Chapter 10
The planned demonstration was supposed to expose Leo.
Marcus finally admitted that much after outside investigators recovered his presentation draft.
But the real target was not Leo.
It was Dante.
The presentation was titled:
INTERNAL SECURITY COMPROMISE — BELLANDI FAMILY RISK.
Slide one showed club vulnerabilities.
Slide two showed surveillance clips.
Slide three identified “an unauthorized minor actor” collecting restricted information.
The evidence would point toward Leo.
His notebook.
His training assignments.
His access to Lily’s riding gear.
His interest in cameras.
Marcus planned to reveal the memory card from Lily’s boot during a “randomized equipment sweep.”
Then came the real twist.
Slide twelve.
RECOMMENDED EMERGENCY GOVERNANCE TRANSFER.
Marcus intended to argue that Dante had become too emotionally compromised to oversee club security because family emergencies repeatedly pulled him away from operational decisions.
Leo would be portrayed as a reckless teenager Dante failed to control.
Lily would be portrayed as a security vulnerability because Dante abandoned meetings whenever she needed him.
Marcus was not merely trying to win Meridian Shield a contract.
He was building a case that Dante himself should surrender day-to-day control of the club’s security operations.
To Marcus.
Grant would receive the external contract.
Marcus would receive internal authority.
Leo was disposable evidence.
Lily was the trigger.
Three earlier clues suddenly aligned.
Marcus’s repeated criticism of Dante’s response patterns.
The staged security incidents around the children.
The hidden trackers documenting exactly how Dante moved when Lily needed him.
Marcus had turned Dante’s protection of his family into evidence that he was professionally weak.
The boot was supposed to complete the story.
A dangerous surveillance cache apparently hidden by a teenager under Dante’s own roof.
Dante sat alone after reading the presentation.
For days he believed Marcus was spying on him.
That was true.
But Marcus was not preparing to attack Dante physically.
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He was preparing to convince the family that Dante could no longer be trusted to protect them.
And he had been using two children to manufacture the proof.
