Chapter 8 - THE DEAL VITTORIO REFUSED
Bellandi House had peacocks.
I considered that the clearest evidence rich people should be supervised.
At six the next morning one screamed beneath my window.
I nearly called security.
Francesca found this hilarious.
“You get used to them.”
“I don’t want to.”
“They are decorative.”
“They sound possessed.”
For the first time since Stellato, life briefly felt normal.
Then Lorenzo summoned us to his library.
Vittorio had arrived before dawn.
Security searched him.
He looked deeply offended.
I enjoyed that.
Judge Emilia Conti attended by secure video.
Giulia Serra sat beside Vittorio.
Lorenzo’s lawyers occupied the other side.
The emergency trustee vote began.
Three changes.
First, remove automatic voting control from biological heirs.
Second, eliminate Giacomo’s emergency succession mechanism.
Third, convert any mandatory child interest into a nonvoting protected asset structure that could not be controlled by a guardian for business decisions.
Judge Conti listened.
Then asked me:
“Signora Moretti, do you understand your child may be surrendering future control worth hundreds of millions?”
I looked at the screen.
“He is surrendering nothing.”
The judge raised one eyebrow.
“He doesn’t own it yet.”
Silence.
Good.
I continued.
“He has not agreed to spend his life as an excuse for adult men to kill each other.”
Lorenzo looked down.
Vittorio almost smiled.
Judge Conti asked:
“Do you object to him receiving economic benefit?”
I thought.
Money itself was not evil.
The target attached to it was.
“I object to anything that makes his identity public before he can choose.”
She nodded.
“That is reasonable.”
The vote began.
Vittorio’s two trustees:
Yes.
Lorenzo:
Yes.
Judge Conti:
Yes.
Four.
Enough.
The amendments passed subject to court filing.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Then Vittorio closed his eyes.
My son had stopped being the key to an empire.
At least legally.
Then every phone in the room rang.
Almost simultaneously.
Antonio answered first.
His face changed.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“The port.”
Vittorio stood.
“What happened?”
“Customs police found weapons inside Ricci containers.”
Lorenzo swore.
Vittorio’s face became stone.
“Which containers?”
“Three shipments. Registered through Genoa.”
Francesca understood.
“Giacomo.”
Maybe.
Or Marcello.
The timing was perfect.
Minutes after Vittorio changed the trust, his legitimate companies became implicated in arms trafficking.
Police raids began.
Banks froze several accounts.
News channels announced that Vittorio Ricci’s empire might face seizure.
Lorenzo looked at him.
“You have to leave.”
Francesca stood.
“Papa.”
“If police trace the attack network here—”
Vittorio nodded.
“He’s right.”
I looked at him.
“Where?”
“Headquarters.”
“Is that safe?”
“No.”
Honest.
“I need to surrender company records before Giacomo destroys more.”
“You’re going to police?”
“Yes.”
That surprised me.
Vittorio Ricci.
Feared mafia boss.
Walking voluntarily into an investigation.
He looked at my face.
“I told you I can only prove who I am by what I do now.”
The same sentence.
I remembered.
He left with Giulia.
Hours passed.
Then a message arrived.
Vittorio detained for questioning.
Not arrested.
Yet.
Authorities seized servers.
Ships held at port.
News reports exploded.
Every article called the weapons “Ricci arms.”
No one knew about Giacomo.
Not publicly.
Then Lorenzo received a call.
He answered privately.
When he returned, his face had changed.
“Marcello wants a meeting.”
Francesca laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
“With who?”
Lorenzo looked at me.
“No.”
I stared.
“Me?”
“No.”
“What does he want?”
“Trade.”
Vittorio’s freedom.
Evidence proving the weapons were planted.
In exchange for something.
I already knew.
The trust amendments.
“Reverse them.”
Lorenzo nodded.
My stomach turned.
Marcello and Giacomo no longer had direct control.
So they intended to rebuild it.
“If we reverse the vote?”
“Giacomo provides evidence clearing Vittorio.”
Francesca said:
“And then they kill him later.”
Exactly.
Lorenzo looked exhausted.
I asked:
“Can we fake the reversal?”
