Chapter 180 *
Salvatore Romano had nothing to say to that.
He stood there for a long moment, this man who had built something out of very little and held it together through force of will and ruthlessness for thirty years. He had no script for this version of events, because he had never written one. It had never occurred to him that he would need it.
He sat down slowly and did not speak again.
Lorenzo turned from his father and looked at Zelda.
"The three percent." His voice didn't change. "It goes back. We'll be filing to recover the shares on the grounds that the transfer was based on fraudulent misrepresentation of your identity and your relationship to this family."
"You can't do this." Zelda came out of Viviana's arms fast. "That's mine. That was given to me. You can't just take it back because you've decided to rewrite the family history."
"I'm not rewriting anything." Lorenzo picked up a glass from the table and set it back down. "I'm reading what was already written."
"I had nothing to do with what Miranda did." She was pressing her hands together now, knuckles white. "I didn't know. I was a child. She abandoned me — I was raised by this family, by my mother, and you're standing here treating me like I planned any of it—"
"Your mother." Lorenzo said it the way you'd set a piece of evidence on a table. "Not Viviana. Miranda."
"Viviana is my mother." Zelda's voice cracked for real this time. "She's the only mother I've ever had."
Graham cleared his throat. "Lorenzo." He was trying to thread a needle. "She grew up with us. Whatever the circumstances, she's still — I mean, she's still family. She's still part of—"
Lorenzo set the glass down on the table hard. The sound cut Graham off cleanly and he did not continue.
Zelda turned back to Viviana. She took her hand, both hands, and held on. Her voice had dropped to something barely audible from across the room. "Please. You know me. You know who I am. Whatever he says about Miranda — whatever any of them say — it doesn't change us. It doesn't change what we are."
Viviana had aged ten years in the past hour. She looked at her daughter — her daughter, still, by every measure that Viviana was willing to acknowledge — and she held on.
"The shares go back," Lorenzo said, and he moved on.
He thanked the capos by name, one by one, and asked them to step out and wait for him downstairs. He told them he would come to each of them personally before the end of the week. He told them the family was going to be stable and that their interests were going to be protected.
They filed out in clusters of two and three. Some of them paused near the door and looked at Scarlett on their way past.
"One more thing." He gestured toward Scarlett. "This is Sal's legitimate daughter. His firstborn. She is the rightful heir to this family, and I want every one of you to know that before you leave this room."
The remaining capos looked at her. Scarlett sat at the table with her hands folded in front of her and met their eyes without flinching. She was aware, in her peripheral vision, of Damon seated beside her, one arm resting on the table with the total physical ease of a man who had never in his life needed to perform authority for anyone's benefit. Nobody in the room was going to argue with what Lorenzo had just said, and everyone understood exactly why.
They nodded, one by one, and filed out. The board members followed. Lorenzo's men closed the doors behind them.
The conference room held what remained of the Romano family in a silence.
"Now that it's just family," Lorenzo said, "let's talk about what happens next." He nodded at the man near the laptop.
The audio came through the conference room speakers at a clean, even volume, and the voice was unmistakable.
"Owen needs to come back. I'm serious. Lorenzo is playing family man all of a sudden, trying to act like he's some kind of legitimate heir — he's been running interference for months. If Owen is there, he can step in directly. Not as backup. As the guy who actually runs things. Lorenzo gets sidelined, and then we don't have to worry about him anymore."
Zelda's body went very still.
Viviana's hand tightened over hers.
"That's not—" Zelda started.
"It keeps going," Lorenzo said.
The second recording was shorter. It was a different call, a different day, the same voice.
"Honestly? That woman is completely unhinged. You know how she gets. I've been managing her for years — you smile, you sit with her, you tell her she's wonderful, and she calms down for a while. It works. But it's exhausting. It's like babysitting someone who thinks they're in charge."
The room was absolutely quiet.
Viviana did not move. She was looking at the speaker on the wall.
Zelda's mouth opened, and Graham made a sound somewhere low in his throat, and Sal put his hand on the table like he was thinking about standing up. But nobody said anything, because the recording was still running.
"Lorenzo thinks he's protecting her. He's just making it harder. Once the old guard figures out she's been carrying dead weight this whole time..."
Zelda turned to Viviana, "It's out of context. You know that. You know how I talk when I'm stressed, when I'm venting to someone I trust—"
"There's one more," Lorenzo said.
Recording three was longer than the others. It was the most casual of all of them, which made it worse. Zelda's voice had that particular quality of someone who had dropped the performance entirely because she believed no one was listening.
"Scarlett is the least of my problems, honestly. She's been playing the poor little lost girl routine since she walked in the door, and everyone's falling for it. That little bitch thinks she can just come back and pick up where she left off? After nineteen years? Lorenzo's letting guilt run his brain right now. Graham doesn't have the spine to take a position. Nico just follows whoever's loudest. None of them are going to be a real problem."