Chapter 6
Derek attended dinner that evening as if nothing had happened.
That was the test.
Lorenzo watched him pour water.
Watched him check exits.
Watched him speak quietly to a bodyguard.
Eight years of service.
Eight years of payments.
Lorenzo waited until the children were upstairs.
Then he dismissed everyone except Derek.
Derek looked at the closed doors.
His breathing changed.
Lorenzo noticed.
“Sit.”
Derek remained standing.
“I’d rather stand.”
Lorenzo’s eyes lifted.
“Then stand.”
A long silence.
Derek finally asked:
“How much do you know?”
Not denial.
Lorenzo leaned back.
“Enough to ask why Marcus has been paying you since before my wedding.”
Derek’s jaw tightened.
“He wasn't paying me.”
“North Haven.”
Derek looked toward the window.
“He was reimbursing me.”
“For what?”
“Things you refused to fund.”
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed.
Derek had spent years covering medical bills for wounded drivers, rent for widows and emergency relocation costs for lower-ranking family employees.
Lorenzo had known some of those expenses existed.
He had believed they came from official support funds.
They had not.
Marcus and Ramona had built a parallel network.
That complicated everything.
Some stolen money had helped people.
Some had vanished.
Derek’s voice grew harder.
“You kept tightening control after your father died.”
Lorenzo’s face changed.
“You think that excuses forged documents?”
“No.”
Derek looked straight at him.
“But it explains why people stopped asking.”
Lorenzo’s fingers tapped once against the table.
Derek continued.
“Marcus made himself useful where you made yourself final.”
That sentence landed.
Then Lorenzo asked:
“Why help them frame Alina?”
Derek’s eyes dropped.
For the first time, shame appeared.
“They told me she was going to shut the fund down.”
“She was auditing theft.”
“They showed me her proposal.”
Lorenzo stared at him.
“The one with my forged signature?”
Derek’s face went still.
He had not known.
That was clear.
Lorenzo saw the moment the structure inside him cracked.
Then Derek whispered:
“If your signature was forged…”
He looked toward the door.
“…then Marcus lied to all of us.”
May you like
Not just about Alina.
About Lorenzo too.
