Chapter 5
The Cole dinners were not family dinners.
They were recruitment.
Thomas Vane, one of my senior capos, admitted Gavin had invited him twice.
“I thought you knew.”
Of course.
Everyone always thinks the boss knows.
That assumption had become a hiding place for other people’s ambition.
“What did he say?”
“That after the baby came, you’d want to reduce travel.”
Reasonable.
I was fifty-six.
Not ancient.
Still, plausible enough.
“And?”
“That Sienna would probably spend more time at home.”
“Also plausible.”
Thomas nodded.
“Then he said somebody needed to represent your household when you stepped back.”
There it was.
“Somebody?”
“Gavin.”
I almost laughed.
“Did he say I approved?”
“Not directly.”
Smart.
“What did he say?”
“That family had already been discussing the transition.”
Transition.
A word clean enough to hide greed.
“Did Marjorie attend?”
“Yes.”
“Sabrina?”
“Always.”
Thomas looked uncomfortable.
“There was something else.”
I waited.
“Gavin said Mila was too young and too sensitive to matter in succession.”
My expression changed.
Mila.
Three years old.
Already being removed from a future nobody had assigned her.
“And the unborn baby?”
Thomas exhaled.
“He called the baby the Ferrante bridge.”
My hands tightened.
Not grandson.
Bridge.
A child turned into infrastructure.
Thomas added:
“I thought it was ego.”
“It was.”
“But?”
“But ego with planning becomes structure.”
Gavin had not taken East Harbor yet.
He had not gained a council seat.
May you like
But he had started teaching people to imagine both.
And every time Sienna resisted the image, she went home to consequences.
