Chapter 8 - Thirty-Two Million Reasons to Run
I became a millionaire at 8:06 on a Thursday night.
At 8:07, I told Alessandro I didn't want it.
He stared at me.
“Thirty-two million dollars?”
“Yes.”
“You don't want thirty-two million dollars?”
“No.”
“Claire, people have killed for considerably less.”
“Your family is excellent evidence for my argument.”
He almost smiled.
The trust had been designed to pass from Daniel Bennett to his legal heir after seventeen years if Daniel never claimed it.
That deadline had expired six weeks earlier.
The money was mine.
There was a catch.
Of course there was.
The trust controlled thirty-one percent of Romano Development, Alessandro's largest legitimate company.
Which meant the waitress who had charged him three dollars for a broken cup now had the power to block major corporate decisions.
Victor laughed for almost a minute.
Alessandro did not.
“What happens if I sign it back to you?” I asked.
“You can't.”
“Why?”
“My father made the shares nontransferable for five years after activation.”
“So I'm stuck owning your company?”
“Part of it.”
“This is the worst tip anyone has ever given me.”
Within forty-eight hours, reporters found out.
My photograph appeared online.
WAITRESS INHERITS ROMANO FORTUNE.
MYSTERY WOMAN CONTROLS CRIME BOSS'S EMPIRE.
The stories were mostly nonsense.
But the danger wasn't.
Vale's remaining partners saw me as leverage.
Alessandro increased security.
I hated it.
Then somebody firebombed Rosie’s.
It happened at 3:11 a.m.
Nobody was inside.
By sunrise, half the kitchen was blackened.
Rosa stood on the sidewalk crying.
I had never seen her cry.
Something inside me changed.
I was done running.
At the Romano board meeting that afternoon, twelve executives stared when I entered.
Alessandro stood.
“Claire?”
I placed the trust documents on the table.
“You said these shares give me voting power.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“Good.”
I looked around the room.
“Then we're rebuilding Rosie’s.”
One executive blinked.
“This company doesn't operate restaurants.”
“It does now.”
Another man laughed.
Alessandro looked at him.
The laughter stopped.
I turned toward Alessandro.
“No intimidation.”
“I didn't say anything.”
“Your eyebrows did.”
Victor covered a cough.
Over the next month, we discovered something unexpected.
Romano Development owned dozens of buildings in neighborhoods where rents had increased aggressively under Vale's management contracts.
Families were being displaced.
Small businesses were closing.
Alessandro hadn't known.
That fact didn't absolve him.
He understood that.
“We fix it,” he said.
So we did.
Lease increases were frozen.
Several predatory contracts were canceled.
Rosie’s employees received health insurance.
When Rosa saw her new benefits card, she hugged Alessandro.
He looked terrified.
“You can survive gunshots,” I told him afterward, “but affection frightens you?”
“Rosa has a frying pan.”
Fair point.
My mother improved steadily.
Dad began rebuilding his relationship with us.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Honestly.
Alessandro changed too.
Not overnight.
He still frightened people.
Still controlled rooms without trying.
But he stopped using anger as his first language.
One evening, I found him standing inside the rebuilt diner.
He was looking at the repaired yellow wall.
I approached.
“Thinking about throwing something?”
“No.”
“Growth.”
He glanced at me.
“I've been thinking about selling my interests in everything illegal.”
I stared.
“You can do that?”
“Not cleanly.”
“But?”
“But I'm tired.”
There was no weakness in the admission.
Only truth.
“I spent seventeen years protecting an empire I inherited from dead men.”
He looked around Rosie’s.
“I don't want to die defending something I never chose.”
I took his hand.
“What do you want?”
His eyes moved to me.
“You.”
My heart stumbled.
“And?”
He considered.
“A life where dinner doesn't require armed guards.”
“Ambitious.”
“Coffee that remains inside the cup.”
“Very ambitious.”
He smiled.
Then the front window shattered.
Alessandro pulled me down.
A brick rolled across the floor.
There was no explosion.
No gunfire.
Just a note wrapped around it.
Victor picked it up.
His expression darkened.
“What?”
He handed it to Alessandro.
Three words.
SEBASTIAN MADE BAIL.
I stared at Alessandro.
“How?”
Victor answered.
“Someone paid ten million dollars.”
“Who?”
His phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
Then he looked at me.
“Your father is missing.”
My stomach dropped.
Victor checked another message.
“And ten million dollars was transferred this morning from Bennett Holdings.”
Everyone looked at me.
I hadn't authorized anything.
Which meant somebody had accessed the trust.
And there were only two people besides me who knew the security questions required to do it.
May you like
Alessandro.
And my father.
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