Chapter 2 - Her Twin Sold the Joke for $200,000—But the Mafia Boss Discovered the Blind Date Was Cover for a $38 Million CrimeDelaney did not move into Luca Marcellus's house.
He suggested it.
She said no.
He suggested a hotel owned by his company.
She said absolutely not.
He offered a guarded apartment.
She stared until he stopped talking.
Eventually they compromised on a short-term rental chosen by Delaney, paid for by Delaney, with two security professionals hired through an independent firm.
Luca hated every part of the arrangement.
Which made Delaney like it more.
“You enjoy telling me no.”
They sat in a conference room inside the office of Delaney's attorney, Maya Chen.
“I'm reclaiming lost time.”
Luca leaned back.
“Fair.”
Maya pushed a folder toward Delaney.
“Abbott Strategic Capital has contracts with Beaumont totaling thirty-eight point four million over three years.”
“For what?”
“Consulting, procurement optimization, software implementation.”
“I've never seen their software.”
“Neither has anyone else.”
Delaney frowned.
Maya continued:
“Most invoices were approved by Beaumont's chief financial officer, Martin Sloane.”
Delaney knew him.
Everyone did.
Charity photographs.
Hospital fundraisers.
Speeches about affordable healthcare.
“How does Jared fit?”
“He's a vice president at Abbott.”
“His father?”
“Founder.”
Luca remained quiet.
Delaney looked at him.
“You know something.”
“Yes.”
“Share with the class.”
Maya hid a smile.
Luca opened another file.
“Abbott Strategic Capital has borrowed heavily against assets that may not exist.”
“How heavily?”
“Two hundred sixty million.”
Delaney whistled.
“They're insolvent.”
“Possibly.”
“Stop using mafia words.”
“Possibly is a legal word.”
“You're enjoying this.”
“A little.”
Maya interrupted.
“The important part is that Delaney's hospital data may prove Abbott used Beaumont contracts to create fake revenue.”
Delaney understood.
“They inflate contracts.”
“Then use those contracts as collateral.”
“Yes.”
“And the duplicated invoices?”
“Cash extraction.”
Delaney leaned back.
“So Jared wasn't interested in me.”
Luca's expression hardened.
Delaney noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was definitely something.”
“He's an idiot.”
“Because?”
“Several reasons.”
“Luca.”
“Continue.”
Delaney almost smiled.
Maya did.
“Your remote access credentials could give them a path into internal payment records.”
Delaney remembered Jared's phone on the table.
His questions.
His insistence she stay.
“Could he have copied my phone?”
“If he got close enough.”
“He asked me to charge it.”
Maya stopped.
“What?”
“At the beginning of dinner. He had a battery pack.”
Luca swore softly.
Delaney felt sick.
“I plugged in for maybe five minutes.”
Maya wrote something.
“That device needs to be identified.”
Luca's phone buzzed.
He read the message.
“Jared boarded a flight.”
“To where?”
“Geneva.”
Delaney stared.
“He's running.”
“Looks like it.”
“What about Daphne?”
Silence.
Delaney looked between them.
“What?”
Maya answered.
“Her management company received four hundred thousand dollars from Abbott Strategic over the last six months.”
Delaney's heart sank.
“Four?”
“Two hundred for the livestream. Two hundred before.”
“For what?”
“We don't know.”
Delaney called Daphne.
No answer.
Again.
Voicemail.
She stood.
“I need to find her.”
Luca stood too.
“No.”
Delaney slowly turned.
He corrected himself.
“I recommend we find her without you going anywhere unsafe.”
“Better.”
“I am learning.”
They found Daphne six hours later.
She was hiding in a suite at the Whitmore Hotel.
When Delaney entered with Maya and two security officers, Daphne ran toward her.
Delaney stepped back.
Daphne stopped.
That hurt them both.
“Tell me everything.”
Daphne cried.
“I didn't know.”
“Everything.”
“Jared contacted my manager months ago.”
“What did he want?”
“Brand integrations.”
“Daphne.”
“He asked about you.”
“When?”
“From the beginning.”
“Why didn't that seem strange?”
“People ask about you.”
“Why?”
“Because we're twins.”
“No. People ask because you've spent years turning me into a character.”
Daphne looked down.
Delaney continued:
“What did you tell him?”
“Where you worked.”
“Address?”
“Yes.”
“Phone number?”
“Yes.”
“Schedule?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Luca looked away.
Not because he was bored.
Because he was furious.
Delaney remained calm.
“What was the first two hundred thousand for?”
Daphne whispered:
“A campaign that never happened.”
“Meaning?”
“He paid the agency for a future sponsorship.”
“There was no sponsorship.”
“I know that now.”
“You sold him information about me.”
“I didn't think of it that way.”
“That doesn't change what it was.”
Daphne sobbed.
“I thought he liked you.”
Delaney stared.
“No, you didn't.”
Daphne stopped.
“If you thought he liked me, there wouldn't have been a prank.”
Silence.
Truth settled between them.
Finally Daphne whispered:
“I wanted the views.”
Delaney nodded.
There it was.
Ugly.
Simple.
Honest.
“Thank you.”
Daphne looked confused.
“For what?”
“For finally not lying.”
She sat opposite her sister.
“What did Jared ask you to do after the livestream?”
“Get your laptop.”
Luca turned.
