Chapter 3
Marco reconstructed the banquet expenses.
The results were almost insulting.
The ballroom.
Catering.
Flowers.
Music.
Security.
Photography.
Desserts.
Transportation.
Total contracted cost:
$173,400.
Expensive.
Obscene by Rosa’s standards.
Still nowhere near $480,000.
Lucia looked at Marco.
“Maybe Celina borrowed extra for other expenses.”
“Possible.”
“Did she?”
“We’re tracing it.”
Then Marco handed over something worse.
The banquet vendors had already been paid.
Not from Beacon Crest’s loan.
From a legitimate Ferraro family event account Lucia herself had approved months earlier.
She had agreed to cover Celina’s birthday because Dominic had paid for a large family charity weekend the previous year.
Lucia remembered the conversation.
“Keep it under two hundred.”
Dominic promised.
He had.
At least officially.
Lucia stared at the payment ledger.
“So the party didn’t need a loan.”
“No.”
“Not one dollar.”
“Not that I can see.”
Rosa looked confused.
“Then why does the paperwork call it event financing?”
Rebecca turned toward Marco.
“Where did the loan proceeds go?”
“Three transfers.”
The first:
$92,000 to a private consulting company.
The second:
$138,000 into an escrow account.
The third:
$250,000 to an account labeled Strategic Hospitality Reserve.
Lucia frowned.
“Whose reserve?”
“We’re still identifying ownership.”
Celina’s lawyer responded that afternoon.
The statement was polished.
Mercifully short.
Celina denied fraud.
She claimed Dominic had given her broad authority to coordinate “family hospitality financing.”
She claimed Rosa had discussed leveraging the restaurant to expand its future opportunities.
Rosa nearly laughed when Rebecca read that sentence.
“My future opportunity is lunch tomorrow.”
Rebecca smiled faintly.
Then continued.
Celina claimed the $480,000 loan supported a broader package of family hospitality expenditures, not merely the birthday.
Lucia asked:
“What broader package?”
No documents answered that.
Then a restaurant employee called Rosa.
Someone had come to photograph the building.
Again.
Rosa put the call on speaker.
“Who?”
“A real-estate survey company.”
“Who hired them?”
The employee checked.
“Harborstone Development.”
Lucia looked at Marco.
“Does that name mean anything?”
He searched his notes.
Then stopped.
“What?”
“The loan’s appraisal.”
“What about it?”
“It was ordered by Beacon Crest.”
“Yes.”
“But Harborstone Development received a copy.”
Lucia leaned back.
A private lender was financing a party that had already been paid for.
The collateral was dramatically more valuable than the loan.
And a development company with no visible role in the birthday had received the restaurant appraisal months before the banquet.
May you like
The missing money had stopped looking like extravagance.
It was starting to look like land.
