Chapter 3 - THE WATCH THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN BURIED
Ignatio read Oswaldo’s message three times.
Then he looked toward the corridor as footsteps approached.
“We can argue about dead men’s handwriting somewhere else.”
For once, Valerio agreed.
They left through the hotel laundry dock just before three men entered the coat-check station behind them.
A black hotel delivery van stood idling near stacked linen carts.
Ignatio forced open the driver’s door.
Danica stared at him.
“You just happen to know how to steal a hotel van?”
Ignatio looked offended.
“I know many things.”
Despite the blood on her gown and the danger surrounding them, Danica almost laughed.
Valerio heard it.
He looked at her for half a second longer than necessary.
It was the first ordinary sound he had heard all night.
Then bullets struck the loading-bay wall.
“Inside.”
They moved.
Ignatio drove.
Valerio sat beside Danica in the rear cargo compartment, surrounded by towels and boxes of table linens.
For several minutes no one spoke.
The city passed in fragments through the small back windows.
Danica finally said, “Veto still participated.”
Valerio looked at her.
“I know.”
“I saw him with Patrick’s people.”
“I know.”
“He told them I was a problem.”
“I heard you.”
She folded her arms.
“I’m making sure Oswaldo’s note doesn’t suddenly turn your brother into a misunderstood saint.”
Valerio almost smiled.
“No one who knows Veto would make that mistake.”
That answer surprised her.
“You believe he betrayed you.”
“I believe my brother has spent most of his adult life wanting what I have.”
“Your job?”
“My position.”
“Your power?”
“My father’s approval.”
Valerio looked down at the silver watch.
“Our father trained us to compete before we understood what competition meant.”
Danica studied his face.
“That doesn’t sound like a family.”
“It was not.”
The van turned sharply.
Danica braced one hand against Valerio’s chest.
She removed it immediately.
Neither of them mentioned it.
Their destination was a furnished apartment above an old Italian bakery on the Northwest Side.
Valerio owned the building under a company few people knew belonged to him.
Ignatio checked the rooms before allowing them inside.
Danica changed into a pair of sweatpants and an oversized Chicago Bears shirt she found in a closet.
When she entered the kitchen, Valerio was still staring at the photograph.
Without the emerald gown, diamonds, and ballroom lights, she looked younger.
More vulnerable.
More real.
Valerio hated that he noticed.
He hated even more that someone had put bruises near her temple.
“Sit,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“Danica.”
She sat.
He found ice in the freezer and wrapped it in a towel.
When he touched it gently to the side of her head, she went still.
“So the most dangerous man in Chicago knows first aid.”
“My mother raised two sons.”
His voice changed slightly when he mentioned her.
Danica noticed.
“She must have had her hands full.”
“She did.”
“Is she alive?”
“No.”
The answer closed something in him.
Danica did not push.
Instead, she placed the photograph on the kitchen table.
“Let’s talk about this.”
Ignatio joined them.
Danica opened her laptop.
“I took encrypted copies of my audit files off-site.”
Valerio’s eyes narrowed.
“You removed records from my company?”
“I’m a forensic accountant.”
“That was not my question.”
“And you’re a man with three casinos and enough shell companies to make a federal prosecutor develop a facial twitch. I keep backups.”
Ignatio gave a short laugh.
Valerio ignored him.
Danica searched her notes.
“Marrow Holdings first appears seventeen years ago.”
“That was before my father died,” Valerio said.
“Correct. Small payments at first. Consulting fees. Property leases. Construction advances.”
“And after his death?”
“They increase.”
“How much?”
“Six hundred thousand the first year. Almost two million three years later.”
Ignatio leaned over her shoulder.
“Who authorized them?”
“That is the strange part.”
Danica opened scanned signatures.
“Different people.”
Veto.
Valerio.
Two former chief financial officers.
A dead casino manager.
Even Oswaldo appeared on one payment.
Valerio’s expression hardened.
“So everyone was stealing?”
“No.”
Danica enlarged the signatures.
“They’re too consistent.”
Ignatio frowned.
“That sounds backwards.”
“Real signatures vary. Pressure changes. Angles shift. People get tired.”
She pointed.
“These are repetitions.”
“Copied,” Valerio said.
“Exactly.”
Someone had been using genuine signatures as templates.
Danica opened another file.
“But one person appears beside almost every authorization.”
The witness column displayed the same handwritten initials.
I.D.
Ignatio stopped moving.
Danica looked at him.
“What is your surname?”
“D’Amato.”
I.D.
The room became very quiet.
Ignatio stared at the screen.
“I was not authorizing eighteen million dollars.”
“Did you witness these transactions?”
“No.”
“Your initials did.”
“Then someone copied mine too.”
Valerio watched him.
Ignatio met his gaze.
“I have served you since I was twenty-three years old.”
“And your father?”
Ignatio glanced at the photograph.
“What about him?”
“He knew Patrick Felicity.”
“My father knew half the criminals in Chicago.”
“He knew my father.”
“Yes.”
“You never told me.”
Ignatio’s mouth tightened.
“You never asked.”
Valerio stood.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
Danica stepped between their lines of sight.
“Stop.”
Neither man liked that.
She continued anyway.
“If Ignatio is involved, threatening him doesn’t prove it. If he isn’t, turning on each other is exactly what whoever arranged tonight wants.”
Valerio looked at her.
She held his gaze.
Finally, he sat again.
Danica picked up the watch.
“The numbers inside this case look like an account identifier.”
She entered them into her records.
One match appeared.
An old Marrow Holdings transaction from eleven years earlier.
The date was three days after Antonio Castellion died.
The description contained only four words.
River property adjustment. Phase II.
The payment was $1.8 million.
Recipient: P. Felicity Holdings.
Authorized by Valerio Castellion.
Valerio stared at it.
“I never signed that.”
Danica believed him.
She did not know why.
Perhaps because he looked angry when threatened, cold when suspicious, and lethal when cornered.
But right then he looked something else.
Betrayed.
“Can we find the original record?” she asked.
Valerio nodded slowly.
“My father’s old offices.”
Ignatio shook his head.
“The riverfront casino?”
“The accounting archive was never digitized.”
“Veto controls that building tonight.”
“Then we go quietly.”
Danica closed the laptop.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Those records mean nothing to you without me.”
“I can bring photographs.”
“And if whoever forged these altered the books?”
Valerio said nothing.
Danica leaned forward.
“You hired me because I see things your people miss.”
“You were nearly killed.”
“Which makes me extremely motivated.”
Ignatio muttered, “I like her.”
Valerio ignored him again.
Forty minutes later, they entered the old Castellion River Casino through a service garage.
The casino was closed for renovation.
Plastic sheeting covered the gaming floor.
The old accounting room remained untouched behind two locked doors.
Inside, Danica found the original Marrow files.
Boxes.
Receipts.
Authorization slips.
Twenty years of secrets on yellowing paper.
She worked quickly.
Valerio guarded the door.
Ignatio watched the hallway.
Then Danica froze.
“What?”
She held up a security photograph stapled inside one folder.
It had been printed less than two weeks earlier.
The image showed the archive room.
Oswaldo stood beside the filing cabinet.
Another man stood across from him.
Veto.
In Oswaldo’s open palm was Antonio Castellion’s missing silver watch.
And Veto was reaching for it.
Below the photograph, Oswaldo had written a date.
The night before the gala.
Valerio stared at his brother’s face.
Danica whispered the question neither of them could avoid.
“If Veto didn’t start the coup…”
May you like
She looked at the watch in Valerio’s hand.
“…why was Oswaldo secretly giving him the one thing that could expose it?”
