Chapter 5
"Five minutes?" Beatrice whispered, her voice barely more than a breathless gasp. The sheer shock of the ultimatum shattered her iron composure. "You are banishing me? From my own home? From the house my husband built?"
"Your husband is dead, Beatrice," Rafael replied, his tone devoid of any familial warmth. "And as of right now, you are nothing but a trespasser. You have four minutes left."
Valeria staggered to her feet, clutching her bruised jaw. Her elegant formal dress was ruined, covered in white frosting and shattered sugar glass. She stumbled toward the table, her eyes wide with panic. "Rafael, please! You can't do this! Where will we go? You are cutting off our access to the accounts!"
"You should have considered your housing arrangements before you decided to stage a coup at a five-year-old's birthday party," Rafael said smoothly. He gestured toward his top enforcer, a towering man in a dark suit standing by the door. "Marcus. Escort them to their rooms. They are allowed one suitcase each. No jewelry from the family vault. No cellular phones. No laptops."
"You are stripping us of our money?" Beatrice shrieked, clutching her pearl necklace as if Rafael were physically ripping it from her throat. "I am a Castellano! You cannot leave me destitute on the street!"
"You wanted to rewrite the rules of this family," Rafael noted, turning his back on them to check Amelia’s medical brace once more. "I am simply finalizing the draft. Three minutes."
Julian, the nine-year-old boy, suddenly burst into loud, hysterical tears. He ran from his chair and clung to Valeria's ruined dress. "Mommy, I don't want to leave! Where are we going? Are we poor now?"
Valeria hugged her son, shooting a venomous, desperate glare at her brother. "Look at what you are doing to your own nephew! He is just a boy! He didn't ask to be put in those papers!"
"Then you shouldn't have used him as a pawn," Rafael replied, standing up and smoothing his tailored vest. "He will leave with you. If he grows up and wishes to earn his way back into this family with loyalty, he may try. But today, he leaves."
Beatrice’s hands shook violently as she pushed herself up from the table. The shredded succession papers fell around her expensive heels. She looked at the loyal bodyguards, desperately trying to find a single sympathetic face in the brightly lit room.
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"You will regret this, Rafael," Beatrice hissed, her voice dropping into a dark, venomous promise. "The Chicago outfit will hear of this fracture. The moment I am outside those gates, I will make phone calls. You will not survive the week."
"Marcus," Rafael said, entirely unfazed by the threat. "Their time is up. Throw them out. If they resist, drag them by their hair."
