Chapter 16 - The Vote
We escaped Saint Aurelia through a tunnel built during Prohibition.
At least that was what Michael claimed.
By then, I would have believed the church contained a submarine dock.
The explosion destroyed the sacristy stairs but did not collapse the crypt.
Roman had not been trying to bury us.
He had been trying to separate us from the street long enough for his men to reach the rear exit.
Mercer's agents were waiting.
Three men were arrested.
One carried a Castellano Holdings security badge.
Another carried an unregistered weapon.
The third carried a printed photograph of me with a red circle around my face.
That was the first piece of evidence no public relations firm could call a marital misunderstanding.
By dawn, federal investigators had raided two Castellano offices.
By eight, the board called an emergency meeting.
By nine, every major financial outlet in the country knew Roman Castellano was under investigation for corporate coercion, witness intimidation, and possible obstruction.
By ten, Roman was still at his desk.
That was Roman.
He would stand inside a burning house and complain that everyone else was overreacting to the smoke.
The board meeting took place by secure video because no one trusted the tower anymore.
I sat in Mara's office.
Michael Vale sat beside Dante.
Isabella appeared from a federal safe location.
Luca refused to reveal where he was and joined by audio only.
Vanessa sat with her father.
Roman appeared from the head of his conference table alone.
He looked rested.
That unsettled me.
"Good morning, Evelyn."
"Roman."
"You look tired."
"You look indicted."
One director coughed to hide a laugh.
Roman ignored it.
Mara began with the ownership deed.
Michael authenticated Sofia's signature.
Isabella authenticated it too.
The trust administrator confirmed that the deed, if validated by the court, shifted another twenty-six percent beneficial interest away from the Castellano family line and into Maria Moretti's estate, now mine.
Roman objected.
Mara smiled.
"You are not counsel."
"It is my company."
"That is the question before us."
Roman looked at me.
"You enjoy this?"
I thought about the ballroom.
The red dress.
The ring in Vanessa's palm.
"No."
That seemed to surprise him.
"I enjoy not being afraid of you."
His expression changed.
There it was again.
Fear, small and immediate.
The board chair called for a motion to suspend Roman as chief executive pending investigation.
I made it.
Dante's proxy seconded it.
Five directors voted yes.
Two voted no.
One abstained.
Roman remained still as the result appeared.
SUSPENSION APPROVED.
For four years, Roman had controlled rooms by making everyone wait for his reaction.
So we waited.
He finally smiled.
"Finished?"
The board chair looked confused.
"The motion has passed."
"I heard it."
Roman leaned back.
"Now ask Evelyn what happens to the company debt if the Moretti claim succeeds."
Mara went still.
I looked at her.
"What does he mean?"
Roman answered.
"The holding company has change-of-control clauses."
"If your deed transfers legal ownership retroactively, several credit facilities become immediately callable."
"How much?"
Mara was already searching documents.
Roman smiled.
"Four point six billion."
Silence.
"You built the debt that way," Dante said.
"Of course I did."
Roman sounded proud.
"Insurance."
"Against your own shareholders?"
"Against thieves."
I looked at Mara.
"Is he right?"
She hated the answer.
"Possibly."
Roman spread his hands.
"Take the company, Evelyn."
"Win every lawsuit."
"Prove your mother owned it."
"Then watch every lender demand repayment on the same day."
"Thousands of employees lose jobs."
"Pension obligations collapse."
"Suppliers go unpaid."
"And you become the woman who destroyed an empire because her husband embarrassed her at a birthday party."
The cruelty was precise.
He knew exactly where to place the weight.
Not on my money.
On everyone else's livelihood.
"You did this intentionally."
"I prepared for instability."
"You prepared to burn the company if anyone took it from you."
"Same sentence."
I looked at the directors.
Some were already panicking.
Roman had lost the vote but regained the room.
That was why he was dangerous.
He could turn defeat into hostage-taking without leaving his chair.
Michael spoke for the first time.
"The debt has a cure provision."
Roman's eyes snapped toward him.
Michael smiled.
It transformed his face.
For the first time, I saw the man who had once outmaneuvered Vittorio Castellano.
"You forgot the 2019 refinancing amendment."
Roman's smile vanished.
Mara searched faster.
"Section twelve point four."
She found it.
Her eyes widened.
"Change of control can be cured if seventy percent of legacy beneficial holders ratify continuity within ten business days."
Roman's face hardened.
I looked at Isabella.
She controlled twelve percent legacy interest through a widow's trust.
Luca controlled eight.
Dante's Vale proxy held nine.
My Moretti interests supplied the rest.
Together, we could exceed seventy.
Roman looked at his mother.
"Do not."
Isabella stared at him.
For a moment, she was not a frightened hostage or a mafia matriarch.
She was simply a mother looking at the son she had spent too many years excusing.
"I loved you enough to lie for you," she said.
"I loved you enough to forgive things that should have sent you away from me."
Roman's jaw tightened.
"Mother."
"That was not love."
Her voice trembled.
"That was cowardice wearing a mother's face."
She raised her hand on camera.
"I ratify continuity under Evelyn Moretti's control."
Luca's voice came through audio.
"Same."
Dante looked at me.
"Same."
Michael smiled.
Mara calculated.
"Seventy-two point three percent."
The room went silent.
Roman's face became empty.
The debt weapon was gone.
The board chair cleared his throat.
"The suspension stands."
Roman looked at me.
"You think this is over."
"No."
I leaned toward the camera.
"I think this is the first time you have heard no from people you cannot punish one at a time."
He smiled faintly.
"We will see."
Then his feed disconnected.
Everyone exhaled at once.
Mara did not.
She looked at her phone.
"We have a problem."
"What now?"
"The original ring."
I looked at Luca's video tile.
"He returned it."
"Yes."
Mara opened the small evidence case on her desk.
Empty.
My blood went cold.
Dante stood.
"Who was in the office?"
Mara looked around.
"All of us."
Vanessa was gone.
Her chair sat empty beside Judge Lane.
Her father stared at it.
"She said she needed the restroom."
I called her.
Straight to voicemail.
Dante pulled up the hallway camera.
Vanessa appeared leaving Mara's office six minutes earlier.
She carried a small black pouch in one hand.
The ring.
She entered the elevator alone.
I stared at the image.
Judge Lane covered his face.
"No."
A message arrived on my phone.
From Vanessa.
I'M SORRY.
A second followed.
HE HAS MY FATHER'S OTHER RECORDING.
I looked across the room.
Judge Lane was still sitting there.
"What other recording?"
His face went white.
"The one that proves Roman did not act alone when Enzo died."
"Who was with him?"
Lane looked at Dante.
Then at Michael.
His voice dropped to a whisper.
May you like
"Luca."
