Chapter 6
The temporary council proposal already existed.
That was the part Marco had hoped I would never find.
Thomas Bellini brought me a handwritten agenda from a private meeting held six weeks earlier.
“Continuity Measures in Case of Medical Incapacity.”
Clean title.
Reasonable topic.
My name absent.
Marco listed as interim chair.
Celeste responsible for estate continuity.
Two capos responsible for finance and waterfront.
“How many people attended?”
“Seven.”
“Did they know about the drink?”
Thomas looked horrified.
“No.”
I believed him.
Important.
Not everyone discussing succession was part of an attack.
That distinction mattered.
“What did Marco tell you?”
“That you’d had episodes of dizziness.”
I almost laughed.
Episodes that had not yet happened.
“How did he know?”
“He said Celeste had seen them.”
Of course.
Fabricated symptoms entered organizational planning before I ever experienced them.
The plan was not to poison first.
It was to establish the explanation first.
Then create the event.
Elegant.
Ugly.
I asked Thomas:
“Did temporary leadership make sense to you?”
“Yes.”
Good.
Honesty.
“If I actually became incapacitated, who should run things?”
He hesitated.
“Someone.”
“Exactly.”
The structural question was legitimate.
Marco had simply positioned himself to exploit it.
I would not reject continuity planning because he corrupted it.
That would be another mistake.
We would redesign it.
Later.
Without poisoned glasses.
Without relatives appointing themselves.
Without maids being prepared as scapegoats.
May you like
The family needed a plan for my absence.
It did not need Marco manufacturing the absence.
