Chapter 12
A family-court judge reviewed Ava’s situation separately from the criminal investigation.
Matteo hated that strangers were evaluating his home.
He accepted why they had to.
The forged authorization forms mattered.
Helena’s coaching mattered.
Dominic’s participation mattered.
So did Matteo’s own environment.
Armed security.
Late-night meetings.
People with criminal histories moving through the estate.
The judge was not interested in Bellini tradition.
Only Ava.
Matteo presented a new plan.
Ava would remain outside the estate.
Her routine would be managed by licensed childcare professionals.
Family contact would be restricted to people approved through counsel and the court process while investigations continued.
Most importantly, Matteo proposed a backup guardian who had nothing to gain from Bellini leadership.
His older sister, Teresa.
She had left Illinois more than twenty years earlier, taught high-school history in Wisconsin, and had deliberately stayed outside the family business.
Helena despised the idea.
Which told Matteo he had chosen well.
Teresa did not rush to accept.
She asked Matteo for financial records.
Childcare schedules.
School plans.
Legal documents.
Then she asked him a harder question.
“Are you asking me because I’m safe for Ava, or because I’m still a Bellini?”
Matteo answered, “Because you left.”
Teresa understood.
She agreed to serve as temporary backup guardian if Matteo became unavailable.
Dominic formally withdrew from any guardianship claim.
When Helena learned, she called it betrayal.
Dominic answered through his lawyer:
May you like
“It was never my daughter to claim.”
That sentence became the first thing he did that Matteo did not have to force.
