Chapter 14 - The Trial|
Carlo let out a loud, theatrical laugh, standing up from his chair. "An investigation?! Dante, are you insane?! Marco pulled the sapphire from her handbag right here in front of twenty witnesses!"
"Marco," Dante said softly, ignoring Carlo completely. "Open the briefcase."
Marco stepped forward, setting the briefcase on the mahogany table, flipping the silver latches open with two sharp clicks.
He pulled out a heavy velvet display box and set it in front of Aunt Sophia. He opened the lid.
Inside sat the sapphire necklace.
Sophia gasped, reaching out with shaking fingers. "My mother's necklace!"
"Take a closer look, Aunt Sophia," Isabella said, her voice clear, steady, and utterly commanding as she stepped up to the table. "That necklace is made of synthetic blue glass and silver-plated copper. It was manufactured in a workshop in New Jersey two months ago."
The captains murmured in shock. Sophia pulled her hands back as if she had been burned.
"That's absurd!" Carlo shouted, his face flushing red. "She's lying to save her skin!"
Isabella pulled a stack of official documents from her leather folder, tossing them onto the center of the table.
"That is an appraisal report from the Senior Gemological Institute of New York," Isabella said, looking Carlo dead in the eye. "And beneath it is a bill of sale from a private auction house in Zurich, Switzerland. The real sapphire necklace was sold on August 14th for $1.2 million."
Uncle Sal reached out, picking up the Zurich receipt, his sharp eyes scanning the signature at the bottom.
Sal’s face went completely pale. "Carlo..."
"It's a forgery!" Carlo panicked, looking around at the captains, his smooth composure rapidly disintegrating. "She forged those documents! She's an accountant, she knows how to fake papers!"
"Then explain this, cousin," Dante said softly, leaning over the table, his gray eyes burning with pure murder.
Dante tapped the screen of a tablet Marco held out. A high-definition video began playing for the entire room to see.
It was security footage from a private bank in Brooklyn, dated three days ago.
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Carlo was clearly visible standing at a teller counter, depositing a cashier's check for six hundred thousand dollars into a shell company account registered under the name Apex Logistics.
"And explain," Isabella added calmly, "why Apex Logistics wired four hundred thousand dollars directly to the Genovese syndicate’s primary holding firm yesterday afternoon."
