Chapter 9: What Marcus Did
Alessandro was already moving before I said a word.
He read my face and had his own phone out.
"Address," he said.
I gave him Liam's street.
He relayed it to someone on the other end of the call, voice clipped and precise, and by the time I had tried Liam's number a third time, Alessandro had two people already en route.
Liam picked up on the fourth attempt.
"I'm fine," he said immediately, before I could speak.
"I'm fine.
Two men came to the apartment.
I saw them on the street from the window and I left through the building's back stairwell." His voice was steady but slightly too fast.
"I'm at the coffee shop on Wicker Park.
The one with the green sign."
"Stay there.
Don't leave.
We're coming."
I ended the call.
My hands had stopped shaking somewhere in the last hour.
I noticed this the way you notice strange things in a crisis — distantly, as information.
"He's safe," I told Alessandro.
"For now." He was already closing the storage tub.
"Marcus moved faster than I expected.
He's escalating because he knows time is running out."
"He said I had twenty-four hours."
"He said that to buy himself twenty-four hours, not to give them to you." Alessandro picked up the tub.
"We need to move."
We collected Liam from the coffee shop twenty minutes later.
He got into the back seat of Alessandro's car, looked at Alessandro, looked at me, and said nothing for a full thirty seconds.
Then: "You told him."
"Everything," I said.
Liam exhaled.
"Good." He leaned back against the seat.
"About time."
Alessandro glanced in the rearview mirror.
"Mr.
Carter.
I owe you an apology.
You've been protecting Elizabeth at considerable personal risk for two years."
"Since we were nine," Liam said simply.
"That's just how it works."
Alessandro held his gaze in the mirror for a moment.
Then he nodded once, and something between the two of them settled quietly into place.
Grace Chen met us at Alessandro's downtown office at nine that evening.
She was in her fifties, small and precise, with reading glasses pushed up on her head and the focused energy of someone who had been waiting a long time for exactly this kind of meeting.
She went through the folders in forty minutes without speaking.
She listened to the first recording with her eyes closed.
When it ended, she opened her eyes and looked at Alessandro.
"This is enough," she said.
"More than enough.
The account transfers alone constitute fraud on a scale that will interest both the SEC and the federal prosecutor's office.
The recordings add intent and direct admission." She set her pen down.
"Marcus has been doing this for a decade.
I've suspected it for three years.
He blocked every internal audit by controlling who sat on the review committee."
"Can you move on this tonight?" Alessandro asked.
"I can have a federal contact on the phone within the hour." She looked at me.
"Miss Hargrove.
Your father was meticulous.
This is extraordinary work."
I pressed my lips together and nodded.
"He knew what it cost," I said.
"He did it anyway."
Grace picked up her phone.
May you like
Marcus Vitali had given me twenty-four hours.
He had about three left.
