Chapter 6 - THANKSGIVING AT THE WRONG TABLE
Gio Traumante had been beside Emmett for fourteen years.
That was the first thing Adeline learned.
The second was that loyalty measured in years was not proof of anything.
They sat in a private conference room at the police station while dawn pushed gray light against the narrow window.
Emmett had not called Gio.
Not yet.
He stared at the Thanksgiving message.
Bring Adeline.
Adeline stared at him.
“You are thinking of going.”
“Yes.”
“With me.”
“No.”
She almost laughed.
“Ask.”
His eyes lifted.
“I am asking you not to.”
“Better.”
He did not smile.
“This is different.”
“It always is.”
“Gio knows my habits, security protocols, properties, accounts.”
“And you trust him.”
“I did.”
“Past tense.”
Emmett looked at the stopped watch.
Adeline knew now what it meant.
Not nostalgia.
A warning against bystanders.
Maybe Gio had been one more person Emmett believed would never look away.
That betrayal would cut deeper than Sterling.
“What did Marlene mean when she said Sterling wasn't the top?” Adeline asked.
“I don't know.”
“Could Gio control him?”
“Financially?”
“Maybe.”
Emmett considered.
“Sterling had debt.”
“What kind?”
“Acquisition debt. Private loans. Ashford Meridian nearly failed six years ago.”
“Who refinanced?”
Emmett’s face changed.
“Gio.”
There.
“Through you?”
“No.”
Adeline stared.
“You let your finance man privately refinance a company you later bought?”
“I did not know.”
“How?”
“He used outside entities.”
“Shells.”
“Yes.”
“Castellano shells?”
“No.”
“Whose?”
Emmett opened his phone.
Accounts.
Companies.
He knew numbers too, just differently.
“Traumante Capital Partners.”
Adeline frowned.
“Too obvious.”
“Which means it may be a holding front.”
Detective Ingram sat at the far end, listening.
“Can we subpoena?”
Emmett looked at him.
“You can.”
No complaint.
No interference.
Good.
Ingram left.
Adeline asked, “Why would Gio want my father framed?”
“He might not have.”
“But Marlene named him.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe Sterling answered to Gio only financially.”
“Yes.”
“And my father found the name.”
Emmett looked at the blue ledger copies.
“Thomas may have found a money trail.”
Adeline thought of the memory card.
“Card.”
“What?”
“The black memory card.”
Sterling wanted it badly enough to threaten Ruthanne.
Marlene stole it.
They still did not have it.
If Marlene had been Thomas’s inside witness, maybe she took it to protect it from the wrong people.
Or to deliver it.
“To Gio,” Adeline whispered.
Emmett’s face hardened.
The card was not at Briar Glen.
Police searched Marlene’s abandoned car.
Nothing.
Then Hershel Otwe arrived at the station.
Seventy-one.
Wet coat.
Mop-callused hands.
He looked exhausted.
“I have something.”
Adeline stood.
“What?”
Hershel removed a small black memory card from his shirt pocket.
Everyone froze.
Adeline stared.
“How?”
“Marlene gave it to me.”
“When?”
“After you left the lobby.”
Her pulse jumped.
“She returned for it.”
“Yes.”
“Security footage shows her taking it.”
“She did.”
“Then?”
“She found me in the basement.”
“Why give it to you?”
Hershel looked ashamed.
“Because nobody notices me.”
The sentence hit.
The custodian.
Invisible.
Like Adeline at reception.
Like Thomas until someone needed blame.
“Marlene said if she kept it, someone would search her.”
“Who?”
“She said Gio.”
Emmett went still.
Hershel continued.
“She told me to hide it until Adeline was safe.”
“Why didn't you bring it sooner?”
“I was afraid.”
No excuse.
Just truth.
Adeline nodded.
“Okay.”
He looked startled.
“Okay?”
“You brought it now.”
His eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Agent Brooks? No, Detective Ingram perhaps state/federal later. Let's introduce FBI special agent Leah Moreno due multi-state corporate fraud. But no need. Ingram can call state bureau. Forensic copy of card.
