“Every administrative action has been copied to an offline archive since the day you recommended that anonymous lender.”
Dante glanced at her, and despite the danger, something like pride crossed his face.
Vittorio’s expression hardened.
“Take this discussion inside,” he ordered.
“You’re embarrassing the family.”
“This isn’t a family discussion,” Dante said.
“Not anymore.”
Marcus and Sophie came running from the terrace.
Sophie had removed her heels and gathered her wedding dress in both hands.
“Avery!” She stopped when she saw the security vehicles, Evan, and the envelope in Vittorio’s hand.
“What happened?”
Avery wanted to protect her from it.
Sophie had spent a year planning this night.
White orchids hung above the ballroom.
A string quartet waited near the dance floor.
Two hundred guests believed the delay was caused by a problem with the sound system.
But the threat had used Sophie’s name.
Silence would not protect her.
“Someone photographed Dante and me,” Avery said.
“Then they threatened you to make me leave.”
Marcus turned toward his uncle.
“Was that you?”
Vittorio looked insulted.
“Of course not.”
Dante opened the folder and handed Marcus a printout.
“The message was routed through a server registered to one of Vittorio’s hospitality subsidiaries.
The security credential belonged to Evan, but it was issued from Uncle Vittorio’s office.”
Marcus read the page twice.
“You used my wedding to corner her?”
“I protected this family long before you learned to tie a necktie,” Vittorio said.
“Avery’s software can expose transactions that certain institutions prefer to keep private.
Her company was either going to belong to us or disappear.
Evan understood that.”
Evan recoiled.
“You said this was a standard acquisition.”
Vittorio gave him a cold glance.
“And you were paid to make it standard.”
The admission hung in the salt-heavy night.
Avery heard Elena’s voice through the phone.
“I recorded that.
Keep him talking.”
She lowered the volume without ending the call.
“Why the Stanford file?” Avery asked.
Vittorio smiled again, but there was no warmth left in it.
“Because people rarely change.
A woman accused of stealing research at twenty-one can easily be accused of falsifying security records at twenty-eight.
Investors are predictable.
They abandon uncertainty before breakfast.”
Avery felt the old humiliation rise inside her.
The dean’s office.
The suspicious looks.
The week of finals when she could not eat or sleep.
Dante had found her outside the library one night, surrounded by notes, and told her that emotional people lost negotiations before they entered the room.
She had hated him for saying it.
Now he looked at Vittorio with open fury.
