Chapter 84: What Matteo Knew

Giovanni had spent years wanting to know what had happened to his father.

His mother had died without ever getting the answers she deserved, after she and Matteo had given so much of their lives to building something they could be proud of.

Neither had lived long enough to truly enjoy what Mercer eventually became.

Matteo had never been the kind of businessman who built a company simply to see how large he could make it. In the early years, he knew nearly everyone working for him by name. He remembered whose wife had just given birth, which driver had a daughter graduating from university, and which supervisor had been quietly taking extra shifts because his family needed the money.

As the company grew, knowing everyone became impossible, but Matteo had tried anyway.

He walked project sites whenever he could, ate with employees, and had an irritating habit of remembering answers months after everyone else assumed he’d forgotten them.

At home, he hadn’t been particularly different.

Giovanni remembered a father who could spend an entire day dealing with suppliers and project delays, then come home and still ask about an exam Giovanni had mentioned that morning.

Matteo had taught him to swim better, argued with him over grades, and expected his son to understand that being born a Mercer didn’t automatically make him useful to Mercer Group.

If Giovanni wanted to work for the company someday, he needed to become someone worth hiring.

Unfortunately, Matteo never got the chance to decide whether he’d succeeded.

Instead, Giovanni inherited his father’s controlling interest while he was still finishing his master’s degree.

He hadn’t felt ready.

But Mercer Group had projects underway, contracts that couldn’t simply be abandoned, and employees whose salaries still needed to be paid.

So Giovanni learned.

He made decisions, occasionally the wrong ones, and quickly discovered that inheriting a company didn’t mean inheriting the experience required to run it.

For years, people kept reminding him how his father would’ve handled things.

Your father always checked this himself.

Sir Matteo preferred it this way.

Giovanni had hated those words for a while, mostly because he could never ask the one person who might’ve explained why.

Eventually, he stopped trying to run Mercer exactly as Matteo had. He built his own systems, expanded the company, and became a businessman in his own right.

But some of his father’s principles remained.

And apparently, Matteo had believed strongly enough in one of them to spend the final weeks of his life investigating suspicious maintenance expenses.

Once Lenny’s documents were placed alongside Matteo’s surviving journals and archived accounting records, the pattern became considerably easier to see.

Matteo had noticed the discrepancies first.

He just hadn’t lived long enough to finish proving them.

The lawyers and investigators met in a Mercer conference room two days later.

Alexander attended at Giovanni’s request.

This time, Giovanni didn’t pretend he’d invited him because Vance Holdings might somehow be affected.

He wanted Alex there.

That was reason enough.

One of the investigators placed several reports across the table.

"The discrepancies repeat."

"Show me."

The records revealed a suspicious pattern. Equipment would receive clearance after an inspection, only to fail again shortly afterward.

More replacement parts would be requisitioned, more invoices issued, and another repair approved.

Frequently, the same contractor and inspector were involved.

And almost invariably, the same managerial approval appeared.

Jeremy Villareal.

Matteo had already started marking the suspicious entries.

Check warehouse.

Where is the old part?

Why again?

One instruction was underlined twice.

Do not renew.

Alexander looked toward Giovanni.

"He’d already decided."

"Yes."

Matteo had checked when Calderon Maintenance’s contract expired and quietly begun accrediting another contractor.

He hadn’t confronted Leon Calderon because he wanted to protect Mercer before severing the relationship.

It was exactly the sort of decision Giovanni himself would’ve made.

One investigator turned another page.

"This appears to be where Jeremy became aware of the internal review."

The scheme had started simply enough.

Charge for parts they didn’t replace, certify incomplete repairs, and create repeat business.

A fixed salary became irrelevant once Jeremy and Ramon discovered how much more they could make by manipulating maintenance work.

Unfortunately for them, Matteo had noticed.

"What was the plan?" Giovanni asked.

"We’re still establishing criminal liability, but it appears they intended to create another equipment failure to delay the change in contractors."

Alexander frowned.

"So they sabotaged equipment to prove Mercer still needed them."

"That’s one working theory."

Giovanni looked at the boom-lift report.

"And they chose equipment people ride."

Nobody answered immediately.

Jeremy could argue he hadn’t intended anyone to die, while Ramon could claim he’d merely falsified a clearance.

Neither explanation changed what happened when Matteo and Lenny stepped onto that platform.

The authorities moved quickly once the new evidence justified formally revisiting the old investigation.

Giovanni learned through counsel that Jeremy and Martin had both been located.

He didn’t go to the scrapyard or send anyone to frighten them.

He let the authorities handle it.

That was harder than he cared to admit.

Alexander noticed.

"You look disappointed."

"I’m practicing restraint."

"You’re terrible at it."

"I haven’t interfered."

"Which is why I said practicing."

Giovanni gave him a look.

"Why are you still here?"

"You asked me to come."

"That was hours ago."

"And yet you haven’t asked me to leave."

Giovanni returned his attention to the files.

Annoying man.

Once Jeremy and Martin realized the old documentation had survived, fatherly and filial loyalty proved remarkably fragile.

Each blamed the other.

Martin insisted Jeremy had directed the fraudulent certifications, while Jeremy claimed his son had expanded the billing scheme into deliberate sabotage.

Between their competing statements and the surviving records, investigators finally established what had happened.

The boom lift had deliberately been left with a compromised component.

The replacement had never occurred, yet Ramon Villareal had signed the clearance anyway.

Jeremy Villareal had approved it.

Neither could convincingly explain why a component marked REPLACE BEFORE NEXT OPERATION had somehow become INSPECTED, REPLACED, CLEARED before the replacement part had even been requisitioned.

Giovanni listened to his lawyer summarize the findings.

"And Leon?"

"No evidence currently establishes that Leon Calderon ordered the sabotage."

That mattered.

For years, Giovanni had blamed Calderon Maintenance as a whole, but Matteo’s case required identifying who had actually compromised the equipment and falsified its certification.

The evidence kept returning to the same two men.

Jeremy and Ramon.

Father and son.

Giovanni closed the file.

"So my father wasn’t the target initially."

"Based on what we currently have, we can’t say they intended to kill Matteo Mercer specifically."

"But they knowingly sabotaged equipment."

"Yes."

"And certified it for use."

"Yes."

Giovanni looked toward the window.

Somehow, that didn’t make Matteo’s death better.

It made it stupider.

All because of greed, fraudulent invoices, and two men who thought another mechanical failure would buy them time.

Then Matteo stepped onto the wrong platform.

Alexander spoke only after the lawyer left.

"Does knowing help?"

Giovanni considered it.

"Ask me when it’s over."

Because one question remained.

Why, after surviving unnoticed for years, had Martin Valdez suddenly begun sending messages?

And why had everyone received one except Giovanni Mercer?