Chapter 4
I did not go alone.
I brought Ada.
Her choice.
That mattered.
Rafe came too.
Rhea and Gavin remained under guard.
Sebastian sat exactly where I expected.
At the long black table beneath my father’s portrait.
The Inner Chair had been removed years ago.
Yet someone had brought it back.
Same dark wood.
Same carved Bellini crest.
I stopped at the doorway.
Ada whispered:
“You kept it?”
Sebastian smiled.
“I preserved it.”
Of course.
Men like him call refusal to let go preservation.
Seven glasses sat on the table.
Eight if you counted his.
No captains.
Just their places.
Cowards still elsewhere.
“You staged the livestream.”
“Yes.”
“Why now?”
“Because you’ve changed.”
There it was.
The accusation every older relative uses when the younger person stops behaving conveniently.
“How?”
“You ended private debt collections.”
“Yes.”
“You removed bloodline privileges.”
“Yes.”
“You stopped allowing captains to discipline relatives beneath them.”
“Yes.”
“You separated family homes from operational meetings.”
“Yes.”
He leaned back.
“You’re turning Bellini into a company.”
“No.”
I looked at Ada.
“I’m stopping men from treating relatives like equipment.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened.
“The family survived because everyone understood sacrifice.”
Ada laughed once.
“You mean ours.”
He ignored her.
Then he pointed toward the empty Inner Chair.
“Sit.”
I did not move.
He continued.
“Restore the council.”
“No.”
“You haven’t heard the offer.”
“No.”
His expression hardened.
“The seven captains will support you without challenge if you restore the chair.”
I almost smiled.
“That means they’re challenging me now.”
Silence.
Sebastian hated concise truth.
Then Ada noticed something beneath the table.
A red leather folder.
She pulled it toward herself.
Sebastian stood immediately.
“Leave that.”
Too late.
Ada opened it.
Inside were photographs.
Not of me.
Of her.
Leaving the estate.
Visiting friends.
At a café.
At a doctor’s office.
Months of surveillance.
May you like
My uncle had not invented this test last week.
He had been studying my sister for nearly a year.
