Chapter 9 - I LOCKED MY OWN HOUSE AGAINST MY FIANCÉE
By morning, every Vandermark employee was removed from Moretti property.
Every shared system credential was revoked.
Every draft merger document was placed under legal hold.
Celeste arrived at the estate gates at noon.
Security refused to open them.
She called me.
“You locked me out of the house I’m supposed to live in.”
“The house belongs to my mother.”
“You invited me there.”
“I changed my mind.”
Her voice sharpened.
“You are humiliating me.”
I looked through the window toward the gates.
Celeste stood beside her black car.
Perfect coat.
Perfect posture.
Nothing like the woman I had seen dragging Delia across the conservatory floor.
“Interesting word.”
“What?”
“Humiliating.”
I let the silence work.
“You seemed comfortable with it when the person beneath you was wearing a nurse’s uniform.”
Her breathing changed.
“Gabriel—”
“I saw you.”
“She was stealing from us.”
“There is no us.”
Silence.
Then she said:
“You’re making a terrible mistake.”
“No.”
I watched her through the glass.
“I made it four years ago.”
I ended the call.
That afternoon, I convened my directors.
Roman expected me to fight his resolution.
I did something else.
I voluntarily placed disputed harbor assets under independent custodial control.
No transfers.
No sales.
No pledges.
Nothing moved without outside approval.
Roman stared at me.
“You’re tying your own hands.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“So no one else can use them.”
Miriam almost smiled.
For the first time, Celeste’s strategy had failed.
She could no longer pressure me into signing a transfer because I had temporarily surrendered the authority she wanted.
It cost me millions.
But money had stopped being the point.
That evening, Delia arrived at the estate under guard.
She carried a small envelope.
Inside was a certified marriage certificate.
EDWARD MORETTI.
DELIA MARIE MARLOWE.
Legally married.
Then she handed me something else.
A birth certificate.
I stared at it.
The father’s name was Ewan.
The child had been born seven months after the fire.
A boy.
Theo Edward Marlowe.
May you like
My nephew was five years old.
And alive.
