Chapter 2
After the call, I went back to the family home.
A document was already waiting on the desk when I entered the study.
Matteo, Nico, and Luca were all there.
The family’s consigliere slid the papers toward me.
“Mrs. Barone made arrangements for a trust before she passed.”
He didn’t call it a suggestion or a proposal.
In this house, by the time a document reached the desk, the decision had already been made.
I looked down.
My mother’s 20 percent stake in the Barone family business. The commercial properties in Brooklyn. The jewelry my maternal grandmother had left behind.
All of it was going into a newly established trust.
The sole beneficiary was Angelo Falcone.
My hands went still.
“Who is Angelo Falcone?”
I looked up.
“Elena’s baby,” Nico said, lowering his eyes.
I turned to Luca.
“Why does he have your last name?”
Luca cleared his throat.
“The guy abandoned Elena. The baby needed a father, at least on paper.”
I kept reading.
The final page was a consent form approving a change of beneficiary.
It required my signature.
The consigliere set a pen beside the page and nudged it toward me, as casually as if he were passing a napkin.
I suddenly laughed.
“When did Mom change the trust?”
My father’s expression shifted.
“Last year.”
“What month?”
“Vivienne!”
His jaw tightened.
"She's dead. Do you really have to pick apart every detail?"
I closed the document.
“Yes. Because when she was alive, she told me over and over that she was leaving these things to me.”
“Now she’s dead, and suddenly everything belongs to Elena’s baby?”
“Why?”
Nico shot to his feet.
“Because Elena needs it more than you do!”
“You’re a Barone, and you’re marrying into the Falcone family. What don’t you have?”
“She has no parents and a baby to raise. Who’s she supposed to rely on?”
I smiled bitterly and pushed the papers away.
“I’m not signing.”
The room went quiet.
Without looking up, the consigliere nudged the pen half an inch closer to me.
My father slammed his hand on the desk.
“This was your mother’s dying wish!”
“You can’t even do this one last thing for her?”
There it was again.
My dead mother.
The wedding had been canceled because she was dead.
Now they were using the same excuse to take my shares.
I stood.
“Then let Mom tell me herself.”
Their expressions changed instantly.
I turned to leave, but Matteo stepped into the doorway.
“Vivi, don’t make us do this.”
“Move.”
He didn’t.
Nico snatched my phone from my hand.
“You can leave when you’ve come to your senses.”
I stared at them.
“You’re going to lock me in here?”
“We’re giving you time to calm down,” he said coldly.
I reached for my phone.
He tossed it straight to Luca.
“Keep an eye on her.”
I looked at the man who had promised to protect me for the rest of my life.
He was the Don of the Falcone family.
No one in that house could make him do anything he didn’t want to do.
“Give it back.”
Luca caught my wrist.
“Vivi,” he said through clenched teeth. “Just sign it.”
Something inside me went completely cold.
“You think I should give it up, too?”
He avoided my eyes and swallowed.
“You don’t need any of this. You’ll still have a good life without it.”
“But this gives Elena and the baby some security.”
I stared at him for a long time.
Then I smiled.
“Fine.”
Everyone relaxed.
My father offered me the pen again.
Matteo even patted my head.
“There’s our Vivi.”
“You’ve always known how to behave.”
I lowered my head and signed my name, carefully forming every letter.
The consigliere gathered the documents.
He didn’t leave me a copy.