Chapter 13 - The Wedding Without a Groom)
At three forty seven, Giulietta Marconi walked onto the ceremony lawn alone.
Three hundred conversations stopped.
Guests turned.
Phones lifted.
Her white gown moved through the grass.
The floral arch waited behind the empty altar.
Preston was nowhere in sight.
Neither was Warren.
Marco remained near the doors.
Naomi stood beside him.
Celeste watched from farther back.
Giulietta reached the center of the lawn.
A microphone had been placed for the officiant.
She did not use it immediately.
She looked at the people who had come expecting a marriage.
Friends.
Employees.
Business partners.
Relatives.
Reporters invited because Warren wanted the wedding covered.
That detail now seemed like a gift.
Giulietta stepped to the microphone.
"Thank you for coming."
Whispers stopped.
"There will not be a wedding today."
Gasps moved across the lawn.
Giulietta continued.
"I won't discuss private evidence or an ongoing investigation."
Naomi visibly relaxed.
"But I will say one thing."
Giulietta looked across the guests.
"A wedding is supposed to be a promise freely made."
Her voice remained steady.
"It is not permission for one person to control another."
Several heads turned toward the Hale family seats.
Empty.
Giulietta continued.
"So there will be no vows today."
She paused.
"But there is excellent food, an unreasonable amount of champagne and a cake that deserves a better ending than being thrown away."
Laughter broke through the tension.
Giulietta smiled.
"If you'd like to stay, please stay."
More laughter.
Then applause began.
Quietly at first.
Her cousin Lucia stood.
Then another relative.
Then employees.
Within seconds, much of the lawn was applauding.
Not because they knew the details.
Because Giulietta had stood in a wedding dress and refused to pretend.
She stepped away from the microphone.
Marco met her near the terrace.
"You just turned your canceled wedding into a party."
"I paid for it."
He laughed for the first time that day.
Then his phone rang.
His smile vanished.
"What?"
He listened.
Giulietta watched.
When he ended the call, she knew.
"Warren?"
"Gone."
"Where?"
"His driver says he left Bellafonte forty minutes ago."
"Preston?"
"Also gone."
Naomi joined them.
"Federal investigators froze multiple Hale accounts."
"Will they arrest Warren?"
"Not necessarily today."
Giulietta looked toward the driveway.
She did not like uncertainty.
But the wedding guests needed no more drama.
She changed into a simple ivory cocktail dress and returned to the reception.
The orchestra played.
Dinner was served.
The cake was cut.
Celeste stayed near the edge of the ballroom until Giulietta approached.
"You should dance."
Celeste smiled sadly.
"I haven't danced at a wedding in thirty years."
"Good night to restart."
Giulietta took her hand.
Celeste laughed.
For three minutes, surrounded by strangers who did not know her history, Warren Hale's former wife danced beneath chandeliers.
Then Preston appeared.
The music continued.
Most guests did not notice immediately.
Giulietta did.
He stood at the ballroom entrance in the same white shirt.
No jacket.
No tie.
His face looked bruised but not badly injured.
He had been drinking.
Marco saw him.
Security moved.
Giulietta lifted a hand.
Not yet.
Preston crossed the room.
Conversations slowly died.
He stopped before Giulietta.
"You turned it into a party."
"Yes."
He laughed.
"Of course you did."
"You should leave."
"I want five minutes."
"No."
"Giulietta."
"Not alone."
He looked at Marco.
"Always hiding behind him."
Giulietta's expression hardened.
"I knocked you onto a sofa without Marco."
A few nearby guests heard.
Preston flushed.
"Nice."
"You came here."
He looked around at the room.
"Everyone's laughing at me."
"No. Most people don't care enough about you to spend their evening doing that."
That hurt more.
Preston's eyes filled with anger.
Then something inside him collapsed.
His shoulders dropped.
"My father left."
Giulietta said nothing.
"He won't answer."
"That's not my problem."
"He emptied an account."
Marco stepped closer.
"What account?"
Preston laughed bitterly.
"Mine."
Giulietta frowned.
"How much?"
"Everything liquid."
Naomi appeared beside Marco.
Preston looked at her.
"He used me."
Naomi said, "We told you."
"I thought..."
He stopped.
Giulietta understood what he could not say.
He had thought Warren's control was love because Warren always placed Preston beside himself.
He had never realized being favored was different from being free.
Preston looked at Celeste.
"I'm sorry."
Celeste went very still.
He continued.
"I was fourteen."
"I know."
"I believed him."
"I know."
His eyes filled.
"But I kept believing him."
Celeste did not rescue him from the truth.
"Yes."
Preston looked at Giulietta.
"I can help."
Naomi stepped forward.
"How?"
"My father keeps records nobody knows about."
Marco's attention sharpened.
"Where?"
"Private vault in Hale Capital."
"Investigators will search it."
"No."
Preston shook his head.
"Not that vault."
He looked at Giulietta.
"There's another one."
"Where?"
"Under the lake house."
Celeste's face changed.
"What?"
Preston turned to her.
"He built it after you left."
"What does he keep there?"
"Everything he can't let auditors see."
Naomi immediately took out her phone.
"Can you prove that?"
Preston nodded.
"I know the access code."
"Why should anyone trust you?"
He looked at Giulietta.
"You shouldn't."
For once, there was no arrogance in the answer.
Only exhaustion.
"But I can still give you the code."
Naomi contacted investigators.
Preston remained at Bellafonte under security supervision until they arrived.
Before leaving, he looked at Giulietta one final time.
"I did love you."
She believed him.
That did not change anything.
"I know."
He swallowed.
"Does that matter at all?"
"Yes."
Hope appeared.
Then Giulietta finished.
"It makes what you did worse."
Preston looked down.
Investigators escorted him away.
Not in handcuffs.
Not yet.
Celeste watched her son leave.
Giulietta stood beside her.
Neither spoke.
At eleven fifteen that night, federal agents entered the hidden vault beneath Warren Hale's lake house.
They found servers.
Cash ledgers.
Medical files.
Private recordings.
And a red folder labeled MARCONI.
Inside it was a document dated seventeen years earlier.
A payment authorization issued the morning after Luca Marconi died.
Recipient:
A mechanic named Samuel Pike.
Amount:
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Purpose:
May you like
CONSULTING.
The man had worked at the garage that serviced Luca's car three days before the fatal crash.
