Chapter 8 - The Emergency Board Meeting Where Matteo Bellini Put His Own Name on the List of Suspects
The ledger changed everything.
By eight o'clock that morning, Detective Shaw had arranged for copies to be delivered to the prosecutors handling the investigation. The original was secured in an evidence facility, and independent forensic accountants began tracing the payments recorded in its pages.
The first results arrived before noon.
Dominic Rizzo had authorized transfers through three companies connected to Northline Industrial. Those transfers had funded the purchase of inferior construction materials, concealed the altered invoices, and paid a legal firm to manage the settlement agreements after the Warehouse Four collapse.
The records also showed that the company had continued using several of the same suppliers after the accident.
The cover-up was not a single act.
It was a business practice.
And the man who had helped maintain it had spent twelve years presenting himself as the guardian of the Bellini family legacy.
At noon, Matteo called an emergency board meeting.
He could have conducted it privately.
He could have waited for the lawyers to prepare a statement that softened the allegations, emphasized the uncertainty surrounding his father's decisions, and promised cooperation without making any immediate changes.
That would have been the easier path.
Instead, he invited Detective Shaw's representatives, the independent auditors, and the legal counsel overseeing the historical claims.
He also invited Dominic.
The meeting took place on the forty-sixth floor, inside the same conference room where major acquisitions and restructuring plans had been approved for years.
Dominic arrived five minutes late.
He wore a dark blue suit and carried a thin folder. His expression suggested that he considered the entire proceeding an inconvenience.
“Matteo,” he said, taking his seat. “I hope this is brief. The company cannot afford to spend another day entertaining accusations based on records that should have been destroyed years ago.”
Matteo looked at him.
“The records should have been preserved.”
Dominic smiled.
“That is a generous interpretation.”
“No. It is the correct one.”
The independent auditor presented the findings.
The payments were listed by date, amount, recipient, and authorization code. The altered purchase orders were displayed beside the original invoices. The safety reports were arranged chronologically, showing that employees had raised concerns weeks before the collapse.
Dominic listened without interrupting.
When the presentation ended, he folded his hands on the table.
“This is a collection of old transactions. Some may be irregular, but irregularities do not prove criminal intent. The company was operating under intense financial pressure at the time. Your father made decisions that were sometimes imperfect. I managed the consequences.”
“You delayed an order intended to stop unsafe work,” Matteo said.
“I followed the instructions I received from the executive office.”
“You altered the purchase records.”
“I did not.”
“You authorized payments to the company responsible for supplying the inferior materials.”
“I signed contracts prepared by the procurement department. That was my job.”
“And you used company funds to pay a legal firm that pressured the families into signing settlements.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“Your father approved those payments.”
Matteo felt the room become silent.
“Yes,” he said. “He did.”
Dominic appeared satisfied.
“Then perhaps you should stop treating me as the only person responsible.”
“I am not treating you as the only person responsible.”
Matteo opened a folder and removed a document.
“I have submitted the records showing my father's involvement. I have also authorized investigators to examine my own actions, including the contracts I approved after inheriting the company.”
Dominic stared at him.
For the first time, his composure cracked.
“You have given the prosecutors evidence against your own family?”
“I have given them evidence.”
“You will destroy the Bellini name.”
“If the name cannot survive the truth, then it deserves to change.”
The words stunned the boardroom.
One director looked down at his papers. Another whispered to the attorney beside him.
Dominic slowly rose.
“You think this makes you noble?”
“No.”
“You think the employees will thank you when their pensions are frozen, their divisions are sold, and the company begins laying people off?”
Matteo stood as well.
“I think they deserve to know why their pensions were endangered and why their safety reports disappeared. I think they deserve a company that does not require them to risk their lives to make their voices heard.”
Dominic's face hardened.
“You are confusing sentiment with leadership.”
“And you are confusing obedience with loyalty.”
For several seconds, neither man moved.
Then Detective Shaw's representative requested that Dominic surrender his company access credentials while the investigation continued.
Dominic looked around the room, waiting for someone to object.
Nobody did.
He removed his badge and placed it on the table.
“You will regret this,” he told Matteo.
