Chapter 12 - ADRIAN FINALLY SAID WHAT HE THOUGHT LEO WAS WORTH
The confrontation took place months later in a monitored conference room during a pretrial evidentiary proceeding.
Adrian wore a charcoal suit and the tired expression of a man still trying to look offended by consequences.
Lorenzo sat across from him.
I was there because the district attorney intended to call me as a witness and because Adrian’s lawyers had questioned my actions that night.
Francesca sat near the end of the table.
Adrian barely looked at her.
Lorenzo spoke first.
“Sofia trusted you.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“Sofia was going to destroy our father’s company.”
“By auditing it?”
“By turning it over to outsiders.”
Francesca interrupted.
“You mean people who would find what you stole.”
Adrian looked toward her.
“Everything I did kept Bellini operating.”
There it was.
The same language people use whenever greed wants to dress like duty.
Lorenzo leaned forward.
“And Leo?”
Adrian looked away.
“Leo would have inherited something he could never understand.”
My stomach turned.
“He was two months old,” I said.
Adrian finally looked at me.
“Exactly.”
Lorenzo’s hands closed into fists under the table.
Security shifted slightly behind him.
He noticed.
So did I.
For one second, I wondered whether the feared Lorenzo Rossi everyone whispered about would take over.
Instead he opened his hands.
“You almost killed my son because an infant couldn’t understand a corporation.”
Adrian answered with cold precision.
“I protected what Sofia was willing to hand away.”
Francesca stood.
“No. You protected yourself.”
Adrian had revealed the emotional core without confessing the crime.
He believed family ownership entitled him to decide who deserved to survive long enough to inherit it.
Lorenzo rose only after the attorneys ended the session.
May you like
He walked out without touching Adrian.
That restraint cost him more than violence would have.
