A Million Dollars Too Late Chapter 06

A Million Dollars Too Late Chapter 06

Marcello’s POV

I wouldn’t let anyone cremate her.

I brought them both home-mother and child-to the Lake Forest estate.

I turned the bedroom air conditioning as low as it would go. The entire house went cold as a morgue.

I locked myself inside.

Audrey lay on the bed, her hands folded over her stomach exactly where our child had been. A child I never

even knew existed until he died alongside his mother.

Two days later, Enzo knocked on the door.

He brought me a file.

“The car accident involving Audrey’s parents was not an accident.”

“The truck driver received a payment from a Corvino family account just before the crash.”

“The inmate who led the abuse against Miss Lane inside the prison was also paid by Valeria.”

I flipped through the pages. Every number was laid out clean.

The truck that killed Audrey’s father. The crash that took her mother’s legs and left her still fighting in the

ICU.

Valeria hadn’t just killed Audrey. She’d destroyed the only family Audrey had left.

“What about the safe footage?”

“Our techs recovered it.”

Enzo handed me a tablet.

I watched myself drop the key onto Audrey’s nightstand. I watched her enter the study and reach only for the

emerald set I had told her to take.

Valeria had bribed a maid to hide the jewelry. Then she stormed in with her bodyguards.

I watched Audrey get kicked to the floor. Watched her face get smashed bloody. Then I watched myself walk

into that room, step around her, and go straight to Valeria to ask if she was okay.

On the screen, Audrey reached a trembling hand toward me.

Her lips formed the words, “Help me.”

I hadn’t helped her.

I’d told the police the Ravello family does not protect thieves. I’d put her in that prison myself. I’d ordered the family lawyers to push for the maximum sentence.

I hurled the tablet against the wall. Then I raised my hand and slapped myself across the face.

Again. And again. Until blood ran from the corner of my mouth. But what was that pain worth?

The pain Audrey felt when they beat her in that cell-it was nothing compared to this. And our child… what

had he felt, dying inside her before he could even live?

I knelt beside that bed for three straight days. On the morning of the fourth day, I finally walked out of the

bedroom.

Valeria had been waiting for word from me. She figured a few days had passed, so I must have accepted

Audrey’s death.

I called her myself. “The wedding is still on.”

I could hear her exhale with relief. “Marcello, I knew you still loved me.”

“Yeah.”

I stared at the crumpled diagnosis Audrey had left behind. “I’m going to give you a wedding Chicago will

never forget.”

After hanging up, I ordered the Ravello family to sever every port route the Corvinos used. I froze their casino funds. I pulled every investment.

My men also found the truck driver who had killed Audrey’s father.

I didn’t kill him. I just made sure he’d never grip a steering wheel again.

On the wedding day, Valeria walked into the Ravello Hotel in a gown dripping with diamonds.

Everyone with power in Chicago was in that room. She walked down the aisle on her father’s arm, a

triumphant smile on her face.

I didn’t put the ring on her finger. I lifted my hand and snapped my fingers.

Every screen in the banquet hall flared to life. The safe footage. The bank transfers. Every recorded call

where she’d paid off the driver and the inmate.

Valeria’s vicious voice echoed through the ballroom. The guests went dead silent.

Her face went white. “Marcello, shut it off! None of that is real!”

Sirens wailed outside the hotel. Police flooded the wedding hall, grabbed Valeria in her wedding dress, and drove her face-first into the floor.

I walked over and looked down at her. “This is just the beginning. You will get every single thing inside that

prison that Audrey got.”

She screamed and begged. I didn’t listen. I turned and walked away from my own wedding.

The revenge was done, but I didn’t feel any satisfaction. Because Audrey wasn’t coming back. And neither

was our child.