Chapter 3 - The Empty Place
I moved Ruby and Ethan to the east wing with Teresa while security locked down the house.
Valentina protested.
I ignored her.
Marcus was escorted out.
He shouted from the front steps that I would regret humiliating him.
Maybe.
But first I wanted the truth.
I sat beside Ruby’s bed until she stopped crying.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, baby.”
“Am I bad?”
The question hit me harder than Marcus ever could.
“No.”
“Mommy Val says big girls don’t sit by Daddy.”
I held very still.
“How long has she said that?”
Ruby thought about it.
“Lots.”
“What else?”
“She says Ethan is family boy.”
“And you?”
Ruby’s voice dropped.
“Old family.”
At midnight, Luca arrived with the Falcone family trust.
The trust owned shipping warehouses, hotels, and commercial real estate.
Ruby inherited Isabella’s thirty-two-percent block after her mother died.
I controlled the votes until Ruby turned eighteen.
Unless a court found me unfit.
Then the temporary guardian could control Ruby’s shares.
I stared at Luca.
“Valentina becomes guardian…”
“She controls Ruby’s voting block.”
“And Marcus?”
“Financial custodian.”
They were trying to remove Ruby from my household because Ruby owned power they could not reach while she remained under my protection.
Then Luca turned another page.
“There’s more.”
A board vote was scheduled for Tuesday.
The vote involved selling three Falcone waterfront properties for eighty-six million dollars.
The buyer?
A company called Orison Capital.
I knew nothing about it.
Luca did.
He slid a corporate filing across the desk.
May you like
Orison Capital’s hidden beneficial owner was Marcus Bellini.
My brother-in-law was trying to use my daughter’s shares to approve a sale to himself.
