Chapter 6
Nolan requested a private meeting with Serafina.
She refused.
He requested one through attorneys.
Dana advised against it.
“He’s emotionally volatile.”
“I know.”
“He may try to manipulate you using the children.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you considering it?”
“I’m not.”
Nolan received his answer through counsel.
No contact.
No informal family resolution.
Everything documented.
That decision produced a strange reaction from Victor.
He called Serafina personally.
“You’ve always been dramatic.”
She nearly laughed.
“You let your son pin Leo to the ground.”
“He lost his temper.”
“You laughed.”
Silence.
Then Victor said:
“You’re destroying Nolan’s future over one ugly afternoon.”
Serafina looked at the fund records.
“No. Nolan has been destroying his own future for a while.”
“Because you made him feel useless.”
Serafina stopped.
“What?”
“You took every serious responsibility for yourself.”
“I gave him responsibilities.”
“Numbers you could supervise.”
“He runs operations.”
“Under you.”
There it was.
Victor’s resentment was not only financial.
It was structural.
Serafina held final power.
Not publicly.
Not ceremonially.
But where decisions actually mattered.
Victor had spent decades believing senior men should be the spine of the family.
Now his niece controlled strategy while his son carried titles without authority.
“Did Nolan know?” Serafina asked.
Victor became quiet.
“Know what?”
“Who the capos answer to.”
The silence lasted too long.
Then Victor said:
“You’re imagining conspiracies.”
He disconnected.
Dana stared at Serafina.
“That answered something.”
“Yes.”
Victor knew.
Maybe not every detail.
But enough.
He had deliberately let Nolan believe Serafina was only the family accountant.
That meant the garden humiliation was not simple ignorance.
Victor had preserved Nolan’s false picture of the hierarchy.
Why?
The answer had not arrived yet.
Then investigators obtained Nolan’s work messages.
One exchange with Victor stood out.
Three weeks before the garden dinner:
NOLAN: She keeps treating me like a kid with a title.
VICTOR: Because you let her.
NOLAN: What am I supposed to do?
VICTOR: Make her deal with problems outside the spreadsheet. She isn’t built for that.
Then, five days later:
VICTOR: Leo interrupts her whenever he wants. Start there.**
Serafina stared at the screen.
May you like
The children had not accidentally become part of the power struggle.
Victor had pointed Nolan toward them.
