Chapter 8 - THE VOTE AT NINE
Six years can be a lifetime when everyone spends it refusing to ask one question.
I thought about that as Celeste's attorney played the recording for Julia, Matteo, Isabella, and Detective Alvarez in a private conference room. Celeste sat with her hands folded tightly in her lap. She looked older without her diamonds, but I reminded myself that appearing frightened did not erase what she had done.
Dominic Greer's voice came from the phone speaker. It was calm and almost bored.
“The old Westbridge authorization is enough,” he said on the recording. “Matteo signed it after Alessandro's death. We use the emergency provision, get the medical certification, and move the Meridian shares before anyone can freeze the transaction.”
Another voice—Celeste's—asked whether Matteo would recover from what Keller planned to give him.
“He'll be confused for a while,” Dominic said. “That's the point. By the time he can argue, the papers will be in place.”
I closed my eyes. The memory of the glass returned so sharply that I tasted the wine again. I was sitting in a clean office, wearing clothes Nia had chosen, but my body remembered the panic of the dining room.
“Do you need a break?” Amara asked.
I shook my head. “Please keep playing.”
On the recording, Celeste asked if the doctor would sign before the toast. Dominic replied that he already had one signature and could obtain the second. Then he said something that made Matteo stand.
“His father made the same mistake,” Dominic said. “He thought giving me access meant I'd keep the company safe.”
The recording ended.
Matteo stared at Celeste. “You heard that and still went ahead?”
“I thought I'd lose my mother,” she whispered. “And I wanted the money. Both are true.”
“Both are crimes against other people,” Isabella said.
Celeste covered her mouth, but she didn't deny it.
The detective took possession of the device under an evidence protocol and arranged for the recording's origin to be verified. Julia warned us that a recording alone did not prove every assertion Dominic had made. He might have been lying about the six-year-old authorization. We needed the document itself and evidence explaining its scope.
Matteo sat down slowly. “I signed an interim management agreement after Dad died,” he said. “I remember. We were dealing with creditors and a dispute over the marina property. Dominic brought a stack of forms. I signed them because I thought I was protecting the company.”
“Did you read them?” I asked.
He looked at me. “Not carefully enough.”
The answer was honest and devastating.
The next morning, the courthouse was crowded. Reporters stood behind barriers near the entrance, hoping for a photograph of Matteo and Celeste together. I walked past them with Owen and Amara. A volunteer from a victims' support group waited in the lobby and showed us where to sit. The building smelled of damp coats and floor polish. Its high ceilings made every footstep echo.
The hearing was about corporate control and the proposed sale, not whether Matteo was a good man or whether I deserved the cruelty Celeste had shown me. Julia's argument focused on the disputed medical certification, the emergency provision, and evidence that the sale would benefit companies connected to Victor. Lawyers representing minority shareholders joined the request for an injunction.
Victor sat at the opposite table, expressionless. Dominic was absent, represented by counsel. Celeste's attorney advised her to remain outside until investigators finished speaking with her. Dr. Keller had already provided a formal statement about the staged evaluation, which the judge considered for the limited purpose of the emergency application.
Before the arguments began, I was asked to confirm my account of the engagement dinner under oath for the narrow purpose of the emergency dispute. Amara accompanied me to the waiting area and helped me review the difference between what I had seen and what I had assumed. She reminded me I could say I didn't remember. That permission mattered more than I expected.
The room was colder than the hallway. At the witness table, I could feel the hem of my sleeve brushing the tender skin near my stitches. Victor's attorney asked whether I had a medical degree, whether I'd witnessed anyone putting medication into Matteo's wine, and whether I had ever seen Celeste sign a company agreement in my presence.
"No," I said each time.
He seemed pleased. "Then you're asking this court to accept your speculation, aren't you?"
"No," I answered. "I'm telling the court what I saw. I saw a prepared report calling Mr. Romano confused before a doctor had examined him. I saw a container labeled for his toast. Celeste injured me after she found me reading the folder. And I heard Dr. Keller explain at the dinner what they intended to do."
The attorney shuffled his papers. "You drank the wine on your own initiative?"
"Yes."
"Nobody ordered you to?"
"No."
"That was an irrational thing to do, wasn't it?"
