A Love Most Fatal (Morelli Family #1)

41. Nate

41

NATE

I didn’t sleep. I did try once everyone went home, disappointed to not hear a wedding announcement. Vanessa vanished, leaving only a typed note on her computer. A two line note on a word document.

I can’t do this.

-V

Mary was concerned, seeking out Vanessa all over the house before discreetly calling a family huddle in the kitchen. They all got to looking through rooms, and when they found the note, Mary brought me into the room, too, which made me feel important and part of the family for a little longer.

“What is this?” Willa asked, studying the laptop screen.

“It’s bullshit is what it is,” Mary said. “I just checked her room and Vanessa didn’t bring her phone, her gun, not even a knife except for the one she was wearing.”

We all chewed on this information.

“Why would she run without him?” Sean asked, nodding to me. Again, I was touched, but obviously they didn’t know that Vanessa had brutally rejected me, twice, in the last seven days. The last time just an hour prior.

“She didn’t want me.”

“Bullshit,” Mary said again.

“Say we humor the note. She left. She didn’t take a car. Where would she go on foot, with no weapons?” Willa asks, bringing us back to the problem at hand.

The Russian chose that moment to make his appearance, asking for himself where his fiancé-to-be was hiding.

“Good question,” Claire said. “The masses are getting restless.”

Willa relayed the information to Maxim, who looked increasingly worried with every interjection from Mary until she had him convinced that Vanessa was buried somewhere. And now that he was convinced, I was growing sure of this too. My mind raced over possible fates, horror after horror, Vanessa’s bones broken, face bloodied, dirt piling up on top of her bare skin, alone and afraid and?—

“Don’t be dramatic,” Willa said, but she sounded nervous too. Willa stared at the message a moment longer then stood tall, taking charge in her sister’s absence. “Mom, make the announcement that the Orlov and Morelli families have set aside any sour blood and are looking forward to a long and fulfilling partnership. Ask them to welcome the Orlovs with open arms. Apologize for Vanessa who’s suffering a bout of food poisoning but sends her very best.”

Claire nodded and quickly left the room.

“I want to help look for her,” Maxim said, as if he wasn’t already chivalrous enough. “My resources are at your disposal.”

Willa pressed her lips together and nodded.

“We appreciate that. Help my mother with the announcement. We search as soon as toasts are made.”

Sean put a reassuring arm around his wife’s waist, though his face showed the same concern as the rest of us. Well, I wasn’t sure what my face showed exactly, probably the green pallor of someone who was about to vomit all the hors d’oeuvres he’d slammed in the last 45 minutes.

I could do nothing to help them. I slipped around the house, searching behind every door for her, but I knew she was not there. I chewed on my thumb nail until it started to bleed, I paced until I was so full of restless energy that I wanted to scream.

The party went as well as Willa hoped it would. People clapped cordially at Claire’s announcement, though they obviously wanted something more salacious to go home and gossip about.

As soon as the Morelli children’s presences were made known, the search began.

It was three hours before Sean received a call from his brother letting him know that he had Vanessa, she was safe and sleeping. Apparently, she’d caught him before coming into the party, begged him to take her somewhere, anywhere else, because she couldn’t go through with marrying a stranger.

Sean put him on speaker and Mary asked about two dozen questions and demanded he put her sister on the phone.

“She was pretty torn up,” Cillian said. “She’s sleeping now. I’ll have her call you in the morning.”

The call ended shortly after, as did the search, everyone somewhere between relieved and disconcerted.

Mary was pissed, visibly fuming as she stormed out of the house.

“She was scared,” Willa explained. “Mary hates being scared.”

I nodded, but something didn’t sit right with me.

This was the least Vanessa-thing she could have done, running away from her obligations without so much as a word to her sisters.

The staff had cleaned up and gone by this point, so I paced outside a while, Ranger huffing by the door wanting to go inside for once. I walked around the pool, watched the water lap lightly against the blue tiles, and thought through every conversation I’d had with her over the last week.

She was so sure. I saw the sorrow and heartbreak in her eyes—I’m not so self-deprecating to say I don’t know where the pain came from. She wanted me but needed him . She needed an advantageous match, someone with power to help protect her family.

She wouldn’t willfully give up protection.

As the minutes passed, I thought about every person I spoke to at the party. The family, yes, but I touched in with others, too. The Sinclairs were there, and some of the other marriage candidates who considered me their buddies. I think most of them secretly hoped she was announcing that she wanted to marry one of them . Like she might offer her final rose in front of everyone.

