21. Antonio
Chapter twenty-one
Antonio
Two Weeks Later
“ T ake a seat, gentlemen,” the woman suggests from the head of the conference table, and an assistant leads Gio and me to the two seats on her left.
Another man, with an equally stern expression, sits to her right, a thick wad of papers stacked on the table in front of him.
I’ve always been wary of auditors in the past, but today my feeling is more one of relief.
Finally, they have completed the report and are going to present their findings.
She picks up one of the bound documents from the pile.
The flick of the first page barely cutting through the tense silence in the room.
“Obviously, this report is too extensive for us to go through page by page in this meeting, but I would like to talk through the executive summary. Then when you’ve had a chance to look at the full document, we’ll reconvene.”
The assistant reappears to hand Gio and me our own copies, and the senior auditor, in her monotone voice, directs us to the correct page.
I quickly scan down to the figure at the bottom. In bold font, the 1.3 million euros burns itself into my retinas.
Holy hell! That’s only the fraudulent bank transfer figure. There’s another 2.7 million euros in lost product.
Fuck! In total, that’s around 4.5 million US dollars. How did this happen right under our noses? A question for another day and another meeting. The auditors are only here to detail the extent of financial loss. We’ve got another team of investigators hopefully answering the how and who.
We spend the next two hours breaking those numbers down in more detail.
She drones on and on about the LLC that’s being used to effectively launder the stolen money.
Important information, I’m sure, but if it doesn’t give me a person’s name, I’m not interested in where the money went. My priority is fucking stopping it.
By the time Gio and I are rising from the table with a copy of the report clenched in each of our hands, we’re both seething with anger. So fucking angry that we don’t even speak until we’re back in our Midtown Manhattan offices where we can talk privately
“That’s it. We were right all along,” I say, throwing my crumpled copy of the report onto Gio’s desk as I fall into one of the leather chairs. Gio moves to perch against the wooden edge in front of me.
“Thankfully, the fraud is only within the company’s Barbieri Foods subsidiary.
” Gio’s eyes have turned a steely gray, and his arms are so tightly crossed that the muscles are stretching the sleeves of his white business shirt to the limits.
If it wasn’t a custom-made shirt of the finest quality, it would already have been shredded.
He flicks over the first couple of crisp white pages to the executive summary. “Those numbers are only what they can trace. And most of it is product going out of the Naples port.”
“That’s going to fuck up our new distribution contract if we don’t stop it,” I mutter.
Gio pushes off from the desk to walk around it and drop into the chair behind. “Fuck, this is a mess that we don’t need right now.”
I couldn’t agree more, and I pick up my copy of the report again, turning over a few pages to the tables of data included.
“Fuck. This has been going on for ten years.” I glance across the desk at Gio, my mouth open.
Five years, we expected. Not ten. “Great-Uncle Paolo was CEO of Barbieri Foods. He must have known something about this.”
“Possibly. But the losses were small ten years ago. It was only in recent years that the theft has become more brazen, and the product has started to go missing from the port. But you’re right; I can’t believe he missed all this. Even with his obvious decline in health over the last five years.”
“Have the investigators been able to trace any of the big sums of money?” I ask.
“Not completely, because it’s been mostly transferred around various LLCs.” He glares at me across the expanse of wood. He knows I stopped listening. “It’s looking more like a professional racket.”
“Fuck,” I exclaim again, struggling to convey my shock through any other word. “What do we do next?”
Gio, with his brilliant business mind, hopefully has a plan.
He leans forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his desk and linking his fingers together in front, and I’m sure he does.
“First we need to both read the report fully. Then we need to get our asses over to Italy tomorrow to meet with the company lawyers.”
I nod my agreement, even though I hate the thought of leaving Lucia when everything is going so well for us. We’ve taken a long time to reach the point of declaring our love for each other, but we’re still figuring out how we meld our lives together. Though I don’t say any of this to Gio.
Instead, I pick up the document and stand. “What time tomorrow?”
“I’ll book a car and pick you up at six,” he says, preparing to leave with me. It’s late, and all of our staff left for the day hours ago.
But before he can take one step, I have to ask him the one question that’s bothered me the most about the whole situation. “Do you think our father is involved?”
“No.”
The swiftness of his reply gives me some comfort. But I can’t leave it there.
“Maybe the marriage contract was a distraction to stop us from continuing our investigation?”
“It could be linked or just a coincidence. But I can’t believe our father knew about this and chose to ignore it. Honestly, I think triggering the clause in the contract was him just wanting to piss us off for flexing our business might in the boardroom and making him look weak.”
