Chapter 185 *
"I don't know," Viviana said finally, and her voice broke on the words. "I don't know anymore. I can't — I can't tell anymore where any of it—"
She pressed both hands over her mouth and stopped trying.
Scarlett watched her for a moment. She felt something, watching her — not softness exactly, but recognition. She knew what it looked like when a person lost the story they had been telling themselves. She had watched it happen from the outside before and she had lived through it from the inside, and neither version was clean.
But recognition was not the same as obligation.
She pushed her chair back and stood up.
"Then I hope you figure it out," Scarlett said. She meant it without cruelty. She meant it the way you mean something that you have already let go of completely.
She picked up her bag from the back of the chair.
Damon was already on his feet. He buttoned his jacket with two efficient movements and came around the table toward her, and when he reached her he put his hand at the small of her back.
Lorenzo was standing near the door. He looked at Scarlett as she passed, and whatever he was about to say, he thought better of it. He just held the door open.
She walked through it.
The hallway outside was cooler than the conference room. The sounds from inside faded behind the heavy doors.
They walked the length of the hallway and turned toward the stairs.
"You okay?" Damon asked.
"Yeah," she said. "I'm good."
He didn't press it. He knew her well enough by now to understand when good was the truth and when it was a placeholder, and he knew the difference between the two from the way she said it. This was the truth.
They came down the main staircase and through the entry hall. Arthur was waiting near the front door. He pulled it open as they approached. The cars were still lined up along the circular drive. The gate at the end was open again.
She stopped on the top step and looked out at the street for a moment. The sky had gone grey over Staten Island, the particular flat grey of late afternoon that turned everything the same color.
"I'm hungry," she said.
Damon looked at her.
"I want Italian. Not the place in midtown with the bread that's somehow both stale and undercooked."
"I know a place," he said.
"I know you do." She started down the steps. "You always know a place."
He fell into step beside her, and she heard the faint sound of him say something to Arthur that she didn't catch, and then his hand was at her back again and they were walking toward the car, and somewhere behind them the gates of the Romano estate swung shut.
——————
The door had barely closed behind Scarlett and Damon when Viviana pushed back from the table.
"Scarlett." Her voice came out raw. "Scarlett, wait—"
She was already at the door. She got it open and stepped into the hallway and looked both ways, and Scarlett was already at the top of the stairs, one hand on the railing, Damon half a step behind her.
"Please." The word tore out of Viviana. "Please just—"
Scarlett didn't stop walking.
Viviana's legs gave out.
She went down in the middle of the hallway, both knees hitting the floor at once, her hand catching the door frame just enough to keep her from going all the way down. She made a sound that had no shape to it. Not a word. Not a name. Just sound, open and uncontrolled, the kind that comes when a person has run out of everything else.
Nico reached her first. He got his arm under hers and tried to pull her back up and she fought him, not with any clear intention, just her whole body resisting in the blind way of something in pain.
"Mom." His voice was careful the way it got when he was scared. "Come on. Come back inside."
"Let me—" She tried to get back to her feet. Her shoes slipped on the floor. "Let me just talk to her. If I could just—"
"She's already gone," Graham said from behind him.
That stopped her.
She went still in Nico's grip, one knee still on the floor, her hair completely undone, mascara tracked down both cheeks. She stared at the top of the staircase for a long moment. It was empty. The sound of footsteps below had already faded.
Graham reached past Nico and got her other arm, and together they brought her back through the door.
At the far end of the conference room, Sal had already moved. He had Zelda by the elbow and was steering her toward the exit.
Lorenzo stepped directly into his path. "You're not leaving yet," Lorenzo said.
Sal looked at his son's face and read it correctly. He let go of Zelda's arm.
"There are three things I need you to hear before you walk out of this house." Lorenzo's voice was even. "You can sit down or you can stand. It doesn't matter to me."
Sal didn't sit. He crossed his arms and waited.
"First." Lorenzo reached into the folder still open on the table. "Under New York matrimonial property law, assets transferred during marriage without spousal consent are recoverable. Mom's attorney is already pulling the records. The Manhattan properties held in Miranda's name. The offshore accounts. The business interests registered under her. Every transfer Sal Romano made over the last thirty years that Viviana didn't sign off on."
He set the paper on the table between them.
"She'll get it all back."
Sal said nothing. His jaw had tightened but his expression hadn't changed.
"Second." Lorenzo looked at Zelda. "The Romano name gave you access to things that belong to this family. The dividend accounts. The jewelry. The allowances. The assets held in your name as a Romano." He paused. "That name was never legally yours. Which means what it gave you wasn't yours either. Our attorneys will be filing to recover it."
Zelda opened her mouth.
"I'm not finished." His tone didn't shift. "You'll be contacted about the timeline for returning the assets. Don't make it difficult."
"And third." Lorenzo turned back to Sal. "Miranda spent thirty years operating under Romano family protection. She used our contacts. Our infrastructure. Our leverage. She ran her own interests using access that came from being connected to this family."
He folded his hands.
"That debt doesn't disappear because your name is off the letterhead. Everything she borrowed, every resource she used, every favor she called in using Romano connections — it gets settled. With your share of the family holdings. We'll have the accounting ready by end of week."
"You can't do this." Sal's voice came out quiet. "I built this organization. I built it from nothing. Whatever Viviana's family gave us early on, it was my work that made it what it is. Thirty years of my work."
"It was her family's territory," Lorenzo said. "Her father's docks. Her family's union contacts. Her family's early money that kept us solvent in the first three years." He didn't raise his voice. "You didn't build it from nothing, Sal. You built it from her foundation. And you spent three decades funneling her returns to another woman."
Sal looked at him for a long moment.
Then something in his face shifted. Not remorse. The cold calculation of a man who has lost a hand and is already counting what's left in the deck.
"Winner takes all." He turned to Zelda. "Come on."
They walked out.
Nobody stopped them.