Chapter 4
Raffaele suspended Grant from all rally operations the next morning.
He also removed Vanessa’s authority over household staff, childcare schedules, and family events.
The consequences arrived immediately.
Grant controlled security vendors for six Moretti charity functions.
Two canceled service.
One demanded early payment.
A police-benefit ride scheduled for the following weekend had to be postponed.
Vanessa called it revenge.
Raffaele called it distance.
Rebecca called it necessary.
Then Raffaele brought in an outside firm to review rally security contracts.
That irritated several capos.
“Grant’s been handling those for years,” Vincent said.
“That’s why somebody else is looking.”
“You don’t trust him?”
“No.”
The honesty stopped the conversation.
At home, Lily began refusing to wear her rally sneakers.
“They make me kneel shoes.”
Raffaele put them in the closet.
He did not tell her she was being silly.
Adrian stopped coming to boxing practice.
When Raffaele called, the boy said he had schoolwork.
Raffaele knew that was not true.
Adrian’s mother, Melissa, eventually called.
“He thinks Lily got hurt because he kept challenging Vanessa.”
“She didn’t.”
“He knows that logically.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Melissa sighed.
“He thinks if he’d stayed away, Vanessa wouldn’t have needed to prove anything.”
Raffaele looked through the window toward the empty gym.
That was not a thought a fourteen-year-old invented without help.
Someone had taught Adrian that protecting Lily caused the punishment.
The outside auditors called that afternoon.
Grant’s security company had billed the charity for personnel whose names did not appear on estate entry logs.
Not once.
Repeatedly.
The two men who surrounded Adrian were among the most frequently billed.
May you like
Raffaele stared at their names.
The children’s abuse and Grant’s security business had just touched the same piece of paper.
