Chapter 12 - Bloodlines and Rotten Timber
The study smelled of stale cigars, old leather, and the heavy disinfectant the cleaners used to scrub Leonard’s presence from the walls.
Marcus, my operations director, stood in front of the mahogany desk with three thick manila envelopes tucked under his arm.
He was a man who spoke only when facts compelled him to open his mouth.
"We checked Nolan’s burner phones," Marcus said, laying the first file on the blotter.
"Three encrypted outgoing calls were routed through a private server in Montreal."
"All three were placed in the seventy-two hours leading up to your arrival at the banquet."
I flipped open the folder and stared at the timestamp logs.
"Who owns the server?"
"A shell company registered under the name 'Crestview Maritime,'" Marcus answered grimly.
"Crestview was liquidated eight years ago," I said without looking up.
"Officially, yes," Marcus replied.
"Unofficially, the bank accounts attached to its holding group were actively transferring six-figure sums into Leonard’s personal accounts last Thursday."
I tapped the paper with my index finger, feeling the blood pounding in my temples.
Crestview belonged to my uncle, Arthur DeMarco.
Arthur was my father's older brother who vanished into self-imposed exile in Europe after losing the succession battle thirty years ago.
Everyone assumed he was rotting on a vineyard in Tuscany, living off an annual stipend that barely covered his wine cellar.
"Uncle Arthur is eighty-one years old," I remarked, staring out the window toward the moonlit gardens.
"An eighty-one-year-old man doesn't orchestrate a coup from an Italian villa without inside help."
Marcus opened the second folder and slid a high-resolution photograph across the mahogany.
The picture showed a sleek black sedan parked outside our estate's north gate at three in the morning.
The photograph had been taken exactly four days before I found my mother surrounded by scavengers on the patio.
Standing near the driver’s side door was Hattie, clutching an envelope with trembling hands.
Handing her the envelope through the half-lowered window was a woman wearing a heavy silk scarf and dark sunglasses.
Even with half her face obscured, the silver signet ring on her left pinky was unmistakable.
It bore the coiled serpent and cedar tree of the DeMarco matriarchs.
"Clara," I spat the name out like poison.
Clara was Arthur’s daughter—my first cousin, the one who wept the loudest at my father’s funeral.
She had stood in the chapel six years ago, embracing my mother and promising that family would always protect family.
"Where is she now?" I demanded.
"She landed at JFK four hours ago," Marcus replied without blinking.
"She checked into the Carlyle under an alias."
"And she requested an audience with the district attorney's financial crimes unit for tomorrow morning at nine."
I leaned back into the leather chair, letting the silence wrap around the room.
Hattie and Leonard were never the brains; they were just the blunt instruments Clara used to test our perimeter.
They starved my mother to make her mentally fragile, intending to have her declared incompetent before I could return from abroad.
Once Adelaide was legally unfit, Clara could execute Arthur's dormant claims over the entire estate trust.
My mother wasn't just abused for sport; she was tortured to pave the way for a legal execution.
"Does she know I’ve secured the local precinct and frozen the domestic accounts?" I asked.
"She knows Leonard is in custody," Marcus said.
"She doesn't know you found the Montreal logs."
I picked up the fountain pen on the desk and signed the order Marcus had brought with him.
"Double the detail around my mother and Ella."
"No one leaves the grounds without three armed escorts."
"And Marcus?"
"Sir?"
May you like
"Book a breakfast suite at the Carlyle for eight tomorrow morning."
"It’s time to remind my cousin why my father never let her father sit at the head of the table."