I nod; that sounds about right. “He and I might not agree on much, but I don’t doubt that everything our father does is for the company. After all, the marriage contract originated from him trying to save the company from being bankrupt.”
“That’s right. Now, I’ll see you tomorrow.” This time I don’t stop him on our way to the door. “And try not to be late,” he warns.
“As if,” I reply, knowing he has every right to throw the old taunt at me when I do tend to be the last one rushing into meetings.
My sideways glance catches the grin painted across every feature of my brother’s face. I’m glad we’ve reached a point where we can mention the marriage contract without any of the old animosity.
Thankfully, that brief blip in our close brotherly bond is long forgotten.
***
“I hate having to leave,” I murmur against my wife’s lips.
“I know, and I hate you going. But this is important. You and Gio need to find out who has been stealing from your company. If that turns out to be someone in the family, then you’ll deal with it, and I’ll be right here supporting you.”
After reading the report, we talked through all the possibilities of who was behind it, all while we ate the delicious chicken cacciatore she’d cooked. Luce is way better in the kitchen than me, but we’ve been taking turns on the nights Mary doesn’t cook for us.
“Are you still thinking you’ll fly to Paris for a few days? If you do, let me know, and I’ll arrange for a private jet to fly you to Florence when you’re done.” I hug her tighter.
“Stop worrying. I did live by myself in Paris for years. I’m sure I can survive one week alone.” She yawns, the lingering tiredness from last night still evident. I tuck the covers tighter around her.
“I’ll miss you,” I whisper close to her ear while breathing in the faint scent of her perfume. Luce, as my best friend, has always been important to me. But as my wife, I hate the thought of us being so far apart. She’s become more necessary to me than my next breath.
A gentle press of my lips to hers and my heart races.
She’s become the regulator of that muscle in my chest, and maybe that was always the case; it merely took a while for me to realize that.
My hand slides farther around her back, pulling her closer as my tongue delves deeper, swallowing her kisses.
Fuck, I can’t get enough of her. Every touch and taste leave me needing more.
She slides her mouth from mine, gasping. “You’re going to be late,” she says, but her fingers remain twisted in the fabric of my shirt, clinging to me like she doesn’t want to let go either. And I’m okay with that.
The cell buzzes in the pocket of my jacket, and without bothering to look at it, I know it’s Gio waiting in the town car downstairs.
A groan of displeasure slips out as I loosen my hold. “That’ll be Gio.”
The sultry smile she gives me doesn’t help.
“I’ll call when we land. I love you, beautiful.”
Her lips stretch wider as she beams back at me. “I love you too, big-guy.”
And with that, I pick up the suit carrier and bag I dropped earlier at the bedroom door and leave.
Downstairs in the car, I’ve barely got my seat belt buckled before Gio has turned sideways with a huge grin plastered across his face. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”
I don’t look at him, staring out the window instead because I can’t hold back the stupid grin spreading across my face. “Yep,” I admit, not bothering to hide the truth. I love my wife, and I couldn’t be fucking happier.
“Great. I’m happy for you, bro.” He gets it, as the only one of my brothers who’s also found love.
“But you know I need your head in the game now, because shit is going down in Naples. My guy at the docks is worried that word will get out that we’re onto them.
He’s starting to panic, and that’s not good. ”
I turn to face him as our car weaves through the surprisingly light city traffic. “Do you think he’ll change his mind about helping us?”
He shrugs, which isn’t reassuring. “We need to get the evidence before that happens. That’s why you’re going to have to meet him sooner.”
“Has our investigator spoken to his source in the carabinieri yet?”
“Yep, now it’s just this one last thing needed.”
“Evidence is not exactly a little thing.” My fingers tap out a silent beat on my knee. I don’t like that everything now hinges on an unreliable whistleblower. I draw in a deep breath. “So, the plan is I’ll continue on to Naples to meet this guy, and you’ll meet with the lawyers in Florence?”
“That’s the new plan,” Gio confirms, rubbing his hand through his hair as we continue to Teterboro Airport in silence, each of us seemingly lost in our own thoughts.
For me, those thoughts are filled with all the possibilities of what could go wrong.
We’ve put so much time and money into the investigation that I have to get the promised evidence so we can finally be done with it.
I’m still struggling to believe that what we initially thought was a small anomaly in the financial data has turned out to be major fraud.
This morning might feel like we’re one step closer to discovering who, but until I have the name, I won’t believe it.
Hopefully, fast-tracking the meeting in Naples means we can hand the evidence over to the carabinieri to make the arrests sooner.
And I can be back with Lucia in a few days. Now, there’s an incentive.