Chapter 3
Lauren requested the banquet planning records.
The estate itself had hosted dozens of family events.
Nothing about this birthday dinner should have required unusual preparation.
Yet Valentina had been unusually involved.
She moved the long table from the formal dining room into the atrium.
She changed the seating plan.
She insisted Domenico’s chair remain empty while he finished the council meeting next door.
She also moved Ruby’s chair.
The original chart placed Ruby on Domenico’s right.
Ethan sat beside Valentina.
Six hours before dinner, Valentina revised it.
Ethan moved beside Domenico.
Ruby disappeared from the chart completely.
The event coordinator assumed Ruby would sit at the children’s table.
Ruby had never been told that.
Lauren looked at the revision time.
“Eleven twelve this morning.”
Domenico frowned.
“Marcus was here by ten.”
“Yes.”
The coordinator remembered both siblings meeting privately in the breakfast room.
“About seating?”
“I don’t know.”
“What else changed?”
The atrium doors were normally closed during a council session so dinner guests would remain in the west lounge.
Valentina asked that they remain open.
Why?
She said she wanted Domenico to walk directly into the family banquet when his meeting ended.
The bronze statue display had also been repositioned.
Not important by itself.
Neither were the ottomans.
Furniture moved at events.
Then the coordinator said:
“Mrs. Falcone asked whether the event photographer could stay through dinner.”
Domenico looked at Lauren.
The photographer was normally dismissed after arrivals and family portraits.
Valentina extended his contract by three hours.
“Did she say why?”
“She wanted candid family moments.”
The photographer had not captured Domenico striking anyone.
He had been in the garden corridor when the fight happened.
No convenient perfect video.
No cinematic evidence.
But the request still mattered.
Valentina wanted more witnesses.
More documentation.
More people around.
Lauren reviewed the guest list.
Several people stood out.
Not capos.
Not family.
Two bankers connected to Falcone Development Group.
One outside director.
One attorney who represented one of Domenico’s legitimate holding companies.
All invited by Valentina.
Domenico rarely mixed family dinners with business outsiders.
“Why were they there?” Lauren asked.
“Valentina said it would look good for the foundation.”
“What foundation?”
Domenico stared at her.
“There wasn’t one.”
Lauren leaned back.
“So she invited people whose opinions matter professionally.”
“Yes.”
“To watch a family dinner.”
“Yes.”
“And then humiliated your daughter in the room where they could see it.”
Domenico understood where she was going.
“Then Marcus attacks me.”
“And you respond.”
He looked toward the banquet hall.
The furniture had been repaired already.
That bothered him.
“Stop cleanup.”
Lauren frowned.
“What?”
“Nothing gets restored until we understand the room.”
It was not superstition.
It was evidence.
Who stood where.
Who entered when.
What people could see.
What they were supposed to see.
May you like
The birthday banquet had been built like a stage.
Domenico just did not yet know what role he had been assigned.
