners, the ink dulled from handling as I open the file anyway and skim the report that hasn’t changed—mechanical failure, weather conditions, driver error—everything laid out clean, contained, and finished in a way that feels too easy for what it’s supposed to explain.
I hold the page there a second longer than I should, reading it again like something might shift if I look hard enough, but it doesn’t.
My phone vibrates against the desk, cutting through the quiet, and I drop the file just enough to glance at the screen. Jim.
I answer and put him on speaker, leaving the phone face up beside the photographs. “What’s up?”
“Things are quiet in Malibu,” Jim says, clipped and tired. “The Colony residents and their staffs are all verified.”
I slide the first photograph out with two fingers and set it under the desk lamp. It’s a picture of the wreckage. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“We can touch base in the morning.” I turn the photograph sideways.
“Don’t stay at the office all night.”
I stop moving the photo.
Then I pick up the engineering notes and flip to the marked page. “I’m back to my project I was working on before Chiara intruded on my life.”
Jim exhales once, sharp enough to hit the speaker. “Fine. But try not to kick any hornets’ nests.”
“Are you talking to my brothers?” I scan the first paragraph.
“I’ll never tell.”
I pull a second photograph free. The damage pattern doesn’t match the report. It never did.
“Ciro,” he says, and the use of my name is already a problem. “Anything that involves your parents’ accident…don’t run it through standard channels.”
I lift my gaze to the phone. “Okay.”
“The wrong inquiry alerts the wrong person,” he says, no hesitation now. “Archived insurance files have access logs.”
“I’m looking at timing,” I say, sliding the report over the photograph. “There’s a difference.”
The report says the left front assembly failed before impact. The photograph says the damage started somewhere else. I move the lamp closer.
My hand stills on the edge of the photograph.
Then I set it down carefully.
Jim stays on the line without speaking.
There is a gap that shouldn’t be there, and I lean closer, fingers braced against the desk as I scroll back up and say, “There’s a missing interval. This section’s been stripped.”
Jim’s typing stops. “How long?”
“Six days.”
I look at the photograph again, at the clean black edge where the damage should be torn wider.
“Actually,” I say.
Jim doesn’t answer right away.
The office light hums above me while I look at the memo to the payout summary and then pull the impact photo, aligning them until the pattern settles into place. Not proof. But the same initials authorize the payout and the memo. Those approvals aren’t supposed to cross.
Jim clears his throat through the speaker. “You want me to wake Dante or any of your brothers?”
“I don’t think so.” I chew on my lip as I shuffle through papers and photos to verify what I’m looking at. “I want to be clear what I’ve found before I involve them. If there are any cracks, they’ll shut me down.”
I pull the next archived report toward me, then the second and then the photograph, stacking them into something I can work with as the pieces start to come together.
My focus locked on the two pictures, the memo, and the payout. “I think I figured something out. It connects.”