1146 When His Pregnant Wife Handed Back Her Ring and Walked Out into the Cold, the Ruthless Shipping Boss Had No Idea She Was the Only Person Who Could Save His Empire from Ruin

"He's not my business partner," Elena said, stepping back toward the diner's entrance.

"Not on paper," Marcus agreed, stopping beneath the amber glow of a pole light. Water dripped from the brim of his cap. "Dante likes to keep his hands clean where the waterfront is concerned. He signs the legitimate bills of lading, and other people handle the gray freight. Like that zinc shipment you were looking at tonight."

Elena’s breath caught. "How do you know about the zinc?"

Marcus pulled a manila envelope from inside his jacket, keeping it protected beneath his arm. "Because I'm the one who hauled it out of Pier Seventeen before the coast guard inspection. Only it wasn't zinc. It was pharmaceutical precursors coming in from international containers that Dante supposedly flagged as lost."

"Why are you telling me this?" Elena demanded.

"Because Dante thinks he can squeeze Bianca out and keep the whole operation," Marcus said quietly. "And Bianca thinks she can use Dante to take over the entire North Shore distribution network. Neither of them realizes that the federal shipping commission has been auditing those manifests for three months. You didn't find that receipt by accident, Mrs. Moretti. Someone dropped it in Dante's drawer to frame him—or to make sure you found it and started asking questions."

"Who?"

"Ask yourself who benefits if Dante goes down before the baby is born," Marcus said, tossing the manila envelope onto the hood of her father's sedan. "That file has the real shipping logs. Not Dante's version. Yours."

Before Elena could touch the envelope, Marcus turned and walked back to his car. The taillights flared red in the rain, and he was gone.

Elena sat in the driver's seat of her sedan, her hands trembling as she untied the string on the envelope. Inside were duplicate customs declarations bearing Dante's signature—signatures that looked remarkably authentic, yet used a corporate seal that Dante had legally dissolved two years ago.

Someone was forging Dante's name.

And if the federal authorities traced those forged documents back to the Moretti shipping lines, Dante wouldn't just lose his business.