Chapter 4
Victor Dain arrived smiling.
That irritated me.
Seventy-one.
Silver hair.
Beautiful coat.
The kind of man who spent his life looking like he belonged anywhere expensive.
He saw the false charter on my desk.
His smile disappeared.
Good.
“Where did you find that?”
“Dominic.”
Victor closed his eyes briefly.
Interesting.
“You know it.”
“Yes.”
“Did you make it?”
“No.”
I believed him.
“Who did?”
“My wife.”
Sofia.
That hurt differently.
My younger sister had been dead twelve years.
I remembered her as sharp, funny, impossible to impress.
Not as a counterfeiter of my authority.
Victor sat.
“She made it during the year before she died.”
“Why?”
“Because she thought you would close the club.”
I stared.
At the time, I had considered it.
Business was shifting.
Security costs rising.
The club consumed attention.
Sofia loved the place.
She hosted charity dinners there.
Family engagements.
Private reconciliations.
She called it the one room where Castellano enemies learned table manners.
Apparently she feared I would sell.
So she drafted a ceremonial “continuity charter.”
Not to seize control.
To persuade me emotionally.
Then she became ill before ever showing me.
Victor found it after her death.
And?
Kept it.
For years.
Then three years ago he showed it to Dominic.
Why?
Because Dominic complained that I never trusted him with enough authority.
There.
The old wound.
My nephew was acting manager but not owner.
He could schedule staff.
Manage service.
Approve routine expenses.
He could not alter vendor contracts, membership privileges, or family access without me.
Victor gave him a document suggesting the manager had inherited authority from a hidden founding body.
Dominic wanted it to be true.
So he made it true through repetition.
Badges.
Meetings.
Payments.
Rules.
A dead woman’s sentimental draft became a constitution because two living men found it useful.
I looked at Victor.
“Did Sofia know about these contribution payments?”
His face hardened.
“No.”
Good.
At least.
Then:
“Did you?”
Silence.
There.
Victor had known something.
May you like
Not everything.
Enough.
