Chapter 10
I gathered the Lombardi capos the next morning.
No gala.
No guests.
No theatrical wreckage.
Just the men who needed to understand what Julian had been building around my name.
He stood across from me.
Vanessa was not there.
Thomas Cole was not invited.
This part belonged to Lombardi.
I told them three things.
Julian had falsely implied I intended to reduce my role.
He had promised authority he did not possess.
He had used a separate family alliance to create an independent influence network.
Then I told them the part that mattered most.
“He hid his daughter to make the alliance cleaner.”
Nobody spoke.
Victor Hale looked away.
Another capo cursed quietly.
Julian snapped:
“Stop making it sound like I abandoned her.”
I looked at him.
“What word would you prefer?”
“She lived with me.”
“And called you Mr. Julian when guests came.”
Silence.
“She ate with staff at two events.”
His face changed.
That was new even to some capos.
I knew because one of the household women had told me before dawn.
Julian had instructed staff to keep Elsie “out of the room” when Cole guests came.
Not always.
Enough.
He looked at me.
“That was temporary.”
I almost laughed.
“Temporary humiliation is still humiliation.”
He lowered his voice.
“I was building something.”
“Yes.”
I leaned forward.
“You built it using a child too young to understand why her father disappeared whenever expensive people entered the room.”
The capos understood.
Not because all of them were gentle men.
They were not.
But family loyalty means nothing if the bloodline becomes disposable whenever ambition finds a better table.
I looked around the room.
“Anyone who accepted promises from Julian speaks now.”
Two men did.
One had been offered event-security expansion.
Another access to Cole investment dinners.
Not enough to overthrow me.
May you like
Enough to create a faction.
Julian had been building one relationship at a time.
