Chapter 9 - The Shares No One Was Supposed to Find.
Claire Sloan did not ask to sit down.
She stood in Teresa's hidden house with the posture of someone who had spent years rehearsing an explanation and still did not know how to begin it.
Vincent moved between her and Isabella.
"Why are you here?"
Claire looked at him.
"Because my brother knows you found Teresa's trust."
"How?"
"He called me an hour ago."
"Why would he call you?"
Claire gave a tired smile.
"Because I'm the family disappointment."
Dominic folded his arms.
"That doesn't answer the question."
"Patrick gets nervous when old records resurface."
"When he gets nervous, he calls me to remind me what happens if I talk."
Isabella stepped forward.
"What happens?"
Claire looked at her.
"He stops paying for our mother's care."
The answer was so ordinary that it made the corruption feel uglier.
Claire took out her phone.
"I have spent twelve years pretending I didn't know enough to matter."
"Then I saw a picture from last night's gala online."
She turned the screen toward Isabella.
It showed Isabella kneeling beside the broken tray while Vivian stood over her.
The gold locket was visible against her uniform.
"I knew that necklace."
Isabella touched it instinctively.
"How?"
"Your mother wore it the day she signed the proxy agreement."
Vincent looked sharply at her.
"What proxy agreement?"
Claire nodded toward the trust papers.
"The document that allowed Patrick to vote Teresa's shares after she disappeared."
"On what authority?"
"A temporary emergency proxy."
"Temporary for twenty-eight years?"
Claire's mouth tightened.
"It was supposed to expire after six months."
Dominic swore softly.
"Why didn't it?"
"Because Teresa was declared dead before the expiration date."
Vincent's expression darkened.
"And the board treated her shares as dormant."
"Yes."
"Who continued voting them?"
Claire looked toward the floor.
"Patrick."
Isabella stared at her.
"Your brother has been using my mother's votes for almost three decades."
"Yes."
"Did my grandfather know?"
Claire hesitated.
"At first."
Vincent stepped closer.
"At first?"
"Antonio authorized the temporary proxy."
"But after Lucia began asking questions, Patrick and Carlo changed the corporate records."
"They made it look as though Teresa had permanently transferred her voting rights."
Isabella looked at Vincent.
"That's why Carlo cares about the locket."
Claire nodded.
"Not the locket itself."
"What it proves."
"That Teresa maintained a chain of identity outside the Moretti estate."
Vincent looked at the birth certificate and affidavit.
"And Isabella proves the trust wasn't extinct."
"Exactly."
Claire unlocked her phone and opened an email.
"Patrick called me after the ledger disappeared from Belladonna."
Dominic's gaze sharpened.
"How do you know about the ledger?"
Claire gave him a grim look.
"Because Patrick has it."
The room went silent.
Vincent's voice lowered.
"Your brother stole from my house."
"He paid someone in your security department to do it."
Dominic's face went hard.
"Name."
"I don't know."
"You said he called you."
"He was bragging, not confessing."
"He said Vincent was finally learning how expensive loyalty could be."
Dominic looked ashamed.
Vincent did not blame him.
That somehow made the shame worse.
"Why tell us now?" Isabella asked.
Claire looked at her.
"Because I knew Teresa."
Isabella's heart jumped.
"You did?"
"We were friends in college."
"Before she disappeared?"
"Yes."
Claire smiled faintly.
"She hated formal dinners."
"She used to sneak into the kitchen and eat with the staff because she said rich people chewed too slowly."
Isabella laughed before she could stop herself.
That sounded exactly like her mother.
"Why didn't you help her?"
The question erased Claire's smile.
"I was twenty-one and afraid of my brother."
"I told myself adults with more power would fix it."
"They didn't."
"Then years passed, and cowardice became routine."
Isabella thought of Marco's description of loyalty.
Cowardice wore many respectable names.
"Do you have proof of the proxy?"
Claire nodded.
"A copy."
She removed a flash drive from her coat pocket.
"I kept files when I left Patrick's office in 2014."
Vincent did not reach for it.
He looked at Isabella.
"Your decision."
She frowned.
"Why mine?"
"Because the records concern your mother's shares."