Could one of them have found out? Hurt her?

No, none of them are smart enough, nor skilled enough, to pull that off.

I kept returning to my chat with Mr. McGowan, the number inconsistency.

I called Willa, who answered on the third ring even though it was the middle of the night.

“How much was the McGowan contract for?” I asked.

“$430 million,” she said.

“You’re sure?”

“I wrote the contract, Nate. Yes, I’m sure.” Her annoyance was valid, but I couldn’t drop what the old man said.

“I need the passwords to Vanessa’s computer,” I said. “Oh, and access to the contracts. Something is wrong.”

After a moment of silence through the phone line, she acquiesced, too tired to fight me, and maybe even knowing that I was right. Something was wrong with all of this. From the moment they found the note, nothing was making sense.

I spent the rest of the night auditing old contracts with payments received. I’d compiled a list of twenty projects that were suspect, and as soon as the clock struck 8 AM, I called each of them in turn, pretending to be from the Morelli legal office, questioning if they’d be willing to remind us of some key details regarding their builds. I told them we had a new system in place and needed to make sure everything was transferred properly. Everyone was all too willing to comply.

Mary came in after I’d called three of them. She hadn’t come home in the night, and still wore her clothes from last night.

“Something is wrong,” I said.

“I know,” she said, and brought me another cup of coffee.

Ranger had been loyal, sleeping at my feet the entire night, no doubt having checked Vanessa’s bed and found it cold.

“What can I do?” Mary asked.

I explained the process to her and gave her a copy of the names and phone numbers to call. She took half. It became apparent that her style was much more abrupt than mine, stating her name and asking they share the numbers, no explanation given.

It took zero back and forth for them to comply.

With her help, we worked through the list and sure enough, twelve of the twenty calls indicated discrepancies between their contract and the contract Morelli Construction had on file.

We didn’t tell any of them any of this, but made eye contact every time the number was wrong, sometimes by tens of millions of dollars, hundreds in the case of McGowan.

“What the fuck is going on with these numbers?” Mary asked after we’d gone through the whole list and another ten contracts for good measure. Willa and Sean were on their way with bagels by this point, so Mary and I took a break to shower (I needed it, horribly), and now have the anxious attention of Willa and Sean back in Vanessa’s office.

I’m nervous to voice my hypothesis, especially with Sean in the room, but I go on anyway, telling them about the conversation with McGowan, the contracts, the calls, all of it.

“If these numbers are correct, there’s a discrepancy of half a billion dollars from the last four years,” I explain.

Willa leans closer and Sean whistles.

“Like what, an accounting error?” Willa asks.

“Some accounting error,” Mary mutters.

“No, it’s contractual. Just one might be an error, but this is a pattern.” I turn Vanessa’s computer screen to face them. Almost all the clients were willing to send over their contracts for reference, each of these displaying the obvious price difference when laid side by side, though identical signatures.

“These clients signed for millions more than what was reported in your system and vending through a third party bank before depositing into company accounts.”

“Where did the extra money go?”

“I’m not sure,” I admit, then scroll to the top of the document. “There is one common denominator though.”

I pull up a separate document and let them sit side by side.

“I don’t see the issue,” Willa admits.

“Tell them,” Mary says.

“It’s Cillian,” I say. “He’s the closer on every one of the duplicated contracts.”

The room is silent for what feels like three minutes, and I am half-certain they’re going to kick me out for even offering such an idea, but then Willa grabs the laptop and Sean kneels beside her while she clicks and types and scrolls for ten minutes.

“You’re right,” Sean breathes.

He already has his phone out.

“Wait,” Mary puts her hand over his. “Don’t call him yet.”

“Did you know about this?” I ask him, considering Cillian is his brother.

Sean looks like I’ve kicked Ranger right in front of him, like even asking is the biggest betrayal I could have managed.

“I wouldn’t.” Sean could be lying, but he’d have to be an exceptional actor for that to be the case.

“He wouldn’t,” Willa agrees. “This is all Cillian.”

“It’s got his rat ass name written all over it,” Mary says.

“He’s been stealing that kind of money right from under our noses, who knows what else he’d been taking,” Willa says and slams the laptop shut.

“The shipments?” I ask and all three of them look up at me in unison. The implications aren’t lost on them: if he oversaw stealing those shipments, he was also probably the one in charge of the building fire. Of Mary getting shot.

“And now he has Vanessa,” Sean says before I have to.