THE MAFIA BOSS THREW OUT HIS PREGNANT WIFE FOR A MISTRESS... BUT FORGOT WHO BUILT HIS EMPIRE

Chapter 03 - A Woman Wearing Her Name

The person impersonating Mara had not bothered with her age.

According to the clinic records Ruth's attorney obtained, the patient was thirty-two, five feet four, and had given an address in Evanston. Mara was thirty-nine, five feet eight, and carrying a child whom strangers now felt entitled to discuss as an inconvenience.

"Why would a doctor sign?" Jo asked.

"He didn't sign an affidavit declaring me incompetent," Mara said. "He certified an examination. Someone built the affidavit around it."

She sat at Jo's kitchen table with Ruth Alvarez and attorney Elena Park, who'd advised Antonia's trust for nearly a decade. Ruth was seventy-one and dressed in a gray suit that had probably outlived two mayors. She unfolded a photograph of the clinic's reception desk.

"The woman used your insurance information," Ruth said. "The practice had a temporary receptionist that week. No one checked the photograph on the identification."

Elena examined the records. "A fraudulent medical filing will help us stop the trustee transfer. But it won't necessarily stop a default if the company really owes what Nico says. We need the debt documents."

Mara had already asked for them. Her office email was locked, her corporate card suspended. Roman's assistant said she was under instructions not to forward any sensitive material until "the situation at home" stabilized.

"Call it what it is," Jo said. "They're using her marriage to lock her out of her work."

Elena looked at Mara. "You know the contracts better than either of us. Where would the original debt documents be?"

"In my files at headquarters. And in the lender's vault."

"Headquarters first, then."

Mara almost laughed. "Roman put two of his men outside my floor after we argued about the port expansion."

"Does he own the building?"

"The company does."

"And who controls the company?"

Mara stared at her. Elena smiled without pleasure.

At ten the next morning they walked through the glass doors of Vescari Harbor Holdings. Mara wore her navy maternity dress and comfortable shoes. She hadn't slept. A young security guard started to apologize as he stepped in front of the elevators.

"There is a restriction on your badge, ma'am."

"I know. Please call building counsel."

Roman's general counsel appeared eleven minutes later. He was a cautious man named Peter Sloan who had once thanked Mara for saving his pension plan. Behind him stood Nico, coat thrown across one shoulder, looking as if the visit was a tiresome social misunderstanding.

"Mara," Nico said. "You should be resting."

"Then give me the documents and I'll sit down."

Peter opened his mouth. Nico answered first. "The sale hasn't closed. There's nothing to worry about."

"Who authorized the emergency borrowing?"

Nico's smile narrowed. "Operations."

"Operations cannot pledge trust-protected housing assets."

"You always take everything personally."

"Twenty-three families tend to do that."

Peter asked Nico to allow a private conversation. Nico didn't move. Finally Peter said, "Mrs. Vescari is a trustee with current authority. Unless you have a court order limiting access, I cannot deny her records."

Nico's face changed. It was a small change, barely a crease at the mouth, but Mara had learned to watch for it when invoices were late.

"Roman won't like this," Nico said.

"He can tell me himself."

They rode to the ninth floor without him. The corridors looked much as she'd left them three weeks earlier: cream walls, framed aerial photographs of the lakefront, a printer that clicked twice before each page. Her old assistant, June, stood up so quickly she knocked over a pencil cup.

"Mrs. Vescari. They told us—"

"I know what they told you. Show Elena the contracts."

June's eyes filled unexpectedly. "I tried calling. Every message bounced back."

Mara squeezed her hand. She had spent a decade training women like June to question a number before obeying the man who spoke it. Now she was going to need every lesson returned to her.

The loans were worse than she expected. Nico had borrowed twenty-eight million dollars against future development proceeds, then routed a portion through three management companies with no apparent employees. One, North Quay Partners, billed six million for "site readiness" at Mercy Row. The site had not been touched.

"It's a laundering operation," Elena said quietly.

"Or a very expensive fiction," Mara replied. "Either way, the tenants didn't receive six million dollars' worth of anything."

In the folder marked PROPERTY TRANSFER she found the deed package awaiting closing. On the acknowledgment page was a notarial stamp from a woman named Alice Brenner. Mara knew her. Alice had notarized Antonia's will.

She also knew Alice had been dead for four years.

Mara felt an odd calm settle over her. She passed the page to Elena. "This is how we'll stop the sale."

Elena examined it. "We need the original and proof of the stamp's custody. If this is a forged notarization, someone made a serious mistake."

A voice came from the open doorway.

"Someone made several."

Roman stood there without a tie, his coat damp from the rain. Mara hadn't seen him since he'd said she had nowhere to go. The sight of him caused a quick, humiliating ache just under her breastbone.

He stared at the papers. "Nico said you were trying to strip the accounts."

"Nico says a great many things. Did you sign the emergency loan?"

Roman looked toward Peter. "This is a family matter."

"No," Mara said. "The affair was a family matter. Fraud is something else."

He came inside and closed the door. Elena remained seated, an unmistakable witness.

"The company was under pressure," Roman said. "I needed liquidity."

"You had cash reserves. I checked them last month."

"Cash on paper. The port contracts stalled."

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

He lowered his eyes. She had imagined many answers on the ride over: pride, panic, resentment. His silence contained all three and something more.

"Because you'd have stopped me," he said.

"From doing what?"

He looked at the forged acknowledgment. "I didn't know they were using Alice's name."

"They?"

Roman's phone rang. He glanced at the screen and declined the call.

"Mara, you should go home. We'll get someone to straighten this out."

"Which home?"

That struck him. She could see it. For a second she thought he might apologize, and the thought angered her more than his arrogance.

Elena set a paper in front of Roman. "The Bellini trust has issued a preservation notice. No property transfers or extraordinary distributions pending review. Any attempt to evade it will be reported."

Roman read the page, then looked at Mara as though meeting a stranger.

"You would bring investigators into my company?"

"Our company," she said. "And you brought them in when you signed something you didn't understand."

He left without saying goodbye.

Afterward June came in carrying a small, sealed courier envelope. "This was delivered to your office yesterday. Nico told us to send it back. I kept it."

It held a photograph: a woman in a hospital waiting room, her face turned partly away from the camera. She wore Mara's old blue coat. On the back someone had written a single sentence.

*Ask Roman who she was pretending to be on Tuesday.*