It was the first time Vincent had deliberately stepped away from authority.
Isabella noticed.
She took the flash drive.
"We copy everything."
Dominic nodded.
"Three copies."
"And one goes somewhere outside Belladonna."
"Agreed."
Claire exhaled as if she had been waiting years to hear someone say that.
They drove to a local attorney's office recommended by Rosa.
The lawyer, Janet Keene, specialized in estates and trusts.
She was skeptical until she saw Teresa's birth certificate, the trust schedule, and Claire's proxy copy.
Then she locked her office door and asked her assistant to hold all calls.
For two hours, she reviewed the documents.
Isabella sat beside Vincent at a conference table while Dominic made secure digital copies.
Claire waited near the window.
Finally, Janet removed her glasses.
"If these documents are authentic, Ms. Romano has a serious claim."
Isabella frowned.
"Claim to money?"
"Money, yes."
"But more importantly, voting rights."
"The trust appears to control thirty-one percent of Belladonna Holdings Class B votes."
Vincent leaned forward.
"That cannot be right."
"Why?"
"Because the current cap table shows those votes distributed among dormant family shares."
Janet tapped the proxy agreement.
"Then your cap table may be wrong."
Dominic looked at Vincent.
"If Patrick has been voting them, how much control does that give him?"
Vincent did the calculation mentally.
His face changed.
"Enough to decide close board votes."
Claire nodded.
"He has used them for years."
Isabella looked at Vincent.
"Including decisions you made?"
"Yes."
"Did he help you become chairman?"
Vincent stared at the table.
"Yes."
The answer altered the room.
Isabella saw the implication before he said it.
The man who had spent years believing he controlled Belladonna Holdings might have risen using votes that legally belonged to Teresa's daughter.
"So your position might depend on stolen votes," Isabella said.
Vincent met her eyes.
"It might."
Janet watched him carefully.
"Many executives would be trying to bury that sentence right now."
Vincent looked at her.
"My family already tried burying too much."
Isabella felt some of her suspicion loosen.
Not disappear.
But loosen.
Janet continued.
"There is another issue."
She held up Teresa's affidavit.
"This was notarized in 2011 by Daniel Greer."
"He was a New Mexico attorney."
"Was?" Isabella asked.
"He retired."
"Still alive?"
"Yes."
"Can he verify Teresa's identity?"
"Likely."
Vincent stood.
"Then we find him."
Janet raised a hand.
"Before you run across another state, understand what happens if Ms. Romano asserts this claim."
Isabella looked at her.
"What happens?"
"Belladonna Holdings will have to disclose a disputed control position."
"Board decisions could be challenged."
"Old transactions could be reopened."
"The media will become interested."
"Very interested."
Isabella looked at Vincent.
"And your company?"
"It survives or it doesn't."
"That simple?"
"No."
"But truth doesn't become optional because the stock price dislikes it."
Janet gave Vincent a measured look.
"You may want to put that in writing before your lawyers arrive."
Dominic's phone buzzed.
He read the message.
"They're already arriving."
"Who?" Vincent asked.
"Belladonna's general counsel."
"Patrick Sloan called an emergency board meeting for tonight."
Vincent's face hardened.
"On what grounds?"
Dominic turned the screen.
The meeting notice was brief.
DISCUSSION OF CHAIRMAN FITNESS, UNDISCLOSED FAMILY CLAIMS, AND MATERIAL GOVERNANCE RISK.
Isabella laughed in disbelief.
"He steals my mother's votes and calls you the governance risk."
Claire looked miserable.
"That's Patrick."
Vincent put on his coat.
"Then we go back to New York."
Janet stood.
"Ms. Romano does not need to attend that meeting."
Isabella looked at the trust papers.
Then at Vincent.
"Do my mother's votes count tonight?"
Janet hesitated.
"Not until identity and succession are formally recognized."
"Can recognition be requested immediately?"
"Yes."
"Then file it."
Vincent looked at her.
"You don't have to fight my board battle."
Isabella stood.
"I'm not."
She slid Teresa's trust document into her bag.
May you like
"I'm fighting my mother's."
THE LOCKET OF BELLADONNA HOUSE
