Chapter 4 - THE THREAT LETTERS
The first threat letter had arrived three months earlier.
Vito never saw it.
Nicholas had.
That created a problem.
“Why?”
Nicholas stood in the study.
“I considered it low credibility.”
“Why wasn’t I told?”
“You receive threats constantly.”
“Not involving my unborn child.”
Nicholas looked ashamed.
Correctly.
The letter said:
THE CARBONE BOY SHOULD NEVER BE BORN.
Rosalie went white when she saw it.
Vito turned toward Nicholas.
“You knew it was a boy?”
“No.”
“Then whoever wrote this did.”
At the time, only Rosalie knew.
And her doctor.
Vito himself did not.
Rosalie stared at the paper.
“I hadn’t told anyone.”
Doctor records were reviewed.
No obvious breach.
Then Rosalie remembered:
Octavia accompanied her to one prenatal charity visit months earlier.
Ultrasound photograph inside Rosalie’s purse.
Gender written on the back by technician as a private joke:
HE’S STUBBORN LIKE DAD.
Rosalie had forgotten.
Could Octavia have seen it?
Maybe.
Not proof.
The threat letters increased.
Three total.
All mailed from different suburbs.
Same printed font.
No fingerprints.
Nicholas’s team had logged them.
Filed.
Not escalated.
Vito changed security procedures immediately.
No single officer deciding threats involving children were routine.
Independent assessment.
Law enforcement contact when appropriate.
Documentation outside family chain.
Again, system change.
Grace looked at the letters.
“If Octavia knew these existed, she could use them for the safety-delay petition.”
“Did she?”
Nicholas checked access logs.
Yes.
She requested security summaries as trustee.
Four days after the second threat.
Then filed a private memo with trust counsel:
Potential succession-related violence may justify Article Nine safety hold.
Vito stared.
She had already prepared the legal argument.
Before pushing Rosalie.
Before the gala.
Grace said:
“She may genuinely believe danger exists.”
“Or she wrote the threats.”
“We don’t know.”
Good.
Facts first.
Postal-camera records eventually identified a woman mailing one envelope.
Not Octavia.
Her personal assistant, Jenna Cross.
Jenna was questioned.
She broke quickly.
Octavia had given her sealed envelopes and asked her to mail them.
“She said they were invitations.”
No proof Jenna knew content.
Octavia’s attorney claimed Celestine—no, Octavia—used the assistant routinely and had no knowledge of what went inside? Wait, impossible. Octavia prepared envelopes.
Investigators obtained printer metadata from Octavia’s home office.
Two threat letters printed there.
The third on a family-office printer accessible to several people.
Evidence tightened.
Octavia stopped denying knowledge.
New explanation:
She created the threats to test security.
Vito stared when Grace relayed it.
“Test security.”
“Yes.”
“By threatening my unborn son.”
“That is her position.”
Rosalie laughed without humor.
“She manufactured danger so she could argue danger exists.”
Likely.
Not yet adjudicated.
But records supported.
Then another discovery.
Octavia had commissioned a legal opinion.
Question:
If credible threats arise due to descendant transfer, can current trustee retain authority pending protection review?
Answer:
Possibly.
There it was.
Money motive.
Control mechanism.
Manufactured evidence.
Rosalie touched her stomach.
“She was building a case against him before he was born.”
Vito sat beside her.
“Against the transfer.”
“That distinction doesn’t comfort me.”
“No.”
He took her hand.
Octavia requested a meeting.
Vito refused.
Then reconsidered when Grace said:
“Let her explain on record.”
Neutral law office.
Attorneys.
No threats.
Octavia arrived in gray.
No diamonds.
Vito barely recognized her without performance.
She sat.
“I never wanted Rosalie hurt.”
Vito stared.
“You pushed her.”
“I lost my temper.”
“Why?”
“She found the trust memorandum.”
Rosalie had?
No.
Octavia corrected.
“She confronted me because she saw a message on my phone.”
Ah.
At the gala.
Rosalie had glimpsed:
TRANSFER DELAY — IF BIRTH REGISTERED OCT 12.
That sparked argument.
Octavia grabbed her.
Then shove.
“I regret it.”
Vito said nothing.
Grace asked:
“Did you create the threat letters?”
Octavia’s face tightened.
“I created simulations.”
“Did recipients know they were simulations?”
“No.”
“So threats.”
“They were never meant to be acted on.”
“Threats.”
Octavia looked at Vito.
“You’re surrounded by people who would use that child against you.”
“Then why add yourself?”
“I was proving Article Nine needed delay.”
“Because you wanted to protect him?”
“Yes.”
Vito almost laughed.
“Seventy million says otherwise.”
Her expression hardened.
“I managed those shares for twelve years.”
“Borrowed power.”
“I grew them.”
“You were paid.”
“Not enough.”
There.
Truth.
Not enough.
Octavia believed work created ownership.
Then she said:
“You don’t understand what happens when he’s born.”
Vito leaned forward.
“Try me.”
She whispered:
“Your son doesn’t just take my shares.”
A pause.
“He activates Matteo’s second schedule.”
Grace went still.
“What second schedule?”
Octavia smiled sadly.
“The one nobody found because your father hid it.”
Another document.
Another layer.
Vito was beginning to hate dead men’s paperwork.
“What does it do?”
Octavia looked at Rosalie’s empty chair beside him.
“It gives the child a claim to the Carbone Foundation, the lake properties…”
Then:
“…and half of the DeSantis estate.”
Vito froze.
DeSantis.
That name belonged to Rosalie’s mother’s family.
This was no longer only his inheritance.
May you like
Somehow his unborn son connected two fortunes.
And Rosalie had never mentioned it.
