Chapter 5
Carlo admitted the hotel meetings had started before Luca was born.
That changed everything.
Grant had not reacted to fatherhood.
He had prepared for it.
“What were you discussing then?” I asked.
Carlo looked at Grant.
“Whether the birth would change succession.”
I laughed once.
“My son was not born yet.”
“That was the point.”
Grant finally stopped pretending.
“You were about to have an heir.”
“I already had an organization.”
“You had a bloodline.”
The word came out bitter.
There it was.
My younger brother had spent thirty-four years being younger.
For most of those years, he could imagine the chair eventually becoming available through circumstance.
Marriage changed little.
A son changed everything in his mind.
“You thought Luca replaced you.”
Grant’s jaw tightened.
“You know how men think.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“I know how you think.”
Vanessa stepped in.
“It wasn’t only Grant.”
I turned.
She continued carefully.
“Some men worried you would begin building everything around the child.”
“He cannot hold his own head up.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
That answer told me how far ambition had already separated them from reality.
Carlo looked ashamed.
I asked him:
“What did they want before he was born?”
“A guarantee.”
“Of what?”
“That Grant remained second.”
I almost smiled.
“He was never second.”
Grant’s face changed.
That landed harder than any punch.
He had been a capo.
My brother.
Trusted.
Powerful.
But he had privately promoted himself into a rank I never gave him.
“You let me sit beside you for years.”
“Yes.”
“You sent me where nobody else could go.”
“Yes.”
“You trusted me with men.”
“Yes.”
“And that meant nothing?”
“It meant exactly what it meant.”
I stepped closer.
“You were my brother.”
His eyes hardened.
“You wanted it to mean heir.”
Silence.
May you like
Luca had not taken Grant’s place.
Luca had revealed that the place existed only in Grant’s imagination.