Matteo met his gaze.
“Perhaps. But I will not regret telling the truth.”
Dominic left without another word.
Within hours, the company's shares fell sharply, two major partners suspended negotiations, and journalists gathered outside Bellini Tower.
Headlines appeared across Chicago.
BELLINI EMPIRE ROCKED BY HISTORICAL SAFETY SCANDAL.
EXECUTIVES ACCUSED OF COVERING UP FATAL WAREHOUSE COLLAPSE.
MAFIA HEIR TURNS OVER FAMILY RECORDS TO INVESTIGATORS.
The publicity was brutal.
Matteo faced questions about the company's illegal dealings, his father's decisions, and the organization he had inherited. Lawyers warned that the investigation could threaten several legitimate businesses and expose financial arrangements that had operated in the shadows for decades.
For the first time, he did not attempt to control the story.
He released a statement acknowledging the documented failures, apologizing to the affected families, and confirming that independent investigators had unrestricted access to the relevant records.
He did not call his father's actions a misunderstanding.
He did not blame the dead workers for failing to protect themselves.
And he did not claim that his cooperation should absolve him of responsibility.
Elena watched the statement from the café.
Walter sat beside her, his arm in a sling after the injuries he had sustained during his abduction.
“Your boss has finally learned how to make a public apology,” he remarked.
“He's not my boss.”
“Of course not.”
She looked at him.
Walter smiled.
“I'm an old man. I'm allowed to enjoy a little gossip.”
She laughed for the first time in days.
Then the café manager hurried toward them with a phone in his hand.
“Elena, you need to see this.”
The message had come from an employee in the corporate records department.
Someone had attempted to access the original archive overnight. The access request had been approved using credentials that belonged to Matteo himself.
Elena felt cold.
“Did Matteo authorize it?”
The manager shook his head.
“Not according to the records.”
Walter lowered his cup.
“Dominic?”
“Possibly,” Elena replied. “But we need proof.”
She immediately called Detective Shaw.
The detective was already aware of the attempted access. The logs suggested that someone had copied part of the company's digital archive before the physical ledger was recovered.
Among the copied files were drafts of internal reports, financial projections, and a list of employees who had cooperated with the investigation.
Elena's name appeared near the top.
So did Walter's.
So did the names of every retired employee who had attended the morning meetings.
Someone was preparing to discredit them.
The next message arrived twenty minutes later.
A photograph showed a document containing Walter's signature beneath an authorization for the purchase of the disputed materials.
The signature looked convincing.
Walter stared at it.
“I never signed that.”
“I know,” Elena replied.
But the document had already been sent to several journalists, accompanied by a statement claiming that the retired supervisor had participated in the original procurement scheme and was now blaming innocent executives to protect himself.
Within an hour, the narrative began to change.
Online commentators accused Walter of hiding his involvement. Anonymous sources claimed Elena had been receiving payments from competitors. A tabloid published an article suggesting that Matteo had become romantically involved with an employee who was manipulating him for financial gain.
The accusations spread faster than the corrections.
Elena read the article once, then put down her phone.
“I don't care what they say about me.”
Walter studied her.
“You should care what they say about the truth.”
“I do.”
“Then don't let them make you so angry that you stop thinking.”
She looked at the old man.
He had been threatened, abducted, and publicly accused of something he had spent years trying to expose.
Yet he remained calm.
“How do you do that?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Keep going.”
Walter looked around the café.
“Because the people who want us silent are counting on us to become exhausted. If we stop because they make it painful, then they win without having to prove anything.”
Elena nodded slowly.
That afternoon, she sat with the independent investigators and reconstructed the records step by step. Susan helped verify the payment authorizations. Harold identified the supplier codes. Three current employees confirmed that the alleged safety approvals had been entered into the system after the relevant work had already begun.
The forged signature was traced to an electronic template created years earlier.
It had been copied from Walter's personnel file.
The investigators also discovered that the digital archive had been accessed through a remote administrative account connected to Dominic's private office.
The attempt to frame Walter had failed.
But it revealed something more important.
Dominic was not acting alone.
