Chapter 205: "Justice Served"

Jeremiah lounged in a plush velvet armchair in the basement of his private mansion, his attention fixed on the tablet in his hands.

Across the screen was breaking news from that morning:

Accardi Bank had declared Bellini Media in default and demanded immediate repayment of its outstanding loans.

Jeremiah skimmed every line with an amused smile playing across his lips.

Yet, when he finally spoke, his voice carried such theatrical regret that one might have assumed he was reading an obituary.

"Ah... What a shame. What a terrible, terrible shame."

He clicked his tongue in exaggerated disappointment.

"Apparently, Isidore Accardi somehow managed to make his move before me. How am I supposed to play Prince Charming and deliver the perfect revenge for his princess now?"

With that, he turned the tablet around and lifted it high enough for Marco, who stood on the other side of the room, to read the headline.

Marco narrowed his eyes at the screen.

The instant he understood what he was reading, he hurried across the room with an expression of profound relief.

"Goodness, finally!" Marco exclaimed. "Justice served without you having to do anything!"

But then his relief quickly transformed into exasperation as he gestured wildly around them.

"Then what are we going to do about this bloody mess now, huh? I told you! You shouldn’t have captured them in the first place!"

The "bloody mess" Marco referred to was, quite literally, a bloodied mess.

Several battered men lay scattered across the basement floor, groaning beneath the watchful eyes of Castellano men towering over them.

Some curled protectively around bruised ribs; others barely possessed enough strength to lift their heads.

They were the unfortunate members of Lucilla Bellini’s production-booth team, along with the equally unfortunate men assigned to escort them.

Jeremiah’s people had intercepted them the moment they exited the opera house.

Since then, the captives had endured a long and thoroughly unpleasant interrogation designed to force them to confess one simple fact:

The explicit footage displayed during Ariana Lombardi’s press conference had not appeared because of some unfortunate technical error.

Jeremiah lowered the tablet and regarded the captives with something resembling pity.

"Stop it, guys."

His lips curved dangerously.

"Drag them outside."

Jeremiah’s men immediately looked toward him. The command itself was simple enough, yet everyone in the basement understood exactly what it implied.

The captives understood it, too.

Their faces drained of what little color remained, and frantic shouting erupted across the basement as the Castellano men began hauling them to their feet.

"No! No, wait!" One man began thrashing the instant an enforcer grabbed his arm. "Mister Castellano, you can’t do this to us!"

Another struggled despite his battered condition.

"You can’t get rid of us like this! We already confessed! We told you everything was done under Lucilla Bellini’s orders!"

"What else do you even need from us, Mister Castellano?" another shouted desperately.

Jeremiah was already beginning to look bored. He covered a yawn with one hand and sank more comfortably into the velvet armchair.

"You see, that’s precisely the problem."

He sighed regretfully.

"You decided to tell me all of that after Isidore Accardi financially nuked Bellini Media."

The captives stared at him.

Jeremiah offered them an apologetic smile so insincere that Marco almost winced.

"Now everything’s basically done. Your company’s screwed. I’m terribly sad to announce that none of you serve any purpose to me or my needs anymore."

The captives descended into deeper panic at once.

"No, no, no! Please!"

"There’s more! There are other ways you can screw her over!"

"She humiliated your mistress, didn’t she? What we know can humiliate Lucilla even worse!"

"You’ll still get to play the gentleman, Mister Castellano!"

For the briefest moment, Jeremiah actually looked intrigued. He straightened in his chair, leaned forward, and rested his chin atop his interlaced hands.

"Oh?"

His smile brightened, his expression almost cherubic with anticipation.

"What is it? I’m listening."

The battered men immediately began speaking over one another, each desperate to produce something valuable enough to purchase another minute of life.

"Lucilla Bellini never sells authentic artwork at her exhibitions!" one blurted out.

"Everything in her galleries is fake!" another shouted. "They’re reproductions of actual works!"

"You can expose her!" A third nodded frantically. "Her entire art business would collapse. Her reputation in the industry too!"

Jeremiah listened with an expression of steadily mounting astonishment.

His brows rose.

His eyes widened.

Eventually, one hand flew dramatically to his chest.

"My, my, my."

He looked positively scandalized.

"What earth-shattering news. How could I possibly have gone this long without knowing any of this?"

Then, just as hope began flickering across several of the captives’ battered faces...

...a tiny crease appeared between Jeremiah’s brows, as though he had suddenly remembered something terribly important.

"Except..."

His radiant smile returned.

"...I might have already known."

The confession drained all traces of hope from every captive’s face.

One by one, they stared at him as though he’d just personally delivered their death sentences.

"You..." One swallowed. "You knew?"

"H-how?" another stammered.

Jeremiah lifted one finger and wagged it at them in profound disapproval.

"Apparently, all of you have mistaken me for an idiot like yourselves — and like the rest of the idiots out there who can’t tell genuine art from a fake."

He glanced toward his men and gave a dismissive flick of his wrist.

"Please, gentlemen, just take them away before they cause permanent damage to my beauty-perceiving nervous system. What a horrible insult to my sophisticated powers of perception."

The Castellano men obeyed at once.

The captives screamed and thrashed as they were hauled toward the exit, their pleas overlapping into a frantic wall of noise.

Unfortunately, whatever strength remained in them accomplished very little against the men dragging them away.

Marco watched until the last one disappeared through the doorway.

When the door finally shut and silence returned to the basement, he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"Eh... Young Boss?"

He cautiously leaned closer to Jeremiah.

"If you already knew Lucilla was selling fake paintings... then where did all those million-dollar paintings decorating our casino hallways come from? I thought you bought them from her."

Jeremiah slowly turned his head.

The disbelief on his face suggested that Marco had just asked whether the moon was made of cheese.

"Nah. Not from her."

His smile deepened mysteriously.

"They came from... let’s say, a very reliable source."

Marco’s eyes narrowed.

’That sounds suspicious as hell.’

But before he could ask exactly where those paintings had come from, Jeremiah had already changed the subject.

"Have you managed to get all those pretty flowers packed up like I asked, Marco?"

Marco immediately gave him a deeply annoyed look, as though the task alone had consumed the last remnants of his sanity.

"Yeah. It took several trucks to fit all those damn flowers, but they’re packed now. What do you even want to do with them again?"

As usual, Jeremiah didn’t answer the question directly.

Instead, he leaned back and gazed thoughtfully toward the ceiling.

"Say, Marco..."

"Hm?"

"The last time we drove past the Sartori estate, didn’t the place look a little bleak to you?"

Marco froze.

Several pieces of information collided inside his head at once.

The Sartori estate.

Ariana Lombardi currently living there.

The flowers.

The trucks.

And last but not least...

Caio Sartori.

Marco’s eyes widened in horror.

"No way..."

He stared at Jeremiah.

"No. No fucking way. You seriously plan to send all of those to—"

"Well," Jeremiah interrupted dreamily, "our little Miss Lombardi did ask to have those flowers after the event, didn’t she?"

His gaze drifted somewhere distant as he pictured the result.

"Perhaps... a little floral decoration would do that ugly mansion some good."