Chapter 13 - Forty-Eight Hours
The board meeting was moved forward.
Dominic wanted Luca removed before the medical evidence reached authorities.
Rebecca had forty-eight hours to stop the vote.
She obtained a temporary order preventing the transfer of several major assets.
Dominic responded by freezing operational accounts.
Employees panicked.
Partners called.
Reporters gathered outside.
Luca’s old world was collapsing exactly as Dominic intended.
Marcus entered with another problem.
“Dr. Pike is gone.”
Of course he was.
The man who had approved Luca’s medication for six years had disappeared less than an hour after the toxicology results returned.
Luca wanted every road searched.
Every airport checked.
Every contact questioned.
Then Maya walked into the study carrying her math notebook.
“Homework.”
Luca stared at her.
“Now?”
“You said seven o’clock.”
There were thirty people waiting for Luca’s instructions.
Millions of dollars were moving.
His company could be taken from him by morning.
Maya expected help with fractions.
Luca looked at the clock.
Seven-oh-three.
“Sit down.”
Marcus blinked.
“Boss?”
“Find Pike.”
Then Luca pointed at the notebook.
“I have fractions.”
Maya smiled.
For twenty minutes, the empire waited.
Elena watched from the doorway.
When Maya left, she spoke quietly.
“That cost you something.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Luca looked at her.
“You enjoy this.”
“A little.”
Then Rebecca called.
Dr. Pike’s name had appeared on a flight manifest.
He was attempting to leave from a small private airport.
Police intercepted him.
Inside his luggage were medical records.
Payment ledgers.
And a handwritten schedule listing Luca’s maintenance doses for the previous nine years.
Dominic’s initials appeared beside every quarterly payment.
Rebecca’s voice shook.
“This can bury him.”
But there was a problem.
One page was missing.
The first page.
The page that contained whoever originally authorized the poisoning.
Pike insisted Dominic had not created the plan.
He had inherited it.
From someone else.
Luca stared at the photograph of his mother.
If Caterina had tried to stop the poisoning, and Dominic had not invented it, then the conspiracy had started higher.
There had only been one person above both of them.
Luca’s father.
May you like
Vittorio Costello.
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