Chapter 4 - THE SAFE IN MY HOUSE
I did not go home.
Police did.
With my consent.
The house was mine.
Purchased before Luca.
He had moved in eight months earlier.
The safe sat inside my home office closet.
Large.
Black.
New.
I had never seen it.
Luca had changed the closet lock.
That alone made my skin crawl.
The safe was not opened immediately.
Documentation first.
Then counsel.
Then lawful access.
Inside were copies of Hartwell shareholder records.
Apex acquisition projections.
My trust summaries.
A second digital-signature device.
And something worse.
Photographs.
Of me.
Not intimate photographs.
Surveillance.
Leaving my office.
Meeting Rachel.
Having coffee with Phoebe.
Entering a women’s health clinic after Luca injured my wrist and I lied to everyone that I fell.
Someone had been tracking me.
Then police found a small GPS unit still inside its packaging.
Another identical model matched the device discovered beneath my car.
I sat in the hotel suite unable to speak.
Phoebe cried for me.
I couldn’t.
Then Rachel held up another folder.
PERSONAL STABILITY.
Inside were printed notes.
Dates of arguments.
Times I canceled dinner.
Times I refused Luca access to my phone.
Times I slept at Phoebe’s apartment.
Comments:
Emotionally reactive.
Secretive.
Impulsive.
Possibly unstable under stress.
I stared.
He was building a story about me.
Exactly what I had feared.
If I tried to leave, I was unstable.
If I became angry, unstable.
If I protected money, secretive.
If I told anyone, manipulative.
Then we found the source of the photographs.
An investigation company.
Northgate Risk Solutions.
Client:
MORETTI CAPITAL.
Not Luca personally.
Vincent.
My future father-in-law had commissioned surveillance on me three months before the wedding.
Rachel called Hartwell’s board.
Again.
The Apex deal was immediately referred to an independent committee.
Vincent Moretti’s conflict became material.
Then Marco called.
He wanted to meet.
Public place.
Attorney present.
Marco looked terrified.
“My family isn’t normal.”
I almost laughed.
“Late insight.”
“I know.”
Then he told me why he warned me.
Vincent had done something similar before.
Not with shares.
With Marco’s former girlfriend.
She threatened to report irregularities inside Moretti Capital.
Vincent hired investigators.
Built a file portraying her as unstable.
She eventually disappeared from their social circle.
Not physically.
She moved away.
Changed jobs.
Refused all contact.
“Was she telling the truth?”
Marco nodded.
“What irregularities?”
He swallowed.
“Apex.”
May you like
The acquisition Hartwell was considering involved a company whose financial statements, according to Marco, had been manipulated.
My marriage may have been the Morettis’ attempt to secure enough influence to push Hartwell into buying a company worth far less than advertised.
