Chapter 3 - THE RED FOLDER
By noon, Bianca and Marcus were confined to separate guest rooms with private security outside each door.
Vittorio called an attorney who did not work for the family.
Then he sat on Lucy's bedroom floor while she built a tower from wooden blocks.
"You are not in trouble," he said.
"I know."
She didn't sound like she knew.
"And you never have to eat from a dog bowl."
Lucy's lower lip trembled.
"Bianca said daughters who embarrass rich men get replaced."
Vittorio had faced armed men without feeling the kind of fear that sentence gave him.
"Nobody replaces you. Ever."
Lucy put another block on the tower.
"Even if you get married?"
"Especially then."
She nodded.
After a long silence, she said, "There's a red folder."
Vittorio looked at her.
"What folder?"
"Bianca keeps it in your old office. She told Marcus it was how she would become my legal mom."
His pulse slowed.
That was what happened when anger became useful.
He stopped feeling it and started thinking.
The old office had been his father's study. Bianca had asked to use it for wedding planning.
Vittorio opened the locked desk with the master key.
The red folder sat beneath bridal magazines.
Inside were draft guardianship papers.
Medical affidavits.
Statements claiming Vittorio suffered from violent episodes, paranoid thinking, and unpredictable behavior.
One document named Bianca as Lucy's emergency guardian.
Another named Marcus as temporary controller of Lucy's trust.
None had been filed.
Yet.
His new attorney, Maya Benton, read the pages twice.
"Someone is building a competency case against you."
Vittorio laughed without humor. "Using my reputation."
"Using your reactions. If you explode publicly, they have a story."
He thought of Marcus crashing through the map rack.
Of Bianca on the ottoman.
The breakfast-room security camera was mounted directly above the door.
Maya followed his eyes.
"Was that camera recording?"
Vittorio called security.
The answer came back three minutes later.
The footage from that morning had been deleted.
May you like
But the deletion request carried an administrator code.
Marcus Hale's.
