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Chapter 7: OLD MEMORIES

Marcus POV

“I can’t believe this shit!” I say as I throw the newspaper across the table where I was sitting. Matteo looks at me as he picks up the newspaper that had fallen on the floor.

Matteo had come over to my place right after work. He decided that he was going to cook here tonight and I let him because I didn’t want to be alone.

“Former Castellano Holdings CEO, Marcus Castellano, to stand trial on March 14th.” Matteo reads the headline on the front page. "Whoever is feeding this news to the press has it in for me." I say and Matteo looks at me.

“Read the article.” I say and he continues reading. “Recently a video has been going around in social media. The video shows the footage where Marcus Castellano was the one who had killed his father Andreas Castellano.” Matteo reads. He then takes out his phone and searches for the video that is now trending on various social media pages.

“I swear we are going to find out who leaked this video onto the internet. It is supposed to be confidential information.” Matteo says as he shows me the video. And I can’t believe what I am seeing. The person attacking my father looks exactly like me but I know that it wasn’t me because I was in England at the time.

The video clearly shows the person stabbing my father to death in his backyard.

“You know what I don’t understand?” I ask him. “What?” Matteo says as he continues scrolling through his phone. “When dad died, the police said that it was suicide but now all of a sudden they say it is a homicide case because all this evidence comes out after four years. Why wait that long?" I ask.

“I don’t know man but what I do know is the only people who are supposed to have this video are the DA and your lawyer. One of them must have leaked the video." Matteo says.

“I swear if it is Lawrence Smith then I am going to kill him.” I say. “No, you are not. And we will figure this whole thing out now that we are meeting with the people from Rossi Investigations tomorrow." Matteo says. “Lawrence is going to be here also?” I ask. “Jip. He is your lawyer and he will have to cooperate with them as well.” Matteo says.

Matteo gets up and checks the food that is on the stove. "Food is ready." He says. We dish up and then we sit at the table again just talking about random things. At least it keeps my mind off the case and also off Gina. Whenever I think of her I would get all emotional and then I would miss her terribly. I sometimes wonder if she thinks of me as well.

“What’s on your mind?” Matteo asks as he looks up from his plate. “Nothing. Hey, I was thinking about hitting the gym later. You want to come with me?" I ask him. "Sure why not? I was going for a workout later anyway." Matteo says. After we finish dinner, Matteo and I clean the kitchen. I then head to my room to get my workout clothes and Matteo grabs his gym bag and he heads to the spare bedroom.

I meet him at the gym that I have at my house. "You were thinking about her again weren't you?" Matteo asks as he holds the punching bag for me. "Yeah, I was. That's why I thought it would be best if I come and workout so that I could punch all of this frustration out." I say as I punch the bag so hard that Matteo nearly falls to the ground. "Damn you are frustrated aren't you?" He says as he straightens himself.

"More than you know." I say as I punch the bag again. “Alright enough of this. Let’s spar.” Matteo says as he grabs some boxing gloves and we head into the ring. I start by punching him in his face, he blocks it and that allows me to punch him in his stomach. We spar a few more times with Matteo beating me more times than I could count.

“Your karate moves just isn’t what it used to be. You are losing your touch old man.” Matteo says as he reaches his hand out to me to help me up from the floor. He had just knocked me down again.

“Who are you calling old man?” I grumble at him and he laughs at me.

After our little sparring rounds, we decide to hit the treadmills. "I have a good feeling about tomorrow." Matteo says. “Why?” I ask him.

“I believe that Rossi Investigations will do everything they can to prove your innocence. I just know it.” Matteo says. "You know what I just thought off?" I say and he looks at me. "What?" He asks. "Maybe we should find someone who could help tell if the video is fake or not." I say. "Do you know anyone who is good with I.T?" He asks. "No, I don't." I reply. "Neither do I but maybe Pavlo has someone that could trace the video’s IP address.” Matteo says.

It is now 9 pm and Matteo is about to leave my house. I look outside the window and I see the police sitting in their car outside my house. “The police is here again as per freaking usual.” I say as Matteo walks towards the door with his bag in his hand. “It’s protocol now. They want to keep an eye on you.” Matteo says.

“Yeah well where am I supposed to run off too, they revoked my passport and license.” I say. Matteo sighs as he pats me on the shoulder. “I am positive that this will be over soon. I will see you tomorrow” He says before he walks out of the door. “I wish I had your enthusiasm.” I mumble quietly.

