Chapter 5 - The Web of the Syndicate
At 8:00 AM, the morning light broke through the heavy gray clouds, casting a cold, metallic sheen over the Duca estate. Downstairs, the scent of fresh espresso and warm croissants drifted from the kitchen—a domestic facade that made my skin crawl.
Vivien was already seated at the head of the breakfast table, looking pristine in an ivory knit sweater, reading the morning edition of the *Financial Times*. When I walked in, she looked up, her expression softening into the well-rehearsed warmth that had blinded me for over a year.
“Good morning, darling,” she said, rising to press a soft kiss against my cheek. “Did you sleep well? You looked so tense when you went to bed.”
“Business matters,” I replied smoothly, taking my seat opposite her. “The shipping consortium in Rotterdam is giving me headaches. But it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“You always handle everything,” she smiled, pouring a cup of coffee and sliding it toward me. “Which reminds me... Arthur King’s legal replacement, Mr. Sterling, confirmed he will arrive at 4:00 PM with the notary. Isabella had a very lucid moment early this morning. She told me she wants this off her conscience. She wants the Foundation protected before her mind slips again.”
I took a sip of the coffee, looking directly into her emerald eyes. “Did she really say that?”
Vivien didn't blink. Her pulse didn't race; her smile didn't falter. She was a master of sociopathic composure. “Word for word, Lorenzo. She wept, actually. She told me she thanks God every day that you found someone strong enough to shoulder this family’s burdens.”
“My mother is a remarkable woman,” I said evenly. “I’ll make sure I’m present for the signing.”
Vivien’s hand paused over the sugar bowl for a fraction of a second. “Oh, darling, you don’t need to disrupt your afternoon. I know you have that emergency board call with Tokyo at four. Mr. Sterling and I can handle the legal formalities in Isabella’s room. It’s just signatures and rubber stamps. I don’t want you draining yourself over administrative nonsense.”
She was trying to isolate the kill. If I was on a corporate call in the east wing, she could forge or coerce the signature, dispatch the courier with the wire authorizations, and have the funds cleared through the banking clearinghouses before I ever walked into my mother’s bedroom.
“You’re right,” I conceded with a faint, deceptive smile. “The Tokyo call is critical. I’ll leave the foundation paperwork in your capable hands, Vivien.”
A flash of predatory triumph illuminated her eyes before she veiled it. “I won’t let you down, Lorenzo.”
Twenty minutes later, I was back in Rocco’s surveillance bunker. On the central monitor, Rocco brought up the background dossier of the man Isabella’s journal had named: Marcus Kane.
“Kane isn’t just a predatory lender,” Rocco explained, pointing at a series of mugshots and corporate registry charts. “He runs an elite corporate extortion racket disguised as a private mezzanine finance firm in Manhattan. When high-society figures run up massive gambling debts or illicit liabilities, Kane buys the debt, then uses the debtors to infiltrate wealthy families and corporations to execute asset strips.”
“Vivien was his puppet,” I said.
“More like his partner with a gun to her head,” Rocco replied. “She owed Kane fourteen million from her father’s maritime bankruptcy. But our financial forensics team tracked the shell company Vivien set up in Zurich last week: *Aegis Holdings Ltd.* The board resolution she’s planning to have Isabella sign doesn't just transfer fourteen million to Kane. It transfers all seventy million in the Foundation’s reserve account. Vivien plans to pay Kane his fourteen million cut, take the remaining fifty-six million for herself, and disappear on a private charter flight to Dubai before midnight.”
“Flight records?”
“Already secured,” Rocco nodded. “A private Gulfstream G650 is scheduled to depart Teterboro Airport at 11:30 PM tonight, destination Geneva, with a refueling stop in Lisbon. Passenger manifest lists one name: ‘Vivien Vance’.”
The audacity of her plan was breathtaking. She intended to rob my family blind, leave my mother dead, marry me in name or flee before the ceremony, leaving me holding the wreckage of a devastated foundation and an open corporate fraud investigation.
“And the notary she’s bringing at four?” I asked.
“Sterling is a dirty lawyer who was disbarred in Pennsylvania six years ago under a different alias,” Rocco said coldly. “He’s Kane’s creature. He notarizes fraudulent wills and transfers for elderly victims in nursing homes. We have enough paper on him to put him away for forty years.”
“Good. Let him come,” I said, checking my watch. It was 9:30 AM. “Where are Elena and Mia right now?”
“Elena is in the basement folding linens under the supervision of Vivien’s handpicked head housekeeper, Mrs. Gable. Mia is in the staff nursery.”
“Bring them here,” I commanded. “Now. I will not have them exposed to another second of danger.”
“If Mrs. Gable notices them missing, she’ll alert Vivien,” Rocco warned.
May you like
“Let her try,” I replied, my voice dropping into a register that made even Rocco take a breath. “Rocco, by 3:30 PM, this estate becomes a black site. Disconnect all external cellular towers within a two-mile perimeter. Cut the landlines except for our encrypted frequency. When Kane and Sterling arrive, they walk into a cage. But first... I need to see Elena myself.”
***
