Chapter 3 - The Bride Who Refused to Be a Pawn
Salvatore Bianke arrived at the hospital with six men.
Rocco arrived with five.
Jonathan made both groups wait downstairs.
"You're telling my father what to do now?" Vivien asked.
"He can complain."
"He will."
"Good."
Vivien had traded her wedding gown for black pants and a sweater brought by her assistant.
Her hair hung loose around her shoulders.
Without the ceremony around her, she looked younger.
More dangerous.
Jonathan had never considered her dangerous before.
That was his mistake.
Meline remained overnight for observation.
Jonathan did not enter her room.
He sat outside anyway.
At midnight, Vivien brought him coffee.
"You don't drink coffee after nine."
Jonathan looked at the cup.
"You remember."
"I spent six months learning the habits of the man I was supposed to marry."
He accepted it.
"You didn't have to stay."
"No."
"Then why?"
Vivien sat beside him.
"Because someone shot at a car they thought you were sitting in ten minutes after our wedding collapsed."
"That's my problem."
"If my father is involved, it's mine."
Jonathan looked at her.
"You think Salvatore could be involved?"
"I think fathers are capable of disappointing daughters."
Jonathan almost smiled.
"That sounded personal."
"It was."
They sat quietly.
Then Vivien said, "Meline told me about the containers."
Jonathan's cup stopped halfway to his mouth.
"What containers?"
"She found manifests carrying authorization codes from both families."
Jonathan turned fully toward her.
"She told you that?"
"Yes."
"Why not me?"
"Do you really need me to answer?"
He looked away.
"Luca?"
"She said he had asked questions about the same container numbers before he died."
Jonathan became very still.
Three years earlier, Luca Moretti had left a restaurant at one in the morning.
Twenty minutes later, he was found beside his car behind a warehouse.
The official story inside the organization was simple.
An argument.
Wrong men.
Bad timing.
Jonathan had punished the responsible crew.
Violently.
The war that followed had cost both Providence and Boston millions.
If Luca's death connected to shipping manifests, then Jonathan had spent three years fighting the wrong war.
"Did Meline see what was in the containers?"
"No."
"Numbers?"
"She remembers some."
Jonathan stood.
Vivien remained seated.
"Where are you going?"
"To ask."
"She banned you."
"I don't care."
"You should."
He looked at her.
Vivien's voice hardened.
"That attitude is why she sold flowers while pregnant with your child instead of calling you."
Jonathan stopped.
Few people spoke to him that way.
Fewer survived socially afterward.
Vivien did not blink.
"Sit down."
He did.
She nodded.
"Good."
Jonathan stared at the floor.
"You're enjoying this."
"Immensely."
A small laugh escaped him.
It surprised both of them.
Vivien's expression softened.
"My father raised me to negotiate with angry men."
"I've met your father."
"You understand the training."
Jonathan looked through the narrow window in Meline's door.
Her room was dark.
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Wait until she chooses to speak."
"I don't wait well."
"I've noticed."
At six in the morning, Meline requested Vivien.
Again.
Jonathan pretended that didn't hurt.
Vivien entered.
Meline was sitting up, eating toast.
"The baby?"
"Stable."
"Good."
"You look terrible."
"So do you."
"Thank you."
Vivien sat.
"I told Jonathan about Luca."
Meline put down the toast.
"I asked you not to."
"No. You told me he needed consequences."
"That's not permission."
"You're right."
Vivien held her gaze.
"I'm sorry."
Meline blinked.
Simple apologies were unfamiliar in Jonathan's world.
Vivien continued.
"But if Luca's death was connected to something involving both families, we can't treat it like a private wound."
Meline looked toward the window.
"I didn't know what I was seeing at first."
"Tell me."
Meline worked at Bell & Finch Florists three years earlier.
The shop supplied arrangements to hotels, funerals, political events and private parties.
One client was Harbor Crown Storage.
"They ordered flowers for an opening."
Vivien frowned.
"A warehouse ordered flowers?"
"Ribbon-cutting."
"Which warehouse?"
"Pier Nine."
Vivien's eyes sharpened.
Pier Nine belonged to one of her father's holding companies.
Meline continued.
"The manager asked me to leave invoices with the office because their bookkeeper was out."
"You saw shipping paperwork."
"Yes."
"Why would you understand it?"