The memory card contained photos Adeline took in the third-floor records room.
She knew that.
She had photographed altered invoices.
Prison vendor forms.
Nursing-home board payments.
But one folder she had not created existed too.
THOMAS.
Her father.
Someone had added it before the card reached her drawer.
Adeline clicked.
Scanned emails.
Thomas to Marlene.
Marlene to Thomas.
Test transaction plans.
Then a voice file.
Thomas Mercer.
Adeline stopped breathing.
She had not heard his voice in three years.
Not since prison calls ended.
“Addie.”
Her hand flew to her mouth.
Emmett looked away.
Giving privacy.
The recording continued.
“If you found this, Marlene got it where it needed to go.”
Adeline cried silently.
“I need you to know something before you decide what to do with any of this.”
Thomas inhaled.
“I made mistakes.”
Not crimes.
Mistakes.
“I believed Sterling was the center because he was the man I could see.”
Adeline leaned closer.
“He wasn't.”
Emmett’s face hardened.
Thomas continued.
“The money moved through a private lender tied to Castellano financial operations.”
Emmett went still.
“But I do not believe Emmett Castellano knew.”
Adeline looked at him.
Thomas had known his name.
“His finance officer, Giovanni Traumante, visited Sterling twice without appearing on company calendars.”
Gio.
Clear.
Direct.
Thomas’s voice continued.
“Gio is using Sterling to purchase distressed companies before Castellano acquisition teams arrive.”
Emmett’s eyes narrowed.
Adeline understood slower.
“Front-running acquisitions.”
“Yes,” he whispered.
Thomas explained.
Gio learned which struggling businesses Emmett intended to buy.
Before Emmett could acquire them, Gio secretly funded insiders.
Those insiders stripped cash.
Inflated debts.
Created scandals.
Lowered values.
Then Emmett bought assets cheaply.
Gio collected repayment from hidden side agreements.
The scheme made money from destruction around Emmett’s legitimate acquisitions.
“Your company grew because of him,” Adeline said.
Emmett’s face went pale.
“Partly.”
“And you didn't know.”
“No.”
Thomas continued.
“Ashford Meridian was supposed to be another distressed acquisition.”
But Thomas found the shell payments.
He warned Emmett.
Gio intercepted.
Then Sterling framed Thomas to keep the company alive long enough for future sale.
Thomas’s conviction destroyed the accountant who could prove Gio’s pattern.
Three years later, Emmett finally bought Ashford Meridian.
Exactly as Gio had expected.
Adeline felt sick.
“Your empire financed the trap that killed my father.”
Emmett closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Not personally.
Still true.
Thomas’s recording went on.
“Do not let anyone tell you responsibility is the same as intention.”
Adeline stared.
Her father answering the question before she asked it.
“Emmett may not have intended this. He still benefited.”
Emmett took the words like blows.
“He needs to decide what that means.”
Adeline’s tears came harder.
“That decision is his.”
Thomas paused.
“Yours is what you do with the truth.”
The recording ended.
No goodbye.
Maybe because Thomas believed he would record again.
Maybe because goodbyes were too dangerous.
Adeline closed the laptop.
Emmett said nothing.
For several minutes, neither moved.
Then he spoke.
“I will turn over every acquisition file Gio touched.”
“You know what that could do.”
“Yes.”
“Investigations.”
“Yes.”
“Your legal businesses.”
“Yes.”
“Your criminal ones too.”
His eyes met hers.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
“Why?”
“Because your father was right.”
Adeline’s chest tightened.
“Responsibility is not intention.”
“No.”
Emmett stood.
“And benefiting from something I did not know about does not make me innocent once I know.”
That was the right answer.
She hated how much it mattered.
At noon, state and federal investigators opened a formal task force.
Emmett’s attorneys looked ill.
Gio continued texting.
Thanksgiving dinner.
A house address outside Cleveland.
A family property Emmett’s mother had once owned.
Emmett finally replied.
Tomorrow. Six.
Bring nobody.
Gio sent:
Just family.
Adeline looked at the message.
