Chapter 8 - Christmas 1987
Cesare remembered Christmas 1987 because it was the year his wife, Lucia, told him she was pregnant with Julian.
He remembered snow.
A cheap apartment.
A plastic tree.
A bottle of champagne they could barely afford.
He did not remember anything worth hiding.
Paul brought archived foundation records from that year.
There had been no Moretti Family Foundation then.
Only a small construction company Cesare ran with his older brother, Antonio.
Antonio died in 1992.
The records showed a property purchase on December 23, 1987.
Bellamy Textile Warehouse.
Cesare stared.
“I remember this.”
He and Antonio bought the failing warehouse from Richard Bellamy’s father.
The sale launched Moretti Construction.
“What’s wrong with it?” Paul asked.
Cesare read the price.
$180,000.
Far below market value.
“I thought they were desperate.”
Paul found an attached private agreement.
Cesare’s signature appeared at the bottom.
Cesare shook his head.
“I never signed this.”
The agreement granted the Bellamy family a hidden future interest in several properties Cesare would later develop.
A forty-year-old forged signature.
The present fraud suddenly had roots.
Richard Bellamy was not only stealing.
He was constructing a paper trail to claim that Cesare’s empire had always owed his family money.
Mara had discovered it.
The fake gala invoices were not primarily theft.
They created a modern pattern of financial cooperation to support the old forged agreement.
If challenged, Bellamy could argue the families had maintained a decades-long partnership.
Cesare almost admired the patience.
Almost.
Then Ethan called from the hospital.
“I need to tell you everything.”
Cesare went.
Ethan looked bruised and exhausted.
“Mara asked me to help her test the signature system,” he said. “I created a digital model of your handwriting.”
“And then?”
“Vanessa found out.”
“You gave it to her?”
“No. Someone copied my laptop.”
“Who?”
“I thought Julian.”
Cesare’s jaw tightened.
“But?”
“Mara proved Julian was in New York the night it happened.”
“Then who?”
Ethan looked ashamed.
“Me.”
Cesare frowned.
“I had remote-access software installed by a contractor. Someone used my machine without me knowing.”
“Why attack me over the flower?”
“Because I recognized the paper.”
“What was it?”
“Part of Mara’s original audit. I thought if Vanessa saw you holding it, she would panic.”
“She did.”
“I was trying to get it away before she noticed.”
“You could have said that.”
“I was afraid.”
Cesare laughed without humor. “Apparently fear is the official language of this family.”
Ethan gave him a small key.
“Mara left a locker at Union Station.”
Inside the locker Cesare found a Christmas gift bag.
A note read:
Cesare, if you reached this, I am probably not there to explain it. I am sorry.
There were photographs of the 1987 warehouse closing.
Cesare.
Antonio.
Richard Bellamy’s father.
And a fourth man.
Cesare recognized him.
Samuel Price’s father.
Samuel had told Cesare his father had been a schoolteacher.
Another lie.
The man in the photograph was Vincent Price, an accountant who had vanished after a federal fraud investigation in 1989.
Cesare returned to Samuel’s house.
Samuel opened the door.
Cesare held up the photograph.
“Who was your father?”
Samuel went pale.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“When I knew it mattered.”
“It mattered forty years ago.”
Samuel sat down.
Vincent Price had designed the original fraudulent agreement with Bellamy’s father and Antonio Moretti.
Cesare froze.
“Antonio?”
Samuel nodded.
“Your brother was part of it.”
Cesare’s chest tightened.
Antonio had been his hero.
His mentor.
The man who taught him business.
Samuel continued.
“Your signature was forged because Antonio knew you would never agree.”
“What did they want?”
“To hide money from creditors and later reclaim assets.”
“Why didn’t they?”
“Antonio died. My father disappeared. Bellamy lost the documents.”
“Until now.”
“Yes.”
Cesare stared at the Christmas lights outside Samuel’s window.
“Why work for me?”
Samuel’s eyes filled.
“To fix what my father helped build.”
Cesare wanted to believe him.
Again.
Then Samuel handed him a final photograph from 1987.
On the back Antonio had written:
If Cesare ever learns the truth, Lucia knows what to do.
Cesare stopped breathing.
Lucia.
His wife.
Elsie’s grandmother.
Dead for twelve years.
May you like
Or so he had believed.
Samuel whispered, “Cesare, there’s no death certificate in Illinois for Lucia Moretti.”
