Chapter 6: What It Cost

Elio crossed the café and put himself between Chiara and her brother.

"Let go of the chair," he said. "Luca. Back up."

"This is family business."

"It stopped being family business when you grabbed her in front of a room full of people."

He turned and spoke to everyone at once, in a voice that carried.

"My wife is telling the truth. She is not confused. Her brother put his hands on her, and I'm sorry you had to see it."

The barista lowered her phone a little.

The man in the delivery uniform kept his raised.

Luca stared at him.

"You're choosing a stranger over us."

"I'm choosing the woman we put in a clinic for three years," Elio said. "Because we were too sure of ourselves to ask her one question."

"Dad said-"

"I know what Dad said. I helped him say it."

Nobody in the café moved.

Elio took out his phone, thumbed a name and put it on speaker.

"It's me. Are you at your desk?"

"Elio, it's barely ten. What's wrong?"

"I want you to draw up a transfer today. All of my shares in Pellegrino Freight go to Chiara Pellegrino. Forty percent. Effective this morning."

A long pause on the line.

"Elio, that's the company. That's everything you have."

"Then it's an easy form," Elio said. "Do it."

Luca's face went white and then red.

"You can't do that without a vote."

"I can do it with a signature, and you know it.

"She can sell it to a stranger, or she can sit across from you at the board table. That's up to her."

"You're burning your whole life for a woman who doesn't know your name."

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