Chapter 9
The independent audit found nineteen proxy agreements.
Not four.
Nineteen.
Most were limited.
Some covered only heritage matters.
Others covered board nominations.
Five were broad enough to permit Lucinda to vote the holder’s shares on almost any family-governance question.
Not every proxy came from someone who received money.
That mattered.
Lucinda had genuine supporters.
People agreed with her.
Several believed Sebastian’s reforms had stripped the family of identity and influence.
The story would have been easier if everyone had been bought.
Reality refused to cooperate.
Still, seven proxy holders had received stabilization money shortly before signing.
Three had received extensions after signing.
That relationship required explanation.
The largest recipient was Peter Caradonna, whose manufacturing company had nearly failed eighteen months earlier.
Lucinda arranged $1.2 million in rescue financing.
Peter signed a five-year proxy.
“Did she demand it?” Sebastian asked.
Peter looked miserable.
“She said the family needed one voice if she was going to risk heritage money for me.”
“Did you feel free to refuse?”
Peter took a long time answering.
“No.”
That was enough.
Not a clean bribe.
Not clean consent either.
Claire found another document.
A draft resolution scheduled for the governance meeting.
If passed, it would create the Heritage Oversight Council.
The council could suspend any executive action involving the family collection, historic estates, or “legacy financial instruments.”
That phrase was broad.
Very broad.
Then came a second resolution.
If the lender declared the heritage credit line impaired because of executive certification failures, the board could place Sebastian on temporary administrative leave while an independent review occurred.
Claire looked at him.
“There.”
Sebastian read it.
His signature on the renewal could be used against him.
Even if Lucinda had manipulated the underlying asset schedule.
The sequence suddenly looked different.
“Did she expect the lender to discover the problem?”
“Maybe.”
“She was building a process for my suspension.”
“Yes.”
“While holding proxies.”
“Yes.”
Still, something bothered him.
“If she wanted the false valuations hidden, why prepare for them being discovered?”
Claire smiled faintly.
“Good question.”
The answer might have been Preston.
His emails showed growing panic over the previous six months.
He warned Lucinda that collateral reviews were becoming more sophisticated.
The lender had requested updated provenance records.
A new insurer wanted independent photography.
Preston wrote:
We cannot keep extending the timeline. Either consolidate authority before review or unwind the exposure.
Lucinda replied:
The vote comes first.
That sentence changed everything.
The goal was not merely to keep the art fraud hidden forever.
They only needed it hidden long enough to reach the governance vote.
After that, Lucinda expected to control the process when the truth emerged.
Then Grant found the transport plan for the vase.
The conservation studio did not have an appointment scheduled.
The truck was real.
The destination was not.
According to driver instructions, the vase was supposed to be collected after the wedding and delivered first to a private warehouse owned by Preston.
Only afterward would a conservation destination be “confirmed.”
Sebastian stared at the route.
They planned to remove the vase.
Why now?
Because the new insurer had requested direct inspection of the object the following week.
Lucinda and Preston could not allow an expert to examine the reproduction closely while Restoration File 17 still existed somewhere.
The wedding gave them an excuse to move it.
Elisa broke it first.
May you like
The envelope surfaced publicly.
And suddenly the very object they intended to control became the piece of evidence that could prove they had known the provenance was false.
