A DEBT PAID IN VOWS

Chapter 4: Nobody Warned Me First

POV: Alessio "Alex" Marchetti

************************************************

The headline already fills the screen as I am stretching my hand to take the phone from my assistant.

GHOST BRIDE: MISSING MAFIA HEIRESS FOUND ALIVE, WORKING FOR RIVAL FAMILY'S CEO.

Grace's five-year-old photograph sits beside a blurry picture of the two of us at last night's gala, the photograph seems to be taken from an angle that makes it look as though we have been caught in the middle of a secret.

Some of my board members may be reading this headline this hour as they are having their morning coffee and they are likely to start asking questions I am not willing and ready to answer.

"Do you know who is behind this?" I ask, as I am already moving toward my desk.

"It is an anonymous tip, sent this morning around six," my assistant says.

"Our attorney wants to know if we are going to issue a denial."

"There will be no denial," I pick up my phone and start calling Sal. He picks it immediately as if he has been expecting my call.

"Sal, get PR in here, it is urgent and act fast."

Grace is still sitting on her chair as her facial expression changes into something I can't understand but certainly, she is surprised.

"This is unbelievable," she says. "Antonio is going to see this and my father will see it too."

"I think they are already aware of it," I say.

"The surveillance of your building means someone in your father's organization already knows that you are not dead before this story ever existed. This will change the timeline while the danger remains."

"That will not make me feel comfortable?"

"I know, we need to stop reacting and start controlling it," I say.

"We have to start now, before anyone else does."

Sal walks in without knocking at the door and starts talking.

“PR wants a denial. I want to find out who is likely inside this building and has access to a six-year-old missing-person file and Grace's current employment record at the same time."

"How many people have access to Grace's employment record?" I ask.

"Four, boss," Sal says.

"You, the HR director, me and whoever created her onboarding file when she was hired eleven months ago."

"Does Weiss have access to the HR systems?”

"No," Sal says.

"But he had lunch with the HR director twice in the last quarter. I just checked the calendar an hour ago."

“Are you telling me that Weiss could have pulled her file without ever touching a computer in this building?"

"That's what it looks like, boss, though I am not certain yet. I have been working in this company for six years and I've never seen him have lunch with the HR before this quarter."

Grace stands up quickly from her chair with her chair scraping the floor.

"I need to take my leave. It is not wise for me to be sitting near you since my picture is already everywhere. Staying close to you is the worst thing I should do now."

"Running from me is the worst thing you should do," I say.

"The story already exists. The only thing left for us to control is what will happen next. If you disappear now, it will confirm every word of it and make you look guilty of something you haven't even done yet, I will advise that you should stay, let's fight together."

"How are we going to achieve such?"

"We need to confirm the engagement publicly today. Before Carbone's people get to tell the story for us."

"Do you intend to turn my worst day into a photo opportunity?"

"I want to turn your worst day into leverage my dear," I say.

"There's a difference, even if it doesn't feel like one right now."

She looks at me without saying a word, then at her coat that is hanging on the chair she stood up from.

My phone buzzes on the desk. I almost let it go to voicemail but I decided to take a look at its screen to know who is calling. I pick up the call though it is a number I don't recognize.

"This is Alessio." He says from th‌e other end of the call.

Antonio Carbone Jr.'s voice is smooth and calm, as if he has been waiting all morning for the right moment to use it.

"What can I do for you, Antonio?"

"Tell Gianna I'm not angry with her," he says.

"Tell her I understand more than she thinks I do."

There is a deliberate pause for some seconds from his end.

"Some things are more than one family betraying the other. I believe she'll eventually figure it out."

He hangs the call as I am about to respond to him. Meanwhile, I am still standing and holding a dead phone while pondering over what he just said.

“Some things are more than one family betraying the other. I believe she'll eventually figure it out.” This isn't a sentence of a man surprised by a headline. This sounds like the sentence of a man repeating something he had already accepted a long time ago.

"Who were you talking to?" Grace asked.

"It was Antonio," I said.

"He already knows that you are alive before the story broke, which means someone already told him everything he needed to know about you."

Grace's hands started tightening into fists.

"This is exactly what I ran from. Everyone always knows things about my life before I do."

"Then let's change that," I say. "We will issue a public statement on my terms and with your face on a camera, telling the story the way we choose to tell it instead of the way someone leaked it."

"What will be the story?"

"You will tell them that we've been together quietly for months and that the identity confusion is a tabloid mistake based on a resemblance of a five-year-old case file. I also want you to tell them how real our engagement is.”

"That's a lot of lying for a man who told me he hates being lied to."

"I am not asking you to lie, instead it's strategy," I say. "That's the difference, ok?"

She almost smiled at having her own words used against her, and for one second the room feels less like a war room and more like two people standing too close together, deciding whether they could trust the same lie.

Sal knocks once and walks in without waiting.

"Boss, the car is ready downstairs and the press is already gathering at the front entrance. If we're doing this, we do it in the next twenty minutes, before that headline finishes its first news cycle."

"We're doing it right away," I say while looking at Grace.

"Either we do it together or not at all, the choice is yours.”

She stands for a long moment with her jaw tight and eyes glassy but dry, as if she is calculating every version of her life that this decision may destroy.

“Together," she says finally.

"But if this blows up in my face, let it be on record that I said it was a bad idea."

"Noted." I reach for my jacket.

"One more thing before we go downstairs."

Sal's tablet buzzes in his hand. He looked at it, and whatever that appeared on the screen made him go very still.

"What is it, Sal?"

"Security is flagging someone trying to badge into the building," Sal say slowly.

"Precisely the Visitor's entrance, one minute ago and the person was denied access. But the system recorded the name he gave the front desk."

"Sal, find out who that person is."

Harold Weiss is standing in th‌e lobby right now, he didn't notify anyone and he is strictly demanding to see me before I approach the camera.

Twenty minutes ago, the only problem I had was a leaked headline but now I have a lawyer downstairs who had never appeared without an appointment in six years. I also have a fiancée who isn't really my fiancée, standing three feet away with her entire life spread across a screen, and a phone call from my enemy's son that felt less like a threat and more like a warning meant for someone else.