My face burned. Part of me wanted to defend that split-second decision as an act of pure bravery, but I knew better now. "It was dangerous," I said. "I should have knocked the glass away. I was scared, and I made a dangerous choice. That doesn't mean the threat wasn't real."
The judge looked up from her notes. Victor's attorney did not ask another question about the glass.
Julia then asked how I obtained the photograph of the report. I described taking it before Celeste returned to the study. I told her what the top page said and explained that I had delivered my phone to the detective without editing the photograph. The original file, including its timestamp, had been preserved for review.
"Did you expect anything in return?" Julia asked.
I thought of the money I owed, Owen's tuition, and the job that had once felt like my only protection.
"I expected to get fired," I said. "I hoped somebody would listen anyway."
From the back row, Owen gave me a tiny nod. I looked away quickly before I began crying in front of the judge.
The hearing lasted hours. Documents were checked against originals. The hospital's independent toxicology report was discussed without making public details unnecessary to the case. It supported that the wine had contained a sedating medication not prescribed to Matteo. The medical report had been prepared before any examination, and Dr. Shaw had denied signing it. The company authorization lacked the approvals necessary to complete the sale lawfully. The attempted use of those materials raised serious concerns of fraud.
Julia presented the six-year-old agreement. It did not give Dominic permanent authority. It authorized him to coordinate limited financial operations during a genuine emergency and required verification from independent directors. A later page bearing Matteo's supposed electronic signature appeared to expand those powers. Investigators had found irregularities in the signature record, and the document's authenticity was disputed.
Victor's attorney argued that delays would cost the company millions. Julia answered that an unauthorized sale at a severe discount could do far greater damage.
When the judge asked whether the temporary emergency manager had been properly appointed, Victor's attorney began to explain the doctors' certifications. Dr. Shaw's sworn denial had already destroyed that claim. Keller's admission completed the damage.
The judge issued a temporary injunction preventing the disputed transfer and restricted the use of the challenged emergency provisions pending further proceedings. The court ordered preservation of records and directed the parties to independent review. It was not a final verdict on every allegation. Victor was not immediately led away in handcuffs. But the sale stopped.
I felt Owen's hand find mine.
“We did it,” he whispered.
“We stopped one thing,” I told him.
He nodded. We had learned that stopping one thing was sometimes enormous.
Outside the courtroom, Matteo approached me. Cameras flashed through the glass doors behind him.
“You should be proud,” he said.
“Of my father, yes.”
“Of yourself.”
I looked down at the scar beginning to form above my blouse. “I'm still frightened every time someone comes up behind me.”
“That doesn't undo what you've done.”
I wanted to lean into him. Instead, I asked a question I'd been carrying for days.
“Why didn't you notice what Celeste was doing?”
Matteo looked at the ceiling, then back at me. “Because I liked believing I was the one person in the room nobody could fool. She knew that.”
“And the people around you were afraid of losing their jobs. Nobody could question you.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He didn't answer immediately. Then he said, “I'm beginning to.”
Isabella joined us, carrying an envelope. “The independent auditors reviewed the scholarship transfers. Owen's award is valid. Lakefront Meridian contributed to the fund, but the college selected him under its regular criteria. Dominic later accessed his name through the donor office when Grace's personnel file came up.”
Owen stared at her. “So they didn't choose me because of Grace?”
“No. They used your information afterward to pressure her.”
He pressed a fist against his mouth. I knew what he was feeling. The scholarship he had worked so hard to earn was still his. Nobody had invented his grades or his essays. They had only tried to make him doubt them.
We stepped out into the cold sunlight. Across the street, a bus stopped and discharged a dozen commuters. The city continued moving, impatient with our revelations.
Detective Alvarez caught up with us near the steps. She had received an update from the financial-crimes unit. Dominic's lawyers were negotiating a recorded statement under formal conditions. He had offered information about a network of shell companies and an account opened in another person's name.
“Whose?” Matteo asked.
Alvarez studied him for a moment. “Your father's.”
Matteo went pale. “Dad's been dead six years.”
“That's why we're interested.”
Then she looked at me.
“There's also an account bearing Thomas Bennett's name, opened eleven months after his death.”
I couldn't speak. For a moment I saw my father in his old flannel shirt, leaning over the kitchen table with a pile of receipts and a tired smile.
May you like
Victor had not only smeared a dead man's name.
Someone had continued using it as a tool for years after he was gone.
