Chapter 7 - CALEB OFFERED ADRIAN THE CHAIR
Adrian came back that night without Helena knowing.
He looked exhausted.
“Caleb talked to me six weeks ago.”
Vincent said nothing.
“He asked what I would do if something happened to you.”
“What kind of something?”
“He kept it vague.”
“And you?”
“I told him I’d keep Eli safe.”
Vincent’s eyes hardened.
Adrian immediately corrected himself.
“I mean if you died.”
“Did Caleb?”
“No.”
Adrian walked toward the window.
“He asked whether the capos would accept me temporarily.”
“Temporarily as what?”
“Head of the family.”
There it was.
Not merely trust control.
Succession.
Caleb had been testing how the organization would respond if Vincent were removed from daily authority.
Adrian continued.
“I told him I didn’t want your chair.”
Vincent believed that more than he expected.
Adrian had ambition.
He also understood what Vincent’s position cost.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because conversations about who replaces a living boss tend to shorten lives.”
Fair.
Still cowardly.
Still fair.
Adrian turned back.
“Then Helena started telling me Maria was collecting stories about the house. She said Maria could make you look incapable of protecting Eli.”
Vincent frowned.
“Maria?”
“That’s what I was told.”
“So the solution was to frame her as abusive?”
Adrian looked ashamed.
“Caleb said if Maria lost credibility, anything she told outsiders would collapse.”
“You still thought she was building a case against me.”
“Yes.”
“And at dinner?”
Adrian swallowed.
“Helena said Eli only needed to say Maria scared him. The room would hear it. Maria would be fired. Problem over.”
Vincent studied him.
“Did Caleb tell you to do it?”
“No.”
That mattered.
Helena had directed the specific coercion.
Adrian had executed it.
Caleb had built the fear around it.
Three different responsibilities.
Vincent would not let them blur together.
Then Adrian said something else.
“Before dinner, Caleb told me not to worry about what happened afterward.”
“What did that mean?”
“He said, ‘By morning, the family will have the stability it needs.’”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
Adrian had assumed Caleb meant Maria would be gone.
Now neither man believed that.
Something else had been scheduled for the morning after the dinner.
Something depending on what witnesses heard that night.
Vincent called Nora.
“Find out whether Caleb had any court appointments, filings, messengers, process servers—anything scheduled for the next morning.”
Nora paused.
“You think he planned to act immediately.”
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do?”
Vincent looked through the window toward the estate grounds.
For his entire life, Bellacorte problems had been kept behind Bellacorte gates.
May you like
That policy had nearly trained his son to lie for food.
“Something my family is going to hate.”
