Chapter 18 #2
Worse, she sounded like a woman accustomed to entering rooms full of men and finding all their errors before she removed her coat.
Gianni gestured toward the equipment case.
“Show her.”
Donatella entered a code. The locks clicked.
Inside, black foam cradled a Halberd hardware token the size of a small book. A steel seal covered the main housing. A certificate strip ran along one edge, marked with serial numbers and tamper indicators.
My stomach went cold.
“No,” I said.
Donatella’s eyes moved toward me.
“Did I ask you something?”
“That belongs to Angela.”
“Not anymore.”
“You stole it?”
“She left it in a locked office with two cameras and a guard downstairs.” Donatella slipped off her coat. “It was almost insulting.”
I searched her face. Nothing. No hidden reassurance. No warning. Only impatience.
The Carusos were betraying the Scordatos? For what?
Gianni’s technicians approached the case. One photographed the serial strip. Another connected a handheld reader to the external certification port.
They did not open the housing.
“The seal remains intact,” Donatella said. “If you dismantle it, the certificate dies.”
“We know,” one technician replied.
“Then behave like it.”
The reader flashed.
Genuine certificate.
Active.
Provisioned to Halberd Chicago.
The words appeared on the small display.
I felt something inside me drop.
Angela had been hurt in the legal suite. Sal had called in Dante’s favor.
And Dante’s sister had brought Gianni the one object he required.
“What did he offer you?” I asked.
Donatella leaned one hip against the table.
“Protection for Caruso businesses. Cancellation of Halberd’s outstanding loans. A private stake in your companies once Gianni has control.”
“My companies.”
“Currently, they are a hostage crisis with accounting staff.”
Gianni laughed. Donatella did not.
I hated her more for that.
“You sold your brothers,” I said.
“No, no. Once the deal goes through my brothers will be quite happy. But right now, they are losing, and they can’t even see it.”
The answer came without hesitation.
“Dante inherited debt. Santo inherited a temper. Marco inherited a nightclub and the idea that smiling counts as strategy.” Her thumb moved once over the antique ring. “I inherited enough sense to get out before the building fell.”
“And Sal? Tonio? Pietro?”
Her gaze sharpened slightly.
“They made their choice. Pity about Serafina, though. I liked her.”
My chest hurt.
I imagined Sal in the townhouse bedroom with my notebook against his heart. I imagined him searching. I imagined him refusing sleep. I imagined his face when the fire door came down.
Donatella watched me too closely.
Anger bubbled up in me so strongly. I stood.
One of the guards moved at once.
Donatella’s voice cracked through the room.
“Sit down.”
I turned on her.
She pointed to my chair.
“If you expect any court to believe this transaction is voluntary, stop swaying like you’re drugged.”
“I was drugged.”
“Yes. And now you need to look like you weren’t.”
Gianni’s mouth curved.
Donatella crossed to me and caught my chin in her fingers. Her grip was cool and insulting.
“Eyes are clear,” she said. “Pupils normal.”
I knocked her hand away.
“Touch me again and you’ll lose a finger.”
“At least you sound awake. That’s good.”
She looked toward Gianni.
“Water. Food. Hairbrush. Her blouse is creased.”
“I am not a doll,” I said.
“No. You’re right. Dolls are easier—they do as they’re told. Sit straight.”
My face burned.
Not because she had frightened me.
Because I had begun to trust this family.
Marco’s smile. Dante’s measured voice. Tonio holding Kiryl’s shoulder. Angela across from me at the library table. Pietro at the window. Sal beside the water with his palm under my back.
It wasn’t fair.
Gianni watched me enjoyably.
“Now you understand,” he said. “Families protect themselves. It’s business, cupcake.”
I looked at Donatella. She met my stare without flinching.
“Your people do not love you enough to lose everything,” Gianni continued. “Maybe they don’t love you at all.”
The clock read 11:09.
Fifty-one minutes.
I sat.
I folded my hands in my lap.
Then I looked at the proxy document and decided that if the Carusos had sold me, I would still not sell myself.
Donatella turned coercion into a checklist, which was the most Caruso thing I had ever seen.
“She needs water,” she said.
Gianni gestured. A guard brought a sealed bottle.
Donatella inspected the cap before handing it to me.
“Keep her unrestrained.”
“She is unrestrained,” Gianni said.
“She remains that way.”
His expression cooled. Donatella continued as if he had not spoken.
“No weapons in view of the terminal camera. No armed men reflected in the glass. No one stands behind her. If opposing counsel sees a shoulder, a holster, or a shadow shaped like a rifle, the recording becomes useless.”
“I know how witness protocol works.”
“Learn it from your father? You must have been his favorite student.”
Silence struck the room.
Gianni’s face changed so quickly I almost smiled.
