Chapter 14
The family council met three days later.
Marcus arrived under guard.
Bianca came voluntarily.
Vittorio brought no weapon to the table.
That unsettled everyone more than if he had.
The records were presented.
Marcus’s debts.
The leaked routes.
The secret meeting.
The manipulated vehicle route.
The burned recorder.
Bianca’s role in protecting him.
Her lie to Elena.
Her later relationship with Vittorio.
No one shouted.
The senior men around the table understood what Marcus had done.
He had sold information that endangered their own people.
Power drained from him with every page.
Finally Marcus looked at Vittorio.
“What do you want?”
The old Vittorio might have enjoyed the question.
This one did not.
“You're finished.”
Marcus laughed.
“You think you can erase me?”
“No.”
Vittorio leaned back.
“That's why you're going to live with it.”
Marcus lost every position, every business interest controlled through the Romano organization, every security privilege, every source of internal protection.
The financial evidence and route-leak records were turned over through counsel to the appropriate investigations already beginning around the affected businesses.
Vittorio did not decide Marcus’s entire fate alone.
That was the point.
Bianca received no dramatic sentence.
Her engagement ended.
Her access to Lucy ended.
She would answer separately for the mistreatment of the child and for her role in destroying evidence.
Before leaving, Bianca stopped beside Vittorio.
Her voice was barely audible.
“Do you hate me?”
Vittorio watched her.
For several seconds he said nothing.
Bianca's breathing became uneven.
Then:
“I trusted you with the part of my life that hurt most.”
She closed her eyes.
Vittorio continued.
“You used it as a door.”
Bianca's lips trembled.
He did not raise his voice.
“That is worse than hate.”
She left.
Marcus remained seated.
One final card still in his hand.
“You think Elena would've forgiven you?”
Vittorio looked at him.
Marcus smiled faintly.
“For not believing her when she was alive?”
Silence.
It was cruel.
It was also the question Vittorio could not answer.
Marcus had lost everything.
May you like
Yet with one sentence, he managed to wound Vittorio again.
And for the first time, Vittorio had no punishment that could make the question disappear.
