“We’ll get to questions.” Brady’s unruffled by Lucien’s tone and carries on reading. He explains how Vittoria will come into her thirty shares on her twenty-first birthday and will inherit twenty-one more on that same day.

“What?” Vittoria asks. She too is surprised. As surprised as me.

I watch them, glance at my brother through the glass wall. We expected the shares would be split fifty-fifty, knowing he wouldn’t leave anything to Emma, but this is a surprise. And makes my job a hell of a lot easier.

Lucien’s hands are fists. “When did he fucking change the will? He wasn’t in his right mind the last few months, I can tell you that. He was slipping. If he—”

“The change was made nearly seven years ago, Mr. Russo.”

Lucien’s face pales as he’s momentarily dumbstruck. I wonder if anyone else notices it. Notices how his shifty eyes move over his sister.

“And there is no contesting it on grounds that your father was not in his right mind,” Brady says firmly. I tune him out as he continues reading more details.

Her father changed his will seven years ago. I look at Vittoria. Is she doing the math? She would have been fourteen. The timing coincides with the year she lost. The question is why Geno Russo did it. Why he gave Vittoria controlling shares of his business.

I turn to Lucien. See the sweat on his brow as he texts something with his thick thumbs as he curses. He moves to stand, and I see the corner of the letter he pushed carelessly into his pocket. See the one Vittoria is still holding with reverence.

Did Geno Russo change his will to punish his son? He’d have to know it would put Vittoria in danger, but she was already in danger. A fifty-fifty split would give them equal power. If anything would have happened to her, the shares would shift to him because the company must be controlled by the family. This much I already knew. It was her father’s wish. In fact, if anything happens before those shares are transferred on her twenty-first birthday, everything will still go to Lucien. After she’s twenty-one, should anything happen to Vittoria, those shares would remain mine as her husband. It’s why I married her. Why we had to do things the way we did.

“Do you have any questions, Ms. Russo? Excuse me, Mrs. Caballero. I realize this may come as a shock, but you own controlling shares of the company.”

“I don’t…” She shakes her head. “What about my sister? You haven’t mentioned Emma.”

Lucien snorts.