Chapter 8
I brought the senior capos together without Bianca.
Marcus stayed.
He deserved to hear the collapse from inside it.
I placed Emma’s phone in the center of the table.
No dramatic speech.
Just recordings.
Bianca calling Lucy impossible.
Marcus discussing how my reactions would look.
The plan to document school problems.
The idea of boarding school.
By the final clip, nobody spoke.
Thomas looked disgusted.
One older capo, Samuel Voss, leaned back.
“You used a child.”
Marcus snapped:
“We were protecting the organization.”
Samuel laughed once.
“No. You were building a household faction.”
That mattered.
Not my accusation.
Theirs.
Marcus looked toward me.
“You centralized too much.”
“Maybe.”
That surprised him.
I continued.
“If you believe that, argue it.”
Silence.
“Do not terrorize my daughter until I become easier to criticize.”
Thomas nodded.
I asked the room:
“Who thinks Romano needs broader internal oversight?”
Two hands rose.
Good.
I wanted honesty.
“Who thinks Bianca should control it?”
No hands.
Marcus’s face hardened.
There was the difference.
Concern about structure did not equal loyalty to the people manipulating it.
I told them the oversight question would remain open.
That angered Marcus more than killing it would have.
He wanted me defensive.
If I rejected every concern attached to his plot, he could claim he had been right.
I would not give him that.
“But,” I said, “Lucy’s name is removed from every argument.”
Silence.
“No one uses my daughter as evidence for or against my leadership.”
Thomas nodded.
Samuel too.
Marcus did not.
I looked at him.
“You built your argument on a three-year-old’s humiliation.”
May you like
My voice lowered.
“That is why you no longer get to lead the argument.”