“What does that mean?”
Emmett’s face hardened.
“Gio called my mother family.”
“Was he?”
“In every way except blood.”
That made it worse.
Thanksgiving dinner became a controlled operation.
Federal surveillance.
No obvious tactical team.
Emmett would go.
Adeline chose to go too.
Not because Gio asked.
Because Thomas named him.
Because Marlene was still missing.
Because Ruthanne’s nursing-home threat remained connected.
Emmett argued once.
Then stopped.
At six on Thanksgiving evening, the old Castellano house glowed warmly beneath light snow.
It looked impossible for betrayal.
Brick.
Yellow windows.
Wreath on the door.
The smell of roast turkey when Gio opened it.
He smiled.
“Emmett.”
Then looked at Adeline.
“Miss Vance.”
“Mercer.”
His expression changed.
Tiny.
Enough.
“Adeline Mercer,” she corrected.
For three years she had hidden the name.
Not tonight.
Gio stepped aside.
“Come in.”
The dining room was set for four.
Adeline stopped.
“Who is the fourth?”
Gio smiled.
“Someone who has been waiting a long time to meet you.”
A door opened.
Marlene entered.
Alive.
No restraints.
No visible fear.
Adeline stared.
“Marlene.”
The older woman looked ashamed.
“I’m sorry.”
Gio poured wine.
Emmett did not sit.
“Why is she here?”
“Because Marlene finally decided loyalty should be rewarded.”
Adeline’s stomach dropped.
Marlene whispered, “It isn't what you think.”
Gio smiled.
“It rarely is.”
Then he looked at Adeline.
“Your father misunderstood the scheme.”
“He named you.”
“Yes.”
“He had records.”
“Yes.”
“You intercepted his warning.”
“Yes.”
Emmett’s face went cold.
Gio continued calmly.
“But I did not frame Thomas Mercer.”
Silence.
“Sterling did.”
“Using your money,” Adeline said.
“Yes.”
“Your shells.”
“Yes.”
“Your information.”
“Yes.”
“You benefited.”
Gio’s smile faded.
“You sound like him.”
“Good.”
Marlene stepped forward.
“Adeline, listen.”
Gio turned slightly.
That was when Adeline saw the bruise beneath Marlene’s sleeve.
Not ally.
Still coerced.
“Marlene?”
Her eyes filled.
“My son.”
Of course.
College tuition had never been the real lever.
“What happened?”
Gio’s face hardened.
Marlene whispered, “They arrested Caleb this morning.”
“For what?”
“Drugs in his car.”
Adeline looked at Gio.
“Planted?”
He smiled.
Marlene cried.
“He says if I testify against him, Caleb goes to prison.”
Emmett’s hands clenched.
Gio looked at him.
“Sit.”
“No.”
“Then this dinner will be shorter.”
He lifted a phone.
On screen, live video.
Ruthanne.
Again.
Adeline stopped breathing.
Her grandmother sat in a familiar room at Briar Glen.
No visible threat.
A nurse stood behind her.
“Who?”
Adeline whispered.
Gio answered.
“The nursing-home administrator.”
Of course.
Board.
Payments.
Three years.
Another person inside.
“If we do anything,” Gio said, “Ruthanne receives medication.”
Emmett’s voice became lethal.
“What medication?”
“The wrong one.”
Adeline went cold.
Gio smiled.
“Sit.”
This time, Adeline sat.
Not obedience.
Calculation.
Emmett saw the difference.
He sat too.
Gio carved turkey.
Like family.
Like monsters could not use normal knives.
Then he said:
“Now we discuss what your father actually found the night before he was arrested.”
Adeline stared.
“What?”
Gio placed a red folder beside her plate.
Inside was a photograph.
Thomas Mercer.
Sterling Dunore.
And Emmett’s mother, Lucia Castellano.
Taken three years ago.
One week before Thomas was charged.
Emmett stopped breathing.
“My mother was dead.”
Gio smiled.
“Officially.”
Adeline closed her eyes.
May you like
Of course.
Another dead person who had apparently refused to stay dead.