Judge Conti, still involved through lawyers, answered:
“Not legally.”
“I didn’t ask legally.”
Lorenzo looked at me with new respect.
Francesca smiled.
Judge Conti did not.
But after a pause:
“You can announce a review.”
Interesting.
Publicly state the trustee board was reconsidering amendments due to regulatory impact.
No actual reversal.
Marcello might believe pressure worked.
Enough to draw him out.
Lorenzo objected.
“He will demand documentation.”
Giulia, calling from police headquarters, joined remotely.
“We can create draft papers clearly marked unexecuted.”
Judge Conti sighed.
“I dislike all of you.”
Sofia said:
“Welcome.”
The plan was dangerous.
But Vittorio needed proof.
Not simply for freedom.
For thousands of employees.
Ricci Maritime employed more than twelve thousand people.
If the company collapsed under criminal seizure, families far removed from mafia politics would lose livelihoods.
That changed something for me.
Vittorio’s empire was not just him.
Power always hid ordinary people beneath it.
At midnight, Marcello called.
Lorenzo put it on speaker.
“Have you reconsidered?”
“Yes.”
Marcello sounded pleased.
“The girl understands?”
I felt cold.
Lorenzo looked at me.
I answered.
“My son doesn’t need the Ricci name.”
Marcello laughed.
“Smart woman.”
I hated him instantly.
“What do you want?”
“Documents delivered tomorrow.”
“Where?”
He gave an abandoned customs warehouse near Genoa.
Francesca shook her head.
Trap.
Obviously.
“Who delivers?”
Marcello answered:
“Elena.”
Vittorio learned thirty minutes later.
He called me from a secure room inside police headquarters.
“No.”
I almost laughed.
“There it is.”
“Elena.”
“I know.”
“You are not going.”
“I know.”
He stopped.
“You agree?”
“Yes.”
Suspicion.
“You are terrifying me.”
“Good.”
“We send someone else.”
“No.”
“What?”
“We make him think I’m there.”
Silence.
Then Vittorio understood.
A convoy.
A woman resembling me.
Security.
But no actual Elena.
Francesca volunteered.
“No.”
Both Lorenzo and Vittorio said it together.
She rolled her eyes.
“I’m the same height.”
“You’re blonde.”
“Wig.”
I stared.
“You would do that?”
Francesca looked at me.
“My family helped create this danger.”
“Not you.”
“I called my father.”
“That was not the beginning.”
She nodded slowly.
“I know.”
Then:
“But I am tired of men building wars around women and calling us collateral.”
That settled it.
Francesca would ride inside the armored vehicle wearing my coat and dark wig.
The real documents would not be there.
Police tactical units would monitor.
Marcello would be arrested if he appeared.
Giacomo remained the larger target.
Vittorio hated every part.
But he stayed in police custody because leaving would destroy cooperation.
That mattered too.
The following afternoon, the convoy entered Genoa.
Francesca sat inside.
I watched from Bellandi House through police feeds.
The warehouse doors opened.
A man stepped out.
Marcello.
Francesca exited.
He smiled.
Then looked closer.
His face changed.
“Francesca.”
She removed the wig.
“Hello, Uncle.”
Police moved.
Marcello reached inside his coat.
Francesca froze.
Then another man emerged behind him.
Older.
Silver hair.
Giacomo Ricci.
He held a pistol.
Not toward Francesca.
Toward Marcello.
Then he shot him.
Once.
Marcello fell.
Chaos exploded.
Giacomo ran.
Police chased.
He disappeared through another loading door before being surrounded.
Minutes later, officers found an underground maintenance corridor leading to the docks.
Empty.
Again.
But Marcello survived.
Barely.
And before surgery, he gave investigators one sentence.
“Giacomo planted the weapons.”
Then:
“He has the original manifests.”
Where?
Marcello whispered:
“Vittorio’s old apartment.”
The apartment where Alessandro Visconti had lived.
The place I had spent six months believing contained my happiest memories.
Giacomo had turned even that into a hiding place.
And Vittorio finally understood why his uncle let the false identity exist so easily.
May you like
Alessandro had never been only Vittorio’s escape.
Giacomo had been using the ghost too.
