Chapter 21 - The Whispers of Julian Bennett
The winter rain beat mercilessly against the windows of the Ritz-Carlton Boston. Claire stood on the penthouse terrace, looking out over the familiar skyline of the city that had once been her prison.
Below, the lights of the Boston Common glittered through the mist. Somewhere down in those rain-drenched streets, Eleanor and Julian Bennett were realizing that their gilded world had not merely cracked—it had imploded into fine powder.
A discreet knock sounded at the door. Matteo entered, carrying a glass of chilled white wine and a sleek black tablet.
“Julian has been calling your private office line in Rome every ten minutes for the past four hours,” Matteo said, stepping beside her and handing her the glass. “He even had the audacity to call the Rossi family estate in Frascati, demanding to speak to ‘his sister.’”
Claire took a sip of the wine. “Did he leave voicemails?”
Matteo tapped the tablet, pressing play on the latest message. Julian’s voice crackled through the speaker, thick with alcohol, panic, and manic desperation.
*“Claire! Pick up the damn phone! You can’t do this to Mom! She’s sixty-four years old, and the marshals threw her suitcases onto the sidewalk in the rain! What kind of sick monster are you? Dad is having a nervous breakdown in Otisville, and my boss told me I was blacklisted across the entire East Coast! We’re family, Claire! Whatever happened between you and Dad, that was business! I didn't steal your designs! I’m your brother! Call off your Swiss bloodhounds, or swear to God, I will go to every newspaper in Boston and tell them you paid off the Italian inspectors to win the Rovere contract!”*
Claire shook her head with a mixture of disgust and pity. “Even at the very bottom, he still thinks he has leverage. He still thinks the world owes him applause just for breathing.”
“There was a second message,” Matteo said quietly, his face darkening. “Thirty minutes later.”
He tapped the screen again. Julian’s tone had changed—the fake brotherly pleading had vanished, replaced by a jagged, cornered malice.
*“You think you’re so smart with that Vance trust, don't you? You think you know everything? Dad kept a safe box. Not at Bennett Design—at the old summer cottage in Marblehead. He told me about it years ago in case of an emergency. Genevieve’s personal letters are in there, Claire. Letters she wrote to your grandfather... and letters she wrote to you. You want them? Meet me at the Marblehead house tonight at ten. Come alone. If you bring your Italian mobster or those Swiss lawyers, I’ll burn the box to ashes.”*
The recording clicked off. The rain lashed harder against the glass.
Matteo crossed his arms, his posture radiating lethal menace. “It’s an ambush. Julian is bankrupt, disgraced, and desperate. A cornered rat will bite anything that moves.”
“Of course it’s an ambush,” Claire replied calmly. “Julian Bennett has never done an honest day’s work in his life. He doesn't want to trade those letters; he wants to extort me for enough cash to flee the country.”
“Then we send the state police,” Matteo urged. “We have enough evidence of extortion to put him in a cell right next to Evan.”
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“No,” Claire said firmly, setting her glass down on the marble console. “The Marblehead cottage was bought with money Evan siphoned from Genevieve’s initial restoration funds in 1990. That house, that land, every stone and shingle belongs to the Vance estate. And more importantly... if Genevieve left letters for me, I am not leaving them in Julian’s filthy hands for another hour.”
She looked up at Matteo, her gaze unwavering. “We go to Marblehead. But we don't go alone. We go with the full weight of the law, and we end this tonight.”