After making sure that every window and door is locked downstairs, I head up to my room to get some sleep. I take a quick shower and then I head straight for bed but my mind would not let me sleep. I keep thinking about how naïve and stupid I could have been to just sign those documents for Castellano Holdings. Only the VP of the company, Armando, knows what they were and now the police can’t find him. He disappeared without a trace after I was arrested for the fraud charges.

And then they came to tell me in the cells where they were holding me in that they have evidence that I had killed my dad but I said that I was not guilty of anything. In court, the judge had placed me under house arrest. I am not to be more than fifty feet away from my house or the device on my leg would go off.

I decided to take my mind of the case again as I take out a picture of me and Gina from my drawer. I look at it for a moment. This picture was taken on our first date. I had taken Gina to the fair. She is holding a huge teddy bear that I had won for her at one of the stalls there. Gina was 15 and I was 16 at the time. I think back to that day.

FLASHBACK

"Here's your prize babe." I say as I give Gina her teddy bear. "Thank you." She says as I snake my arms around her waist. I took out my phone to take a picture of us and that is when she kissed me on the cheek. I then look at her in surprise.

“What was that for?” I ask her. “I don’t know. I just wanted to kiss you.” She says as her cheeks blush. I then smash my lips on hers and I kiss her fiercely.

After a few minutes, I pull away. I see that her beautiful lips are swollen. "What was that for?" she asks me. "I don't know. I just wanted to kiss you." I reply and she laughs at me. “Copycat.” She says. “Let’s get out of here.” I say as I grab her by her hand and I drag her to the car.

I took her out for ice cream at this local ice cream bar. “I enjoyed the date. Thank you.” She says. “Yeah and there are many more to come.” I say as I kiss her again. “I can’t wait.” She says.

I stayed true to my word, I practically took her out every weekend.


Gina POV

Today was one hectic day at the office, I am exhausted from checking every item before they get shipped out and designing my new line and then having to go and check up on Tatiana, I then just throw my bag in the chair that is in my room and I plop down on the bed.

But I know that I can't go to sleep yet because I still need to go through the files from Tatiana's case. So I get off the bed and then I head over to my office where I lock everything up. Switching on my computer, I take out the USB that I gave to Tatiana and I insert it into my computer. It immediately shows me every file that is on the USB.

“Damn her husband was a pig.” I say as I open up one of Toby’s files and there are only pornographic videos. I immediately delete it from the USB stick. I search through every file until I come across the ones that I need. "Bingo." I say. Toby was involved with the Mexican Cartel. Buying drugs from them and selling the drugs again. He would then gamble the money that he made with the drugs away.

“So where does he get the money to buy new drugs from them?” I ask myself. I then see a file that is marked CH. I open it and I find all of the transactions that were made from one bank account to another. The account that the money was coming from belonged to Castellano Holdings and the other one was an offshore bank account that belonged to Tatiana. Then there is another account that I am sure of yet. Money was transferred from the Castellano Holdings account to the offshore bank account and then it was transferred again into the third account.

"I bet Tatiana doesn't know about this account that is in her name. He was the one who opened it. And I think that the third account belongs to the Mexican Cartel."

“Wait? Castellano Holdings. But why would Mr. Castellano give him money to buy drugs?” I ask myself. I then take out the file that I had about Tatiana's case and I go through it. “Toby was working for Castellano Holdings at their New York offices. I think that Mr. Castellano doesn’t know what is going on here at their New York offices.” I say.

After going through the files on the USB stick for another hour, I have enough evidence against Toby to put him away for life. I save everything onto our server and then I switch the computer off. I lock my office door behind me and then I head straight for the bathroom to take a shower.

After I had taken a quick shower, I put my pajamas on and I climb into bed. But yet again my mind doesn’t let me sleep as it wanders off again. I think about Marcus again and the magical first date that we had when we were teenagers.

I take the picture that is on my nightstand. It is the picture that we took on our first date. Marcus had taken the picture with his phone. The following day he had printed out two copies. One for him and one for me. “This is to remember our first date.” He said as he handed me the picture. I smiled at him as he snakes his arms around my waist.

"You are so beautiful, you know that. I am going to have a hard time keeping the other guys away from you." He said. And that is exactly what he did. Every time a guy would just look at me, he would glare at them and it would scare them off.

“I miss you Marcus.” I whisper as I put the photo back on my nightstand and then I switched the light off. Turning around I lay on my side until darkness consumes me.

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