Chapter 21 - The Moretti Civil War
Mason's arrest should have ended everything.
Instead, it started a war.
Not with guns.
With lawyers.
Which, I discovered, could be almost as vicious.
Three days after the warehouse raid, the Moretti Family Governance Council invoked the trust clause.
Lucian received the notice during breakfast.
He read it once.
Then handed it to me.
TEMPORARY SUSPENSION OF VOTING AUTHORITY.
“Can they do that?” I asked.
“Apparently.”
Salvatore entered the kitchen looking furious.
“I didn't authorize this.”
“You're chairman,” I said.
“Four council members can override the chairman during a competency challenge.”
Lucian continued eating toast.
I stared at him.
“How are you calm?”
“I'm imagining several illegal responses and choosing not to use them.”
“Growth.”
“Painful growth.”
The council claimed the federal investigation had damaged Lucian's fitness to control family assets.
Never mind that the most serious evidence had been fabricated.
Never mind Mason had been charged.
They saw weakness.
And old powerful men hated nothing more than a leader changing the rules.
By noon, Lucian was locked out of voting control over three shipping companies.
By evening, two board members demanded he cancel our engagement.
I laughed when I heard.
Lucian did not.
“Maybe I should attend the meeting,” I said.
“No.”
“I have opinions.”
“That is exactly why you shouldn't attend.”
Salvatore actually chuckled.
The meeting happened at a private club near Lake Shore Drive.
Lucian went alone except for Gideon.
I stayed home.
For forty-seven minutes.
Then my phone rang.
Lucian.
I answered.
“How bad?”
“Define bad.”
“How many elderly millionaires threatened you?”
“Six.”
“Any propose a better wife?”
“Three.”
I sat upright.
“Names.”
He laughed.
“There she is.”
“What happened?”
“They offered to restore my voting rights if I end the engagement.”
“And?”
“I asked whether they preferred receiving my refusal alphabetically or chronologically.”
I smiled.
Then his voice softened.
“Harper.”
“Yes?”
“They will come after your company.”
That killed the smile.
“How?”
“Permits. Financing. Clients.”
“They can't legally—”
“People with money rarely need to break laws directly.”
I looked around my new studio.
I had four employees now.
Two commercial projects.
One residential renovation.
People depended on me.
“Maybe we should postpone the wedding.”
Silence.
Not cancel.
Postpone.
But saying it still hurt.
Lucian's voice changed.
“No.”
“Lucian—”
“No.”
“If marrying me costs you control of everything—”
“I don't care.”
“I do.”
“I can build another company.”
“You shouldn't have to.”
“And you shouldn't have to become collateral damage.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
Two stubborn people trying to sacrifice themselves first.
“Come home.”
“I will.”
That night, we sat beside the reflecting pool where we had first kissed.
Lucian rolled up his sleeves.
No jacket.
No armor.
“I could give them what they want,” I said.
“No.”
“Temporarily.”
“No.”
“You don't even know what I'm proposing.”
“You are proposing to remove yourself from my life so I can keep something I don't value more than you.”
I looked down.
He reached for my hand.
“I spent years thinking I inherited my father's empire.”
He turned my palm upward and kissed it.
“I was wrong.”
“What did you inherit?”
“His unfinished choice.”
I looked at him.
“He wanted out.”
Lucian nodded.
“The ledger proves it. He was preparing to expose the criminal network and convert the family companies before he died.”
“And now you're doing the same.”
“Yes.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder.
“So what happens?”
“We make the council irrelevant.”
I sat up.
“How?”
A dangerous little smile appeared.
Not criminal dangerous.
Corporate dangerous.
Somehow worse.
“The trust controls family voting shares.”
“Yes.”
“It does not control publicly traded shares.”
Understanding dawned.
“You're taking the company public.”
“Part of it.”
“Can you?”
“With the right investors.”
“The council will fight you.”
“I hope they do.”
“Why?”
“Because fighting in public requires disclosures.”
His smile widened.
“And some of these gentlemen have spent forty years surviving because nobody ever forced them to explain where their money came from.”
I stared at him.
“You're going to destroy the old Moretti system with securities regulations.”
“Romance has changed me.”
I kissed him.
Maybe the council thought I was Lucian's weakness.
They were about to discover something important.
May you like
I wasn't the reason Lucian Moretti had become weaker.
I was the reason he finally had something worth becoming better for.
