Chapter 4
Margaret’s room contained more than Michael’s watch.
A locked walnut box sat inside her wardrobe.
My bodyguard opened it after she refused to provide the key.
Inside were objects.
Not valuables.
Leverage.
David’s watch.
Emma’s little silver bracelet.
A photograph of Laura with her late husband.
One of Miriam—no, wrong family; my own late wife, Anne—standing beside Laura as a child.
Letters.
Small heirlooms.
Things carrying emotional weight.
I looked at Margaret.
“What is this?”
“Family property.”
“No.”
I lifted David’s watch.
“This belonged to his father.”
“Who married into our family.”
My jaw tightened.
There again.
Outsider.
Adopted.
Married-in.
Chosen.
Margaret had categorized everyone by distance from blood.
“What about Emma’s bracelet?”
Margaret shrugged.
“She kept wearing it at formal meals.”
“She’s three.”
“It was cheap.”
I stared.
Emma’s biological mother had put that bracelet on her before dying.
Laura had never removed it.
Until apparently Margaret did.
“You took it?”
“She doesn’t remember where it came from.”
“That makes it yours?”
Silence.
I picked up the photograph of Laura and Michael.
“Why this?”
Margaret’s face hardened.
“Laura needs to stop living backward.”
I almost laughed.
“You keep a locked box full of dead people’s belongings and you’re accusing others of living backward.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“These objects weaken them.”
“No.”
My voice lowered.
“They connect them to people you cannot control.”
That struck.
Good.
I looked through the remaining items.
One envelope contained notes in Margaret’s handwriting.
DAVID — resists blood duty.
LAURA — overly attached to adopted child.
EMMA — public acceptance increasing.
My hands became still.
Public acceptance.
She was tracking how family members reacted to Emma.
This was not household cruelty.
It was a campaign.
Then I found another line.
BANQUET — force table issue before Vincent names Laura.
I looked up.
Margaret’s face finally changed.
She had planned tonight.
Not the exact violence, perhaps.
But the confrontation.
She wanted the entire Moretti family to see Emma removed from the main table before I could publicly name Laura as my future successor.
May you like
She was creating precedent.
A three-year-old on the floor as political theater.
