Chapter 2 - Lucille Had Used Those Words Before
Rafael took Emmett inside.
The child was physically unharmed.
That mattered more than anything else.
A housekeeper helped clean the sauce from his hair and changed him into a soft polo and shorts. Rafael sat beside him the entire time.
Emmett kept apologizing.
That disturbed Rafael.
“I dropped the food everywhere.”
“You didn’t.”
“Aunt Lucille got dirty.”
“That is not your responsibility.”
“Did I ruin the wedding?”
Rafael stared at his son.
“No.”
Emmett looked unconvinced.
Children often know when adults are giving them the answer they want to be true.
Rafael pulled him close.
“You made spaghetti. You carried it. Someone treated you badly. None of that makes this your fault.”
Emmett rested his head against Rafael’s chest.
Twenty minutes later, Rafael’s phone buzzed.
A message from his attorney, Michael Crane.
You need to see what I found before tomorrow’s family meeting.
Attached was a photograph.
A page from a confidential Montaro governance memorandum.
Near the bottom was a sentence highlighted in yellow:
If Rafael continues prioritizing the child over unified family obligations, it should be understood that he has chosen the child over the family.
Rafael read it twice.
Then a third time.
His own words on the terrace came back:
You rejected my son. You rejected this family.
Almost the inverse.
That was why Lucille had become afraid.
She thought he knew about the memorandum.
Until that moment—
May you like
he hadn’t.
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