Chapter 3 - The Guardian
Domenico read the petition again because his mind kept rejecting the obvious.
“You were going to take my daughter.”
Valentina stepped closer.
“I was going to protect her.”
“From me?”
“If necessary.”
Marcus muttered, “Here we go.”
Domenico ignored him.
He pointed at the laptop.
“Who wrote this?”
Valentina said nothing.
Mateo enlarged the document properties.
The author field listed RICHARD CARVER, ESQ.
Domenico knew the name.
Carver had represented the Rinaldi family for twenty-two years.
He had handled Isabella’s estate.
Ruby’s trust.
Domenico’s corporate holdings.
His stomach dropped.
“Call him.”
Mateo did.
Carver answered on the first ring.
“Domenico?”
“You expected someone else?”
Silence.
Then, “What happened?”
“I found a guardianship petition with your name on it.”
Another silence.
Longer.
“I can explain.”
“Come to the house.”
“It’s late.”
“Then drive faster.”
Carver arrived forty-five minutes later wearing jeans under a wool coat, as if he had dressed in the dark.
He looked at Valentina first.
That was enough.
Domenico saw it.
“You knew.”
Carver closed the study door.
“I knew there were concerns.”
“Whose concerns?”
“People close to Ruby.”
“Name them.”
Carver rubbed his forehead.
“This is exactly the kind of reaction we were worried about.”
Domenico almost laughed.
“You build a secret case behind my back, and my anger becomes proof you were right?”
Carver did not answer.
Mateo rotated the laptop.
“Maybe this will help.”
He opened the digital signature log.
The petition included a parent-consent form.
Domenico’s signature appeared at the bottom.
He stared at it.
“I never signed that.”
Carver frowned.
“You did.”
“No.”
“It was part of the school authorization packet in February.”
Domenico remembered signing forms before a trip to London.
Emergency pickup.
Medical release.
Travel permissions.
“Show me the original packet.”
Carver looked at Valentina.
Domenico saw it again.
“Why do you keep looking at her?”
Valentina snapped, “Because you’re making this impossible.”
“For who?”
Carver reached into his briefcase.
“I have copies.”
He placed a folder on the desk.
Domenico flipped through the pages.
The first four were familiar.
The fifth was not.
It granted “temporary educational and therapeutic decision-making authority” to Valentina Rossi during Domenico’s business travel.
His signature was at the bottom.
It looked real.
Too real.
Mateo leaned closer.
“May I?”
He examined the staple marks.
Then he took the earlier scanned packet from the drive and compared them.
“The page numbers don’t match.”
Carver’s head snapped up.
“What?”
“Pages one through four are from one print batch. Page five is from another.”
Valentina moved toward the desk.
“That proves nothing.”
Mateo pointed at a tiny printer code near the bottom margin.
“This page was printed twelve days after Domenico signed the packet.”
Carver went pale.
Domenico looked at him.
“You notarized it.”
“I notarized the packet.”
“You notarized a page that didn’t exist yet.”
Carver sat down slowly.
“I didn’t know.”
Marcus laughed under his breath.
Everybody turned.
“What?” Domenico asked.
Marcus shook his head.
“You people always think the signature is the important part.”
“What is?”
“The asset.”
Valentina closed her eyes.
Domenico’s attention shifted to her.
“What asset?”
Nobody answered.
Then Carver whispered, “Ruby’s trust.”
Domenico looked at him.
Carver swallowed.
“Isabella’s family trust doesn’t just hold money.”
Domenico knew that.
At least he thought he did.
Carver continued.
“It holds twenty-one percent of Rinaldi Hospitality voting stock.”
Domenico’s pulse slowed.
“That stock is locked until Ruby turns twenty-one.”
“Yes.”
“Then why would guardianship matter?”
Carver looked sick.
“Because whoever controls Ruby’s legal guardianship controls the proxy vote until she’s old enough to exercise it herself.”
Domenico stared at Valentina.
For the first time that night, the cruelty toward Ruby had a number attached to it.
Twenty-one percent.
Enough to decide who controlled his company.
Then Carver said, “There’s one more problem.”
Domenico did not blink.
“What?”
“The current proxy vote doesn’t belong to you.”
---
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