Chapter 8 - THE NIGHT THE MAFIA BOSS LOST CONTROL
The evidence changed the investigation.
Financial auditors began reviewing property transfers.
Historians examined the eighteenth-century records.
Attorneys traced the modern ownership claims.
Harrison Whitfield hired a team of lawyers.
He denied wrongdoing.
He insisted the documents were unreliable.
But the questions multiplied.
Then, one evening, Camille received a message from an unknown number.
Stop digging, or the next fire won't be an accident.
She stared.
Her blood went cold.
She forwarded the message to her attorney and the police.
Then called Lucien.
He arrived twenty minutes later.
When he read the threat, his expression changed.
For the first time, Camille saw the man people feared.
Not the courteous businessman.
Not the patient listener.
The man who had survived a violent world by becoming more dangerous than the people around him.
"Who sent this?" he asked.
"I don't know."
Lucien turned toward his security chief.
"Find out."
His voice was flat.
Cold.
Camille stepped forward.
"Lucien."
He looked at her.
"Don't."
He frowned.
"Don't what?"
"Don't turn this into something you can't undo."
His jaw tightened.
"They threatened you."
"I know."
"They threatened you with the same thing that killed your father."
Her eyes filled.
"I know."
Lucien looked away.
For a moment, he seemed ready to return to the man he'd spent years trying to leave behind.
Then Camille touched his arm.
"My father believed in records. Evidence. Truth."
Lucien looked at her.
"He didn't die so we could become like the people who hurt him."
Silence.
Then Lucien closed his eyes.
When he opened them, the anger remained.
But something else had joined it.
Control.
He turned to his security chief.
"Preserve the message. Coordinate with law enforcement. Nobody takes independent action."
Camille exhaled.
Lucien looked at her.
"You have no idea how difficult that was."
She smiled sadly.
May you like
"I think I do."
For the first time in his life, Lucien Moreau understood that restraint could be an act of love.
