CHAP 16 — CAMILLA’S CHOICE
Alden filed six lawsuits in forty-eight hours.
Camilla filed seven.
Chicago newspapers called it the Ashford Civil War.
But Camilla had something Alden did not.
The original trust.
The original partnership document.
And Lucia Croft’s memorandum.
A judge issued a temporary injunction freezing Ashford Municipal Holdings.
Alden could no longer move funds.
He could not sell assets.
He could not destroy records without violating a federal order.
The machine had finally stopped.
Then Camilla did something nobody expected.
She refused to keep the company.
“I don’t want it.”
Her attorneys nearly screamed.
She controlled a potential fortune worth hundreds of millions.
“What are you going to do?” Adeline asked.
“Break it apart.”
“Why?”
Camilla looked through the windows toward downtown Chicago.
“Because I spent my entire life believing ownership made people important.”
She smiled faintly.
“Apparently I needed an extremely public nervous breakdown involving a riding crop to reconsider.”
Adeline did not smile.
Camilla noticed.
“Too soon?”
“By several decades.”
“Fair.”
Camilla proposed returning misappropriated pension assets, compensating affected hospital funds, and creating an independent restitution trust.
It would leave her wealthy.
But not obscenely wealthy.
For the first time, she seemed comfortable with that.
Meanwhile, Enzo faced his own reckoning.
Prosecutors offered a cooperation agreement.
He would plead guilty to financial crimes.
Forfeit several businesses and properties.
Pay restitution.
Provide evidence regarding public corruption.
In exchange, they would recommend a reduced sentence.
Sofia hated the prison possibility.
Enzo accepted it.
Adeline confronted him.
“You could fight.”
“Yes.”
“You might win some of the charges.”
“Yes.”
“So why aren’t you?”
“Because some of them are true.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to destroy yourself.”
“I’m not.”
He looked around the once-grand office.
“I’m destroying the version of myself that required everyone else to pretend.”
Adeline stared at him.
“You really are terrible at being a mafia boss.”
He smiled.
“I’m discovering that.”
Then his smile faded.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What?”
“The night I covered you with my coat…”
She waited.
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“You were.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“I was doing what I’d always done. Walking into a room, deciding who needed saving, deciding what everyone would do next.”
Adeline studied him.
“And now?”
“Now I know you didn’t need me to make you brave.”
She looked away because suddenly the room felt too intimate.
“You still gave me the coat.”
“Yes.”
“I was freezing.”
“I noticed.”
She laughed softly.
It was the first uncomplicated sound between them in weeks.
Enzo stepped closer.
Not touching.
Not assuming.
“Adeline.”
“Yes?”
“When this is over…”
She shook her head.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“Not because I don’t…”
She swallowed.
“But because I need to know I’m not choosing you because you stood between me and powerful people.”
Enzo nodded.
“And I need to know I’m not choosing you because you make me feel redeemable.”
They stood inches apart.
Neither kissed the other.
That mattered more than a kiss would have.
Then Sofia burst through the door.
“We found the missing pages.”
Enzo turned.
“Where?”
Sofia looked almost amused.
“Alden’s accountant mailed them to me.”
“Why?”
“Because Alden stopped paying him.”
Adeline blinked.
After murders, conspiracies, hospitals, blackmail, and billion-dollar fraud—
Alden Ashford might finally be destroyed by payroll.
But when they examined the pages, the final surprise appeared.
One account had continued receiving money after Carlo died.
Payments every month.
The recipient initials were M.M.
May you like
This time, they did mean a person.
Marco Marchetti.
