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I shook my head, scanning my gaze over the spreadsheet as my heart dropped. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen this. “No. There are more duplicates. See?”
He frowned as his gaze traced the lines of figures I was pointing out. One by one, the realization hit him–we weren’t just looking at a one-off mistake. This was deliberate, a planned maneuver to siphon money right under our noses.
The silence in the room grew heavy as Tristan continued to study the numbers. “That’s…a lot of money,” he said finally, his voice tight. “I mean, this is ballsy. Who would dare embezzle from your dad?”
“Someone desperate, perhaps,” I muttered, my mind racing. Or someone who thought they could get away with it. A chill ran down my spine. “Tristan, this isn’t something we can ignore.”
He nodded, his brow furrowed in deep concentration. “I agree. But we need to tread carefully, Adriana.”
“Carefully?” I echoed, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. “You mean like how we always do when it comes to the mafia?”
Tristan’s gaze fell on me, his blue eyes dark with worry and resolve. “This isn’t just a mafia issue,” he said, his tone severe. “If someone is embezzling money from your father, they’ve got access to his accounts, which means they’re close. This is an inside job.”
I shook my head. “This is really bad.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Who would go through the trouble of recording all of these only to take them off the bank account?”
“Someone who wanted to cover their tracks,” I surmised, my voice barely a whisper. “They know that I cross-check these transactions with the bank’s records. They left a trail on our end so it looks like everything’s normal here. But when the actual money doesn’t tally, then…” I trailed off, not wanting to voice out the implications of this discovery.
“They knew you’d be the one to find out,” he said. “I mean, you’re the one who does this work.”
“Exactly,” I said, my eyes never leaving the screen. I could feel the blood running cold in my veins. The notion of betrayal from within was deeply unsettling.
“Do you have any idea who could be doing this?”
I chewed on my lower lip, thinking hard. “I mean, everyone knows I do the books. Only a select few know how I do them. My dad, my mom, my sister…but my family, they’re my world. They wouldn’t. They couldn’t. And Carmen, I mean, Carmen would never hurt me.”
Tristan looked at me, not saying anything. His silence was as unnerving as the accusation that hung unsaid in the air between us.
“She wouldn’t, Tristan.”
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “When we were at the cabin,” he said. “When you first disappeared, you hadn’t told your sister about your pregnancy yet. But you had told her we’d slept together, and you had told her you were under the weather. She’s an intelligent woman, Carmen.”
My breath hitched, and I turned to look at him. “You’re not suggesting…Tristan, she wouldn’t.” The thought was like a slap in the face, so outrageous that it took me a moment to catch my breath. It felt like a betrayal of the highest order even to consider it.
“This is worse than embezzling,” he said. “I think she was counting on you not coming back.”
“That is a wild accusation to make,” I replied.
“It’s not an accusation. It’s an educated guess.”
“But your guesses are wrong sometimes, too,” I retorted, my own defense of Carmen surprising me. “She might be ambitious, she might push people aside, but she’s family.”
Tristan’s gaze held mine steadily. “Family or no, you can’t rule out any possibilities.”
I shook my head vehemently. “I refuse to believe it,” I said firmly. “Carmen is many things, but a traitor isn’t one of them. You’ll see. We’ll get married and…”
He held a hand up to stop me from talking. “We need to figure out this rat thing first,” he said. “But uh, let’s talk about the wedding.”
I looked at him, surprised. Was this really the time to discuss wedding details? “The wedding?” I echoed, incredulous, but Tristan just leaned back against the headboard, his fingertips drumming against the bedspread in thought.
“Yes,” he said, slowly as if measuring each word. “It’s a big event, Adriana. People will come from all corners just to attend. It would be easy for anyone with ill-intentions to blend in and do something harmful. If someone’s cooking the books, and if they’re targeting you, you’ll just be a sitting duck.”
The connection he drew between the embezzlement and the wedding rang loud in the silence of the room. Reality settled heavily on my shoulders. The chilling thought sent a shiver down my spine as I considered what he was saying.
I didn’t want him to be, but Tristan was right. A mafia wedding was an event like no other. It was equal parts celebration and power play, where loyalty was weighed, alliances were made, and if you were unlucky—enemies took their shots. The idea of walking down the aisle now felt like traversing a minefield. I’d been so focused on the embezzlement that I hadn’t even considered the wedding as a potential danger zone.
“We’ll have to increase security,” I said, already mentally running through a list of names we could trust. But I faltered when Tristan shook his head.