Delaney's blood chilled.
“What?”
“He said there was footage on it.”
“That's nonsense.”
“I know.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I started getting scared.”
Daphne pulled out her phone.
“He sent this.”
A message.
If your sister talks, your career ends before hers does.
Another.
Remember who owns the raw footage.
Another.
Get the laptop.
Delaney took screenshots.
Daphne whispered:
“I'm sorry.”
“I know.”
“Can you forgive me?”
“No.”
Daphne cried.
“Maybe someday.”
“But forgiveness isn't today's job.”
“What is?”
“Fixing what you helped break.”
Daphne looked up.
“How?”
“Go public.”
Luca frowned.
Daphne went pale.
“What?”
“Tell your followers the truth.”
“My sponsors will leave.”
“Yes.”
“My agency will drop me.”
“Probably.”
“I could lose everything.”
Delaney looked at her.
“You used me because you believed your career mattered more than my dignity.”
“If you're actually sorry, here's where you prove that belief has changed.”
Daphne stared at her twin.
Then slowly nodded.
That night, she livestreamed.
No makeup.
No filters.
No manager.
“My name is Daphne Waverly, and I lied to you.”
The stream reached one million viewers in twenty minutes.
She explained the prank.
The payment.
Jared.
The information she shared.
She did not excuse herself.
She did not call it a misunderstanding.
She said:
“I humiliated my sister because cruelty had become profitable for me.”
Delaney watched from another room.
She cried.
Not because everything was fixed.
Because for the first time Daphne was telling the truth when lying would have been easier.
Sponsors dropped her before the livestream ended.
By morning, seven contracts were canceled.
Her agency suspended her.
But something else happened.
Other creators began talking.
Jared had approached them too.
Employees from Abbott Strategic contacted regulators.
Then Beaumont suspended Martin Sloane.
The scheme began collapsing.
Three days later, Jared returned from Geneva.
Federal agents arrested him at JFK.
Delaney thought it was over.
She was wrong.
Jared requested a meeting through attorneys.
He offered cooperation.
In exchange, he gave prosecutors a name.
Vincent Marcellus.
Luca's uncle.
Delaney read the name twice.
“You knew?”
They stood in Luca's office.
“No.”
“Don't lie.”
His face hardened.
“I suspected Vincent had investments with Abbott.”
“Investments?”
“Yes.”
“Legal?”
“I don't know.”
“That's convenient.”
“Delaney.”
“Your uncle may be behind the men outside my apartment.”
“I know.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I didn't have proof.”
“You had suspicion.”
“Yes.”
“You should have told me.”
“Yes.”
The immediate answer disarmed her.
Luca continued:
“I was wrong.”
She folded her arms.
“That's it?”
“No defense?”
“I have explanations.”
“Different thing.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I was afraid you'd disappear.”
There it was.
Not control.
Fear.
Still unacceptable.
Delaney said:
“You don't get to protect a relationship by controlling the information inside it.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I do now.”
She walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Security—”
“Will come.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
Delaney stopped.
“That's all?”
“What would you like me to do?”
She almost laughed.
Old Delaney might have wanted him to chase.
To prove she mattered.
New Delaney wanted something harder.
Respect.
“I want you to tell federal investigators everything you know about Vincent.”
Luca became still.
“That could destroy my family.”
Delaney looked back.
“Then decide what kind of family deserves protecting.”
She left.
Two days later, Luca entered a federal building carrying twelve years of Marcellus financial records.
He stayed nine hours.
When he emerged, reporters were waiting.
Luca said only:
“No family name is more important than the truth.”
Vincent Marcellus disappeared that night.
And Delaney realized the cruel blind date had opened a door into something far larger than internet humiliation.
It had exposed Jared.
Jared had exposed Abbott.
Abbott had exposed Vincent.
And Vincent—
according to the evidence Luca surrendered—
had been stealing from the Marcellus organization for nearly fifteen years.
But the most disturbing document was not financial.
It was a photograph.
Daphne leaving a restaurant six months earlier.
Beside her stood Vincent.
Delaney stared at it.
“My sister knows him?”
Luca's expression was grim.
“I don't think she does.”
“Then why is he following her?”
Luca placed another photograph beside it.
Delaney leaving Beaumont.
Vincent again.
Then another.
Their mother's house.
Another.
Delaney's apartment.
Weeks before Jared contacted Daphne.
Delaney went cold.
“This started before the prank.”
“Yes.”
“Why us?”
Luca placed one final document on the table.
A birth certificate.
Delaney read it.
Then again.
Her father's name was missing.
Attached was an old photograph.
Their mother, twenty-seven years younger.
Beside her—
Luca's late father.
Delaney's breath stopped.
“No.”
Luca looked equally shaken.
“Delaney…”
“No.”
She stepped backward.
“My mother knew your family?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don't know.”
“What does Vincent want from us?”
Luca turned over the photograph.
On the back, handwritten:
Waverly twins. Keep them away from Vincent until they turn twenty-seven.
Delaney's twenty-seventh birthday was in eleven days.
And suddenly she understood something terrifying.
Jared had not chosen Daphne because she was famous.
He had not chosen Delaney because she worked at Beaumont.
May you like
Those things had merely made them useful.
Someone had been waiting for the Waverly twins to reach twenty-seven.
Related Stories
