Chapter 5
Vale Image & Lifestyle’s bank records produced the next problem.
Serena had received approximately $386,000 from Bellandi family accounts.
About $210,000 could be connected to real services and disclosed commissions.
The remaining amount required explanation.
Some money paid assistants.
Some paid vendors.
Some went toward ordinary business expenses.
Then $94,000 moved into Serena’s personal investment account.
Another $61,000 paid down a private line of credit.
Victor stared at Rebecca.
“Was she in financial trouble?”
“Moderately.”
Serena had spent heavily during the engagement.
Apartment renovations before moving into Victor’s estate.
Designer inventory for her business.
A failed partnership with a luxury-events company.
She owed about $280,000 across business and personal credit.
Not ruinous by Victor’s standards.
Significant for Serena.
Her financial position explained overbilling.
It did not explain the camera.
Then Rebecca found an engagement-related agreement Victor had forgotten about.
Not a prenup.
That remained unsigned because final execution was scheduled for the morning after the wedding ceremony.
This was an older cohabitation agreement.
Victor signed it when Serena moved into the estate fourteen months earlier.
If the relationship ended, Serena kept her personal property and received six months of relocation support.
Reasonable.
A later amendment added a specific provision because Serena claimed she was reducing her business work while planning the wedding.
If Victor ended the engagement without cause, she would receive a $350,000 transition payment.
If the relationship ended because of documented serious misconduct by Victor, the parties would negotiate additional civil claims separately.
Nothing guaranteed Serena millions.
Nothing made abuse profitable automatically.
Still, it created one potential source of leverage.
Victor looked at Rebecca.
“She could just sue me for what I did with the clippers.”
“Yes.”
“Does that erase the vendor issue?”
“No.”
“So why would she intentionally provoke it?”
Rebecca did not assume she had.
“Maybe she didn’t.”
Good.
Victor needed that possibility preserved.
Then Serena’s attorney sent a demand.
Not for reconciliation.
Not for the transition payment.
The letter demanded preservation of all estate footage, compensation for physical assault, payment of contractual relocation benefits, and an agreement preventing Victor or his companies from making public accusations concerning Serena’s wedding-business finances until an independent review was complete.
Victor read the last clause twice.
“Why put financial accusations into an assault demand?”
Rebecca looked at him.
May you like
“That is a useful question.”
Serena’s personal injury claim and the vendor audit had entered the same legal document less than twenty-four hours after the wedding collapsed.
