Chapter 13 - My confrontation with Uncle Franco
Uncle Franco represented the old family.
Seventy.
Never convicted of anything serious.
Never clean enough for Emilia to trust.
He came to my office.
“You’re giving records to outsiders.”
Not a question.
Marcella had started talking before her attorneys stopped her.
“Yes.”
“You planned to sell Harbor Freight.”
“Our trucking company. Yes.”
“Your grandfather built it.”
“My grandfather built parts of it through arrangements no current bank will touch.”
Franco slammed his palm on my desk.
“You don’t dismantle family because government accountants are nervous.”
I looked at his hand.
Then at him.
“No one slams anything in my office.”
He stared.
Old me might have stood.
Made him afraid.
Instead I stayed seated.
He removed his hand.
“Marcella says you’re using Elowen to justify a purge.”
“No.”
“You froze the foundation accounts.”
“For forty minutes. I corrected it.”
That surprised him.
“You admit that?”
“Yes.”
He hated the answer.
Old family arguments required certainty.
Admission made the game harder.
He said:
“Are you turning Marcella over to prosecutors?”
“She is already dealing with law enforcement. I’m not a prosecutor.”
“She is blood.”
“So is Elowen.”
Franco’s face changed.
Not enough.
I continued:
“And the foundation money belongs to the foundation, not blood.”
There.
That was the actual family revolution.
May you like
Not violence.
Ownership.
