Chapter 1
“Who promised you my father’s chair?”
Camille looked at Luca.
My son’s champagne glass slipped in his hand and struck the edge of the table without breaking.
That tiny sound told me more than any confession.
Arthur sat on the padded garden bench behind me, one bodyguard supporting his shoulder while another retrieved his wheelchair. My father’s suit was stained with grass, but his eyes remained clear.
They were fixed on his grandson.
“Luca?”
My voice stayed low.
He looked at Camille first.
Wrong choice.
Then at me.
“I told her Grandfather wouldn’t hold the Founder’s Chair after tonight.”
The lawn became completely silent.
I stared at him.
“You told her it would become hers?”
“No.”
Camille suddenly shouted:
“You said it would become ours.”
There.
Luca closed his eyes.
My father did not.
Arthur watched him with a sadness that angered me more than outrage would have.
The Founder’s Chair was not the wheelchair Camille had tipped.
It was the symbolic head seat Arthur still occupied at major DeLuca gatherings even after retiring and giving operational command to me twelve years earlier.
He signed nothing from it.
Controlled no crews from it.
But old men still watched who sat nearest him.
They still lowered their voices when he spoke.
Symbolism becomes power when enough people agree to pretend.
I looked across the lawn.
Several of the guests who had raised champagne glasses earlier were suddenly studying their shoes.
Interesting.
I turned back to Luca.
“What exactly did you promise?”
His jaw tightened.
“That after tonight, Grandfather’s era ended.”
“And?”
“I would take his place at the family table.”
Arthur finally spoke.
“No.”
One quiet word.
Luca looked at him.
My father continued.
“You heard half a conversation and built yourself a crown.”
Luca’s face changed.
“What conversation?”
Arthur looked at me now.
“I was going to end the Founder’s Chair tonight.”
That surprised me.
Not transfer it.
End it.
My father looked toward the overturned birthday cake.
“I was going to tell this family there would be no second throne beside Valeria anymore.”
I slowly looked at Luca.
May you like
Someone had convinced my son that Arthur’s final surrender of symbolic power was actually a transfer of power to him.
And judging by Camille’s smile dying beside the floral screen, the Rourkes had built an entire plan around that lie.
