Chapter 4
The room settled into an agonizing, suffocating quiet. Bastian stood between his mother and his mistress, his expensive suit rumpled, his lip swelling into an ugly purple knot. He looked around the vast room, searching for allies among the capos, but every man who caught his eye deliberately looked away, cutting his steak or staring down at his plate.
“You think you’ve won, don’t you, old man?” Bastian whispered, trying to muster the swagger that had once charmed Manhattan socialites. “You think because you have more guns in this room, you hold all the cards?”
“I know I hold the cards, Bastian,” Alaric replied calmly. “I bought the deck before your father taught you how to shuffle.”
“The board meeting was this morning!” Bastian spat, stepping forward, his eyes wild with desperate defiance. “I know you think you’re untouchable, but money doesn’t care about loyalty! Coletti Capital bought three million shares of Montesi Logistics through the offshore shell in Grand Cayman. We own thirty-five percent of the voting rights! By midnight, when the Asian markets open, the merger goes public. The banks won't let you cut me out!”
Bianca smiled then, a cruel, triumphant smirk returning to her lips. “Tell him, Bastian. Tell this dinosaur that the world has changed. You can’t shoot your way out of Wall Street, Alaric.”
Serena looked from Bastian to her father, watching Alaric’s face closely. There was no rage on the patriarch’s features. Only a weary, pitying disgust.
“Bastian,” Alaric said quietly, “who do you think sold you those three million shares?”
Bastian paused, his brow furrowing. “What?”
“Those shares belonged to a trust fund based in Zurich,” Alaric explained, walking slowly around the head of the table until he stood mere inches from his son-in-law. “The Cayman shell bought them at thirty dollars above market value because you were so desperate to establish leverage before tonight. You borrowed forty million dollars against your mother’s estate and your family’s real estate holdings to finance that purchase, didn't you?”
Bianca’s breath caught in her throat. “Bastian… what did he say?”
“He’s lying!” Bastian yelled, though his voice cracked down the middle. “The broker was independent! It was a blind trust!”
“It was a blind trust created by my father thirty years ago,” Serena interrupted, her voice ringing clear and merciless through the hall. She leaned back in her chair, her hand resting over her belly, watching her husband crumble. “I signed the release documents three weeks ago, Bastian. I knew about Faye. I knew about the hotel in Miami. I knew about the clinic visits.”
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Bastian stared at his wife, his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish. “You… you knew?”
“Did you honestly believe you could hide a mistress and a pregnancy in this city?” Serena asked, her eyes glittering with cold tears. “In my father’s city? You bought forty million dollars worth of empty shell debt, Bastian. You didn't buy my father's company. You bought his garbage.”
