Chapter 4 - The War at Home
While Luca stood inside the cold, dusty mill in Western Massachusetts, a different kind of storm was erupting at the Ferraro estate in Newport.
Teresa Ferraro sat in the morning room, her face pale as she stared at her laptop screen. Beside her, Antonio was pacing furiously back and forth across the Persian rug, shouting into a secure phone line.
"He's lost his mind!" Antonio roared, slamming the phone onto the desk. "Luca just authorized his personal legal team to freeze the voting trusts for the port development! The board meeting on Monday is going to be a disaster!"
"Where is he?" Teresa asked, her voice trembling slightly despite her best efforts to maintain her icy exterior.
"He drove north," Nora said, stepping into the morning room holding a cup of tea. She looked at her mother and uncle with open contempt. "He went after Claire."
"He is destroying this family for a nobody!" Antonio barked, turning on Nora. "A girl whose father fixes electrical wires in Worcester! Do you have any idea how much money the Russo merger was going to bring into our logistics division?"
"Claire isn't a nobody, Uncle Antonio," Nora said calmly, taking a sip of her tea. "She's the only person who ever looked at Luca without seeing his bank account. And you two just pushed her out the door because she didn't have a coat of arms."
"Silence, Nora!" Teresa snapped, though her eyes lacked their usual sharp fire.
Suddenly, the heavy oak doors of the morning room swung open. Vivienne Russo walked in unannounced, dressed in a sleek charcoal business suit, holding a leather portfolio under her arm. Her expression was furious.
"Teresa," Vivienne said coldly, ignoring Antonio entirely. "My father just received a formal notice from Luca's private attorneys. He is terminating the joint venture option on the Narragansett terminal. He's buying out our existing shares at a ten percent premium and barring our representatives from the board."
Antonio gasped. "He can't do that! The partnership agreement requires a two-thirds majority!"
"He owns fifty-one percent of the voting stock outright through his father's trust, Antonio!" Vivienne hissed, slamming the portfolio onto the glass coffee table. "He doesn't need your two-thirds! He just executed his sole-executive override!"
Teresa stood up slowly, clutching her pearl necklace. "Luca wouldn't do this... he knows how much work went into this alliance..."
"Luca isn't doing this to protect the business, Teresa," Vivienne said, her eyes narrowing with intense bitter anger. "He's doing it to punish you. And he's doing it to punish me because your precious little daughter-in-law left him a note calling him a coward."
Vivienne turned her glare toward Nora.
"Where is he?" Vivienne demanded.
"Somewhere you'll never be invited," Nora replied with a sweet, dangerous smile.
"This is insane," Antonio muttered, pulling out his phone again. "I'm calling the board members. We will declare him temporarily incapacitated due to emotional distress. We can invoke Clause 9—"
"Touch that phone, Antonio, and I will release the internal audit records from the 2024 Mediterranean shipping contracts," Nora interrupted, her voice dropping into the exact same icy tone her brother had used hours earlier.
Antonio froze, his hand hovering over the screen. "What did you say?"
"You heard me," Nora said, standing tall. "Luca isn't the only one who learned how this family operates. I've been watching you steal from the construction fund for three years, Uncle. If you try to strip my brother of his company while he's trying to save his life, I will hand those records to the federal prosecutor before noon."
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Teresa looked at her daughter in absolute shock. "Nora! He is your uncle!"
"And Luca is my brother," Nora said fiercely. "And for the first time in his life, he's actually trying to be a human being instead of a brand name. I won't let you drag him back into this swamp."