The account had been accessed by someone who knew the company's internal systems intimately, someone who understood how to create convincing records and how to make the allegations appear credible.
The investigation turned toward a second executive.
Martin Vale, the company's chief financial officer.
He had worked with Dominic for eleven years and had signed several of the disputed settlement payments.
When investigators requested an interview, Vale's office was empty.
His assistant said he had left for a family emergency.
His company phone had been switched off.
And his personal bank account had received a large transfer from a holding company connected to Northline Industrial.
Matteo read the report in silence.
“Dominic has help,” he said.
Detective Shaw nodded.
“We believe Vale maintained the secondary accounts and coordinated the transfer of records. We are issuing a warrant for his arrest.”
“Where is he?”
“We don't know yet.”
Matteo looked toward the window.
“Then we need to find him before he destroys the remaining evidence.”
Shaw studied him carefully.
“Your people are not to conduct their own search.”
“They won't.”
“I'm serious, Matteo. This is a criminal investigation. If you send your men after Vale, you could compromise the case and put witnesses at risk.”
He nodded.
“I understand.”
For once, he meant it.
That evening, Elena found him alone in the café, sitting across from the reserved chair.
He had removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. The usual confidence in his posture had given way to fatigue.
She placed a coffee in front of him.
“Black?”
“Yes.”
“You remembered to ask yourself whether you wanted sugar?”
He looked up.
“I have made progress.”
She sat opposite him.
“How are you holding up?”
He considered the question.
“Badly.”
Elena nodded.
“That sounds honest.”
He smiled faintly.
“I thought that if I found the person responsible, everything would make sense. Instead, I keep discovering that every answer leads to another decision someone made because they wanted to protect themselves.”
“That is usually how the truth works.”
He looked at her.
“Are you going to tell me this is what I deserve?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because that wouldn't help anyone. You need to take responsibility for what you did, but you also need to decide what kind of person you're going to be tomorrow.”
Matteo lowered his eyes.
“I keep thinking about the chair.”
Elena glanced toward the reserved table.
“What about it?”
“For nine mornings, I wanted to remove it because I couldn't understand why someone had decided it mattered. I assumed the problem was the chair.”
“And now?”
“Now I realize the problem was that I had stopped asking what mattered to the people who worked for me.”
She reached across the table.
“You can't spend the rest of your life apologizing for the same mistake. At some point, you have to build something better.”
He took her hand.
“I want to.”
“Then start with the people who are still here.”
For a while, they sat in silence.
Then Matteo said, “I don't want you to feel obligated to stay close to me because of what happened to your father.”
Elena's expression softened.
“You don't get to decide how I feel, either.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
She squeezed his hand.
“Because I haven't decided what I want our future to look like. But I know I don't want fear to make that decision for me.”
He looked at her with an expression she had never seen before.
Hope, perhaps.
Or the beginning of it.
Then his phone rang.
Detective Shaw.
Martin Vale had been located.
He had attempted to leave the country using a passport issued under a different name. The arresting officers had recovered a briefcase containing cash, several company files, and a sealed envelope addressed to Dominic Rizzo.
The envelope contained a letter.
Dominic had instructed Vale to destroy the records, frame Walter, and ensure that Matteo lost control of the company before the investigation reached the family's private accounts.
But Vale had kept a copy of the instructions.
He had been preparing to use them as leverage.
The letter ended with a sentence that made Matteo's blood run cold.
If Bellini refuses to cooperate, use the girl. She is the only person he has begun to trust, and she will give us the access we need.
Elena read the words over his shoulder.
Neither of them spoke.
Dominic had not merely wanted to discredit her.
He had identified her as Matteo's weakness and intended to use their relationship to regain control of the empire.
Matteo folded the letter.
For a moment, the old instinct returned.
He wanted to send his men to find Dominic, drag him into a room, and make him explain himself.
He wanted to end the uncertainty through force.
Then he looked at Elena.
She was watching him.
Waiting to see which man would emerge from the moment.
Matteo put the letter on the table and called Detective Shaw.
“I have evidence you need.”
May you like
He handed it over.
And with that decision, he surrendered the last excuse he had for returning to the life he had inherited.
