Chapter 15 - No One Leaves the Estate
News broke forty-eight hours later.
MORETTI EXECUTIVE IMPLICATED IN FINANCIAL FRAUD INVESTIGATION.
Then another headline.
MORETTI COMPANIES OPEN BOOKS TO INDEPENDENT AUDIT.
Reporters gathered outside the estate.
Helicopters appeared above the North Shore.
Phones rang constantly.
Business partners panicked.
Board members demanded emergency meetings.
Luca attended all of them.
At the first, a seventy-year-old investor shouted, “You voluntarily gave auditors access to twenty years of records?”
“Yes.”
“Are you insane?”
“Possibly.”
“We can contain this.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what they’ll find.”
“That’s why they’re looking.”
The investor stared at him.
“Your father would never have done this.”
Luca had heard enough.
“My father is dead.”
Silence.
“And for fifteen years, every time someone wants me to protect a mistake, they tell me what my father would have done.”
He looked around the room.
“That excuse expires today.”
No one challenged him again.
At the estate, Elena watched television coverage from the kitchen.
A reporter described Luca as “the enigmatic head of a controversial business dynasty attempting an unprecedented internal cleanup.”
Mia ate strawberries.
“Uncle Luca TV.”
“Yes.”
“He looks mad.”
“He probably is.”
“Can I call him?”
“He’s working.”
Mia considered.
“I’m boss.”
Elena laughed.
“That argument has become dangerous.”
Her phone rang.
Luca.
She answered.
“How bad?”
“Depends on whether you like having friends.”
“You had friends?”
“Apparently not.”
She smiled.
He became quieter.
“How’s Mia?”
“Eating your strawberries.”
“Those are expensive.”
“She says boss privilege.”
“I created a monster.”
“You absolutely did.”
A pause.
Then Elena said, “How are you?”
“I just told twelve board members we may sell three companies.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Luca was silent.
“Tired.”
“Come home.”
The words came naturally.
Both noticed.
Elena corrected herself.
“Come back to the estate.”
“I knew what you meant.”
He returned after midnight.
Most lights were off.
Elena sat in the kitchen with tea.
“You waited.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
He removed his jacket.
“For me?”
“For the tea.”
“Cruel.”
“You’ll recover.”
He sat.
She pushed a cup toward him.
“Daniel says Thomas’s name will be cleared.”
“Yes.”
“The false account too?”
“Yes.”
“And Victor?”
“Cooperating.”
“Celeste?”
“Also.”
“What happens to them?”
“Courts decide.”
Elena nodded.
She appreciated that answer.
No secret punishment.
No mysterious disappearance.
No old-world solution.
Just consequences in daylight.
“What happens to you?”
Luca looked at the tea.
“That depends on the audit.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes.”
This time he answered immediately.
“Of prison?”
“If I’m responsible for something criminal, I’ll answer for it.”
“That sounds rehearsed.”
“Lawyers.”
She smiled faintly.
“What are you actually afraid of?”
He looked around the kitchen.
“My father built something enormous. I spent my whole life trying not to lose it.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m wondering whether holding it together was the mistake.”
Elena thought about Thomas.
“He believed you didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“He went out of his way to say that.”
“I know.”
“Maybe he thought you could change things.”
Luca looked at her.
“Thomas barely knew me.”
“Sometimes people who barely know us see things clearly because they aren’t trapped by history.”
That sounded like Mia.
Three years old.
No understanding of company politics.
No fear of Victor’s reputation.
She had simply seen a man make her mother cry and declared it wrong.
Sometimes morality was complicated.
Sometimes adults made it complicated because simplicity required courage.
Luca looked toward the stairs.
“Where is she?”
“Sleeping.”
“Good.”
A tiny voice came from the doorway.
“No.”
They turned.
Mia stood in pajamas holding her rabbit.
Elena sighed.
“You are supposed to be asleep.”
“I tried.”
“For how long?”
Mia held up three fingers.
“Three hours?”
“Three.”
“Three minutes?”
Mia smiled.
Luca opened his arms.
She ran to him.
He lifted her onto his knee.
“Bosses need sleep.”
“You don’t.”
“That is unfortunately true.”
Mia touched his tie.
“You sad?”
Luca glanced at Elena.
“A little.”
Mia thought carefully.
Then patted his cheek.
“No crying.”
Luca smiled.
“Yes, Boss.”
She leaned against him.
Within minutes she was asleep.
Elena watched.
Something in Luca’s face had changed over the past week.
The intimidating businessman was still there.
But beneath him was a man who seemed increasingly tired of being feared.
“Elena.”
“Yes?”
“When this is over, you and Mia don’t have to leave.”
She looked surprised.
“We live here because of my job.”
“I know.”
“Are you offering me permanent employment?”
“I’m offering you a choice.”
“That’s new.”
“I’m learning.”
She looked at sleeping Mia.
“What kind of choice?”
“Whatever you want.”
Before Elena could answer, Luca’s phone rang.
Daniel.
Luca answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He listened.
Then stood.
Elena’s stomach tightened.
“What happened?”
Luca ended the call.
“The auditors found another account.”
“Victor?”
“No.”
“Celeste?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Luca stared at her.
“Me.”
Someone had opened a secret account in Luca’s name fifteen years earlier.
The same month his father died.
And it contained forty-seven million dollars.
May you like
The empire still had one final secret.
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