Chapter 8
Camille asked to speak without Declan.
I allowed it.
Luca did not attend.
That was his choice.
She sat across from me without jewelry except the engagement ring.
Still wearing it.
Interesting.
“I didn’t know he planned to sideline me.”
“I believe you.”
She looked surprised.
Believing someone’s ignorance does not reduce their guilt.
“I thought Luca and I would become a second center.”
“Yes.”
“I thought Arthur had agreed.”
“No.”
“I thought—”
I raised one hand.
“What did you know?”
That mattered more.
Camille knew Arthur did not want anyone in the Founder’s Chair after him.
She knew because Luca told her.
Then Declan convinced her Arthur would change his mind once the family saw Luca supported.
So Camille decided to create a public moment where Arthur looked powerless.
Not necessarily the wheelchair.
That was hers.
She admitted it.
“I wanted him humiliated.”
“Why?”
“Because old men cling to symbols until someone makes them look ridiculous.”
There.
Cruel.
Honest.
“And tipping his wheelchair?”
Her face crumpled.
“I lost my temper.”
The favorite phrase.
“What did he do?”
“He told me I would never sit in his place.”
“So you threw an eighty-two-year-old man onto the grass.”
She started crying.
“Yes.”
No excuse.
Better.
Then I asked about the guests laughing.
Camille admitted Declan told several people to treat anything Arthur did tonight as “old-man theater.”
Make mockery contagious.
If he stumbled verbally, laugh.
If he complained about seating, dismiss him.
If he protested Luca taking the chair, call him jealous of youth.
They had prepared the room to reinterpret everything Arthur did as evidence that his era should end.
The wheelchair fall simply became the ugliest version.
I looked at her.
“And Luca?”
“He knew we wanted the room against Arthur.”
There.
More than he admitted.
Not the tip.
The atmosphere.
My son had helped create a room where his grandfather’s humiliation would be socially rewarded.
That hurt differently.
Then Camille removed the engagement ring.
“I love him.”
I believed that too.
“What should I do with this?”
“Not my decision.”
She stared.
I continued.
“Your relationship with Luca is between you and Luca.”
Then:
“Your access to DeLuca is between you and me.”
That distinction mattered.
May you like
Her relationship might survive.
Her ambition inside my organization would not.
