Page 98 of The Marriage Auction 2: Part 3

I spun around and glared daggers at the Greek god who I’d thought was rather debonair when we met, whom I now wanted to clobber.

“Not helping, Bruno. Julianne doesn’t take splitting hairs well.”

I shifted my heated gaze to Gio, and he clamped his mouth shut as I put all the pieces Bruno shared together. My mouth opened and closed at the severity of what all of this information meant.

“She’s going to kill him,” I breathed through the horror and shock.

“That is my guess,” Bruno hedged while Gio shook his head, wisely informing Bruno, without words, to shut the ever-loving fuck up.

“She’s really going to do it. Attempt to kill her own husband.” A sour taste hit my mouth as the sick and twisted thought of her murdering my brother became more real. He might be the scum of the earth, but he was still my family.

“I’m not sure she thinks of him as her husband,” Gio said gently.

I stopped mid pace. “What about the baby?” I blurted. “Did she get counterfeit documents for that?”

Please, oh please, tell me that was fake too,I chanted internally.

Bruno frowned deeply. “As much as I’d like to tell you that her pregnancy was a farce, we have multiple different doctor’s reports stating that she is indeed pregnant. The night she attacked you, she was admitted to the hospital and a sonogram performed. An officer I know and trust watched the entire procedure. The due date she provided is also accurate, in case you were wondering.”

“Of course. That couldn’t be fake!” I fisted my hands, which had started to shake.

Gio approached me slowly, spreading his arms out. I went straight into them and tucked my ear against his mighty chest, waiting for the comfortingthump, thump, thumpof his heartbeat.

“This is so fucked up.” My breath hitched as I clung to my husband.

He wrapped me in the safety of his embrace and nuzzled the top of my head. “Agreed.”

“There’s a piece I’m missing in the data I’ve collected. May I ask how you met Bianca originally? You were the first to date her, correct?” Bruno asked.

Gio let out a haggard sigh. “Yes. She was a paralegal at the law office my family used. We met over a year and a half ago when I went in to sign some documents regarding my parents’ estate.”

“The law offices of Hunter & Dodd?” Bruno clarified.

Gio nodded.

“Well, that confirms something else my team figured out.”

“Which is?” Gio sighed.

“One of my tech experts who was comparing documents realized there were similarities in documents between the Falcos and the Myers that shouldn’t exist.”

“Such as?” he asked.

“I had my team pull every official document within the last five years that has your name, your wife’s, her brother’s, Bianca’s, and both of your parents, along with any of the business contracts from the company you share. We compared them all.”

“That must have been quite the data pull,” Gio surmised.

“It was. It also confirmed that the same individual was forging signatures for the whole lot of you.”

“Excuse me?” I perked up from my safe space against Gio’s chest. “You know that I just won my case regarding my parents’ wills having been forged. You found others?”

“Many others, I’m afraid. Buildings that were purchased using forged signatures. People being paid from separate accounts that were opened up in your names, accounts I’m certain none of you are privy to. This is someone who’s been playing the long game with your family. They were smart about it too. With the size of both of your families’ holdings, it would be easy to leech tens of thousands at a time, shifting money around and moving it from account to account. A lot of it was paid to individuals that didn’t exist, so it looked like normal business expenses. Your families buy and sell a lot of properties from different arms of your business. A few purchased over the past five years were likely to go unnoticed by accountants or financial officers when the sheer amount of business being done is so exorbitant. Unless some of your staff were planted or paid off. We’ll be looking into each employee across all of your holdings and report our findings.”

“Oh my God! So what you’re saying is that Bianca was the one that forged my parents’ wills?” I swallowed the bile trying to coast up my throat and breathed through my nose.

“She’s been stealing from both families for a long time. Since before she had ever laid eyes on Giovanni or Brenden for that matter. My guess is they were both a means to an end. A way to get whatever it is she’s after.”

Gio and I separated. I went back to pacing and he walked over to the chair and slumped into it, seeming more defeated than I’d ever seen him before.

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