"My father was a customs broker."
Vivien hadn't known that.
"I grew up looking at bills of lading."
"What did you notice?"
"Moretti manifest numbers on Bianke containers."
"Could have been a shared shipment."
"Not then."
The two organizations had not shared operations.
Not before the proposed marriage.
"Did you tell Jonathan?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because Luca came into the shop the next week."
Meline smiled faintly.
"He was ordering roses."
"For a woman?"
"For your mother."
Vivien smiled.
"Teresa likes white roses."
"He saw the invoice on my desk."
"What happened?"
"He asked where I got it."
Meline's expression darkened.
"When I told him, he asked me not to mention it to Jonathan until he checked something."
Two weeks later Luca died.
Meline forgot the invoice.
For almost three years.
Then eight months ago, another order came from Harbor Crown.
Same odd codes.
"I compared them."
"With what?"
"An old photocopy."
"You kept one?"
"My father taught me never to throw away documents with numbers I didn't understand."
Vivien almost laughed.
"You would get along with Jonathan."
"Apparently paper is the only thing he trusts."
That line hurt even without Jonathan in the room.
Meline continued.
"I searched the company number online. It connected to a shell company."
"Name?"
"Atlantic Meridian LLC."
Vivien stopped.
She knew it.
Her father had used Atlantic Meridian years earlier.
Publicly, it was a freight consulting business.
Privately, Vivien had once seen it on expense reports her father refused to explain.
"Then federal agents approached you?"
"One woman."
"Name?"
"Special Agent Rebecca Shaw."
Vivien knew the name from news reports.
Organized crime and public corruption.
"Did you give her anything?"
"No."
"Why meet?"
"She told me Luca had contacted federal investigators before he died."
Vivien stared.
"Luca?"
"Yes."
Jonathan's brother had gone to the government.
Not to inform on Jonathan.
To report something inside the ports.
"Marco told Jonathan you were cooperating against him."
"Exactly."
Meline's voice became bitter.
"And Jonathan believed the version that required the least thought."
Vivien stood.
"He has to hear this from you."
"No."
"He has to."
Meline looked at her.
"Why are you defending him?"
"I'm not."
Vivien walked toward the door.
"I'm defending the truth."
When Jonathan entered twenty minutes later, he stopped two steps inside.
Meline did not look at him.
Vivien stood by the window.
"I invited him," she said.
Meline glared.
"You're extremely annoying."
"I know."
Vivien left.
Jonathan remained near the door.
"I'm sorry."
Meline's expression did not change.
"For coming in?"
"For eight months ago."
She stared at him.
One apology.
Not enough.
But different.
Jonathan continued.
"You told me someone inside my organization was using you."
"Yes."
"I didn't listen."
"No."
"I believed documents over you."
"Yes."
"I sent you away."
"Yes."
His voice lowered.
"And I slept every night afterward believing I'd been generous."
That finally changed her expression.
Pain crossed her face.
Jonathan swallowed.
"I don't know how to apologize for that."
"Then don't yet."
He nodded.
"Okay."
Meline looked surprised.
Jonathan remained standing.
"The child."
She covered her stomach.
He noticed.
"I won't ask again."
"Good."
"But if you ever want me involved—"
"You are involved."
Her eyes filled.
"That's the problem."
Jonathan waited.
Meline took a shaky breath.
"The baby is yours."
The words did not surprise him.
Their effect did.
Jonathan gripped the back of a chair.
Meline watched him.
"Say something."
He looked at her stomach.
Then her face.
"I almost threw both of you away."
Meline started crying.
Jonathan did not move toward her.
He wanted to.
Instead he remained where she had allowed him.
Finally she whispered, "Yes."
Outside the room, Vivien's phone rang.
Her father.
This time she answered immediately.
"What?"
Salvatore spoke for less than twenty seconds.
Vivien's face changed.
"Where?"
She hung up.
Jonathan stepped into the hallway.
"What happened?"
Vivien looked at him.
"Marco's car was found near the state line."
"Marco?"
"No Marco."
"Blood?"
"No."
"Then what?"
She held up her phone.
Inside the abandoned car, police had found a photograph.
A picture taken three years earlier.
Luca Moretti standing beside Salvatore Bianke.
Shaking hands.
May you like
On the back, someone had written:
THE WAR WAS BUILT ON A LIE.
