Chapter 4 - WENDY ASKED ME TO COME HOME ALONE
Wendy called that evening.
“Luca, we need to talk without your lawyer.”
“No.”
“Six years of marriage and that’s all I get?”
“You can talk through counsel.”
Her voice hardened.
“This is about us.”
“No.”
“This is about Mom.”
“You’re letting her destroy our marriage.”
That almost impressed me.
The speed.
The reversal.
“She’s in a hospital because she was underfed.”
“She refuses food.”
“Camera footage shows otherwise.”
Silence.
Only three seconds.
Enough.
Then:
“You were recording me?”
“It’s our home security system.”
“You went through footage to spy on your wife?”
“No.”
“I reviewed why my mother was starving on the kitchen floor.”
Wendy began crying.
I knew that cry.
Soft.
Controlled.
Six years earlier, it would have broken me.
Now:
“Luca, please come home.”
“Why?”
“I’ll explain everything.”
“You can explain to Rachel.”
“No.”
Then her voice dropped.
“There are things about your mother’s finances you don’t understand.”
“I understand sixty-three thousand four hundred dollars went to Mason’s company.”
Silence.
“And twenty-eight thousand went to you.”
She inhaled sharply.
“That money was reimbursement.”
“For what?”
“Food.”
“Transportation.”
“Time.”
“Time?”
“Do you know what caring for her has cost me?”
I stared through the hospital window at Mom sleeping.
“You restricted her food.”
“She overeats.”
“She weighs ninety-seven pounds.”
No answer.
Then Wendy whispered:
“I needed help.”
“With what?”
She hung up.
Twenty minutes later, Rachel received an email from Wendy’s new attorney.
Wendy had retained counsel.
Good.
That meant the conversations could stop being emotional and start becoming documented.
Then my accountant called.
He had seen the preservation notice and reviewed our joint finances.
“Luca…”
“What?”
“You should look at your home-equity file.”
My stomach dropped.
“Our house has no home-equity loan.”
“I know.”
“Then what file?”
Three months earlier, someone requested an appraisal.
Not a loan closing.
A preliminary valuation.
Our house:
approximately $1.9 million.
The request came through Mason’s brokerage credentials.
Applicant listed:
Luca and Wendy Marino.
I had never applied.
My supposed authorization carried an electronic signature.
Not mine.
The loan did not close.
But now I understood Mom’s words.
The paper had our house address.
Wendy was not just targeting Mom’s rental property.
She was looking for collateral everywhere.
The question was why.
Then my accountant found it.
An investment account in Wendy’s name.
Balance twelve months earlier:
$614,000.
Current balance:
$38,000.
I had never known she had six hundred thousand dollars.
Then he showed me the source.
Transfers from an account belonging to Marino Strategic Consulting LLC.
My firm.
My company.
I stared at the screen.
“How did she get access?”
The answer hurt.
Me.
Two years earlier, I gave Wendy limited bookkeeping access when my office manager went on maternity leave.
I never revoked it.
She had used that access to create reimbursements.
Small at first.
Then larger.
Over twenty-two months:
approximately $412,000 had moved from my business into accounts she controlled.
Not necessarily all stolen.
Some could correspond to legitimate household or business expenses.
But enough transactions had no support that my accountant sounded sick.
“What did she do with the money?”
Most went into high-risk investments.
Then losses.
Then borrowing.
Then more losses.
Wendy was not building an empire.
She was plugging one financial hole with another.
May you like
And when my money stopped being enough—
she moved toward Mom’s.
