Chapter 13
Nico read the memorandum without blinking.
Then again.
His face hardened.
Bernadette watched him.
“You weren't ready.”
Nico slowly lifted his eyes.
“You used me.”
“You volunteered the moment you decided Vittorio was weak.”
The words hit.
Because they were partly true.
Nico’s breathing turned uneven.
Vittorio said nothing.
He refused to rescue his former underboss from the truth.
Bernadette continued.
“I needed someone the council trusted.”
“And after?”
“You would've stepped aside.”
Nico almost laughed.
“You planned to force me.”
Bernadette's eyes became cold.
“I planned to restore discipline.”
There was her real motive.
Not simply power.
Not simply revenge.
Bernadette believed Vittorio had dismantled the order that gave her entire adult life meaning.
Under Vittorio’s father, she had been feared.
Consulted.
Obeyed.
As Vittorio modernized the family, her authority became ceremonial.
She experienced reform as erasure.
Then Luca was born.
Vittorio changed faster.
Less violence.
More separation between business and home.
More rules.
More outsiders like Maria trusted around family children.
Bernadette saw all of it as proof that the Rossettis were becoming weak.
“You took away everything we built.”
Her voice finally cracked.
Vittorio watched her eyes.
For the first time, there was grief beneath the arrogance.
“My whole life was this family.”
“And you nearly destroyed a child to keep your place in it.”
Bernadette looked away.
Her hand trembled around the clutch.
That was the answer she could not defeat.
The council voted.
Bernadette lost every operational privilege.
Samuel surrendered his advisory position.
Nico remained removed as underboss.
Vittorio retained leadership—but only after agreeing to independent safeguards separating family governance from Luca’s care.
Power returned to him.
Not completely.
That was intentional.
Then Maria entered carrying a sealed envelope.
She had found it inside Bernadette’s car during the inventory ordered by counsel.
It contained cash.
A resignation letter already typed in Maria’s name.
May you like
And one additional document.
A signed statement claiming Maria had personally given Luca the drink.
