Chapter 6 - The Yellow Envelope
Massimo waited until lunch.
Vivian and Damian were both downstairs meeting the wedding caterer.
Arthur Vale had gone to Manhattan.
Only then did Massimo enter Lucia’s bedroom.
His mother smiled.
“You again?”
“Disappointed?”
“Suspicious.”
She had always known him too well.
Massimo closed the door.
“I want the yellow envelope.”
Lucia’s expression emptied.
“What yellow envelope?”
“The one beneath your wheelchair cushion.”
Silence.
Lucia’s eyes moved toward the ceiling camera.
Then back to him.
Understanding arrived slowly.
“You were here.”
Massimo said nothing.
Lucia’s face changed.
Not relief.
Betrayal.
“You were here.”
“I came back secretly.”
“When?”
“Before Vivian entered this room.”
Lucia’s hand trembled.
“You saw?”
“Yes.”
“The medication?”
“Yes.”
“The slap?”
Massimo swallowed.
“Yes.”
Lucia stared at him.
“And you let it happen.”
“I had security ready.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“No.”
A tear appeared in his mother’s eye.
Massimo would have preferred screaming.
Lucia rarely cried.
“You let me believe my son was across an ocean while that woman threatened me.”
“I needed to know who was helping her.”
“And did you?”
“Damian. Arthur Vale. Possibly others.”
Lucia turned toward the window.
Massimo crouched.
“I’m sorry.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Your father used to say those words after decisions had already become irreversible.”
“Mother.”
“No. You wanted the truth? You will get all of it.”
Lucia pulled the yellow envelope free.
“Your father and his brother built Moretti Holdings together.”
“I know.”
“No. You know the version Enzo allowed everyone to repeat.”
She handed him the envelope.
Inside were photocopies of partnership records from twenty-two years earlier.
Carlo Moretti owned thirty-eight percent of a waterfront redevelopment subsidiary.
Massimo frowned.
“I’ve never seen this company.”
“Because it was absorbed.”
“By Moretti Holdings?”
“Yes.”
“For what consideration?”
Lucia looked away.
“Almost none.”
Massimo slowly turned pages.
The transfer agreement carried Carlo’s signature.
Then he saw the medical report attached.
Carlo had been receiving treatment for alcoholism and depression.
A physician declared him temporarily incapable of managing financial affairs.
Enzo exercised an emergency voting clause.
Massimo felt cold.
“He used Carlo’s illness to take his shares.”
Lucia whispered, “Yes.”
“Was the incapacity legitimate?”
“Partly.”
“That is not an answer.”
“He was drinking. He was unstable. But he was not incapable of understanding what Enzo was doing.”
“Did Carlo contest it?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Enzo threatened to expose his addiction during Damian’s custody case.”
Massimo looked up sharply.
“Damian’s custody case?”
“Carlo and his wife were divorcing. She wanted to take Damian to California.”
Massimo stared at the papers.
His father had used a child as leverage.
Lucia continued.
“Carlo signed.”
“How much were the shares eventually worth?”
“By the time the redevelopment finished?”
She closed her eyes.
“Nearly one hundred and eighty million dollars.”
Massimo stood.
The room suddenly felt too small.
“And you knew.”
“I knew enough.”
“You witnessed this agreement.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I believed your father when he said it was temporary.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“No.”
“What happened to Carlo?”
“You remember.”
Massimo did.
Carlo moved to Florida.
He died seven years later after a stroke.
Damian came back to New York and eventually reconciled publicly with Enzo.
Massimo had admired him for it.
Now he understood the reconciliation differently.
“Did Damian know?”
“I don’t know when he learned.”
“He knows now.”
Lucia nodded.
“Last year he asked me whether I remembered the Harbor Point subsidiary.”
“And you told him?”
“I lied.”
Massimo stared at her.
“What did you say?”
“That I remembered nothing.”
“Why?”
“Because your father was dead. Carlo was dead. You were running the company. I thought reopening it would destroy the family.”
“It already did.”
Lucia flinched.
Massimo regretted the cruelty immediately.
But he did not withdraw it.
“The trust Vivian wants you to amend—does it contain Harbor Point assets?”
“Indirectly.”
“How much?”
“About seventy million remains in family-controlled real estate.”
That explained part of Damian’s motive.
Not the extortion.
Not the medication.
But the target.
Massimo paced.
“Document 17 would put Damian in emergency control over assets he believes were stolen from his father.”
“Yes.”
“Why not sue?”
“Because the agreement Carlo signed is enforceable on its face.”
“Then he wants to seize control without reopening the past.”
Lucia whispered, “Or he wants revenge.”
A knock came.
Vivian.
“Lucia?”
Massimo and his mother froze.
Massimo quickly replaced the papers.
Vivian entered carrying tea.
She smiled.
“I didn’t know you were here.”
“Talking with my mother.”
“How sweet.”
She placed the tray down.
Lucia’s hand trembled.
Massimo saw Vivian notice.
“Are you all right?” Vivian asked.
Lucia nodded.
“Fine.”
Vivian poured tea.
Massimo watched every movement.
Then Vivian handed him a cup.
“For you.”
He accepted it.
Lucia’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly.
Massimo lifted the cup.
Vivian watched.
He brought it close to his mouth.
Lucia suddenly knocked her own saucer from the table.
It shattered.
“Oh!” she cried.
Massimo set his tea down immediately and crouched beside her.
Vivian’s jaw tightened.
Massimo understood.
His mother had deliberately stopped him from drinking.
A housekeeper entered to clean the porcelain.
Massimo quietly placed his cup on the tray.
Later, Marco collected it.
The laboratory report arrived that evening.
The tea contained a prescription sedative.
Not enough to kill Massimo.
Enough to make him disoriented.
Enough, perhaps, to begin establishing a pattern of impairment.
Marco read the report twice.
“They’ve started.”
Massimo looked toward the wedding countdown on the wall.
Three days.
“No,” he said.
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He held the yellow envelope containing his father’s betrayal.
“They started twenty-two years ago.”
