Chapter 4: What Marco Knew
Julian didn't sleep.
He sat in the suite Camila had booked — she had taken the adjoining room without a word, which was either grace or fury, he couldn't tell — and he opened his laptop and pulled up every document he could access remotely.
Board minutes.
Asset registers.
Transfer records from the previous fiscal year.
The Grand Alcazar stake was gone.
Transferred to a holding company registered in Malta.
He had never seen the company name before.
He called his CFO at half past midnight.
"Renata.
I need the full record on the Alcazar transfer.
Tonight."
A long pause.
"Julian, it's—"
"I know what time it is."
Another pause.
"That transfer was authorized by a board resolution.
Signed by three directors." Her voice was careful now.
"Including Marco."
Julian set the phone down on the desk without ending the call.
He picked it up again.
"Who else?"
"Stefano Bruni.
And a proxy vote from your own shares."
"I didn't cast a proxy vote."
"The documentation says you did.
A signed letter of authorization, dated the fourteenth of September."
September fourteenth.
Five days before Elena disappeared.
"Renata.
Pull the original letter.
Scan it and send it to me now."
"Julian, if there's an irregularity—"
"Send it."
The document arrived in eleven minutes.
Julian opened it on his screen and stared at the signature line.
It looked like his signature.
The loop of the J, the way the R in Rossi flattened at the end.
But the date was wrong.
He had been in Lisbon on September fourteenth.
He had signed nothing that day except a hotel receipt and a dinner bill.
He called Marco.
It rang seven times.
Voicemail.
He called again.
Voicemail.
He typed a message: *Call me.
Now.
Tonight.
I don't care what time it is.*
Then he sat back and looked at the ceiling and thought about Dario Ferrante's hand on Elena's shoulder.
The practiced smoothness of his voice.
The way he had produced that business card like a man who had rehearsed the moment.
*Your company sold that stake eight months ago.*
Not *the company*.
Not *someone*.
Your company.
As if he wanted Julian to feel the loss personally.
Julian's phone buzzed.
Not Marco.
A number he didn't recognize.
He answered.
Silence for a moment.
Then a woman's voice, low and careful.
"Mr.
Rossi.
You don't know me.
My name is Petra.
I work the night desk here at the Alcazar." A breath.
"I heard what happened in the lobby tonight."
"Go on."
"Elena is a good person.
She didn't leave you because she wanted to." Another breath, shorter this time.
"She left because someone told her that if she didn't, something would happen to you."
Julian's hand tightened on the phone.
"Who told her that?"
Petra hesitated.
"I've already said more than I should.
But tomorrow, when you meet her — ask her about the envelope.
The one she keeps in the lining of her coat." A pause.
"She's been carrying it for eight months.
She hasn't opened it.
She's too afraid of what's inside."
The line went de@d.
Julian lowered the phone slowly.
An envelope.
Eight months.
Too afraid to open it.
He looked at the scan of the forged proxy letter still glowing on his laptop screen.
Someone had forced Elena out.
Forged his signature.
Sold off a company asset.
And put Dario Ferrante in place to watch over her — or watch over the hotel.
May you like
Maybe both.
And Marco hadn't answered his phone at one in the morning.