Donatella had chosen the knife well.
He turned toward the guards.
“Outer corridor.”
They hesitated.
“Now.”
Most left. Two remained near the steel door until Donatella pointed at the glass partition.
“I can see them.”
Gianni swore in Italian.
They went too.
The lock engaged behind them.
Only Gianni, Donatella, two technicians, and I remained inside the corporate suite. The technicians stayed behind the camera line.
Donatella opened the equipment case fully.
She removed the hardware token and a length of shielded cable. Her fingers moved with quick competence. The antique ring clicked once against the metal housing.
A tiny green light appeared inside the foam.
I looked at it.
She closed her hand over that section as she lifted the token free.
“Move,” she told one technician.
He moved.
She connected the cable to the certified port beneath the terminal.
The screen went black.
Then blue.
HARDWARE AUTHENTICATION IN PROGRESS.
A loading bar appeared.
Seven percent.
Twelve.
“Now listen to me, bitch,” Donatella said. “You’re going to comply. If you don’t I swear your brother is dead.”
“My brother is safe.”
“Is he? Interesting. I suppose you thought you were safe, too.” She thought for a moment.
“And you know what, we won’t just kill Kiryl.
We’ll take out Daniil and Arkady too, for good measure.
You know my family, you know what we are capable of.
I bet Santo would enjoy making them beg for mercy before he finished the job.
How old is Kiryl again? A shame to die so young. ”
The terminal’s internal fan rose in pitch.
My heart pounded in my chest. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be responsible for my brothers’ deaths.
Ashamed, wretched, miserable, I nodded.
Donatella took the chair across from me and activated the recording. A red light appeared above the camera.
“State your full legal name.”
“Yelena Lvovna Sokolova.”
“State today’s date.”
I did.
“Do you understand that this interview concerns cancellation of the Sokolova Emergency Employee Trust and assignment of voting authority in the listed companies?”
“I understand that those are the documents displayed.”
“Do you understand them?”
“Not yet.”
Gianni made an irritated sound.
Donatella did not look at him.
“Why not?”
“I have not reviewed the final versions.”
“They are based on documents you previously reviewed.”
“Based on is not identical to.”
“Do you recognize the language?”
“Some of it.”
“Which sections do you dispute?”
“All of them.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Be specific.”
Gladly.
I pulled the keyboard closer and opened the trust cancellation instrument.
“Clause three says the trust was formed under impaired judgment.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
“Then note the objection.”
“There is no annotation field.”
One technician stepped forward.
Donatella lifted a hand.
“Add one.”
“That changes the record,” Gianni said.
“It creates one,” she replied.
The field appeared. I typed slowly.
Every letter bought a fraction of a second.
I object to the characterization of my judgment as impaired.
“Next,” Donatella said.
“Clause four assigns discretionary authority over pending employee payments.”
“To the proxy holder.”
“Without a fiduciary restriction.”
Gianni came closer.
“You are not rewriting the agreement.”
I looked at him.
“Then I am not signing it.”
Donatella’s mouth twitched. Only slightly. It vanished before I could be sure.
The hardware bar reached thirty-one percent.
“Continue,” she said.
I continued.
I challenged the definition of corporate necessity. The absence of a termination mechanism. The indemnity language. The attempt to classify my flight from Gianni as a temporary medical absence.
I forced them to open attached schedules. Vendor lists. Subsidiary voting tables. A page containing my companies’ registered addresses.
Nothing told me where I was.
No network name appeared.
No facility identifier.
Donatella pushed me whenever I slowed.
“Answer clearly.”
“I did.”
“You answered emotionally.”
“I answered accurately.”
“You look exhausted.”
“I was fucking kidnapped!”
“Stop saying that.”
“Then stop helping the kidnapper.”
Gianni smiled from beyond the camera frame.
“Yelena,” Donatella said, “did you form the emergency trust independently?”
“Yes.”
“Did Salvatore Scordato instruct you to do it?”
“No.”
“Did he benefit?”
“No.”
“Did his family?”
“The employees benefited.”
“That was not the question.”
“It was the correct answer.”
“Did you transfer funds because Salvatore told you to?”
“No.”
“Did he discipline you on the night before the trust was formed?”
Heat touched my face. Gianni shifted, interested. Donatella held my gaze.
“Answer.”
“Yes.”
“Did the discipline influence your corporate decision?”
“No.”
“Did it make you more compliant?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you that you belonged to him?”
“No.”
The answer came hard.
“He has never said that.”
Gianni laughed.
Donatella turned her head.
He stood just outside the camera’s field.
“Something amusing?” she asked.
“She belongs to whoever has enough strength to keep her.”
“Is that your legal theory?”
“It is the reality of oru world.”