Chapter 6 - Carlo’s Price for Telling the Truth

Carlo asked for a lawyer.

Then immunity.

Then coffee.

In that order.

Luca gave him one of the three.

Coffee.

Emma sat across from him.

“You helped frame me.”

“Yes.”

“You cloned my credentials.”

“Yes.”

“You tried to erase my father’s files.”

“Yes.”

“Why should I help you?”

Carlo looked tired.

“Because I can prove my father ordered Daniel’s death.”

Emma did not move.

“Proof.”

“A recording.”

“Where?”

“My apartment.”

Marco checked.

“No.”

Carlo looked at him.

“You searched the obvious safe.”

Marco’s eyes narrowed.

Carlo almost smiled.

“Kitchen ventilation panel.”

Belini laughed once.

“Of course.”

The recording existed.

Daniel.

Roberto.

Carlo.

Twelve years earlier.

Carlo had been twenty-two.

He had recorded his father because he was already afraid of him.

Daniel’s voice was calm.

You are draining the port contracts.

Roberto answered.

I am correcting what the Navarros stole from us.

Daniel said:

Then explain it to the board.

Roberto laughed.

The board signs what I put in front of it.

Then the final exchange.

Daniel:

If anything happens to me, Edmund has the register.

Roberto:

Then Edmund dies second.

Emma stopped the recording.

That was enough.

More than enough.

Carlo looked at her.

“I did not know he would kill Daniel.”

“But you helped afterward.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because Nicolas came back.”

Silence.

Carlo rubbed his face.

“My father told me Nicolas survived the accident and had been working for the family overseas.”

“Why keep him secret?” Emma asked.

“Because Nicolas was useful dead.”

False identities.

Private enforcement.

Off-book deals.

A ghost with a Salazar ring.

Gabriel looked sick.

“And you?”

“I became the acceptable son.”

Belini’s voice was cold.

“You mean the public one.”

“Yes.”

Carlo looked at her.

“And you were useful because Gabriel trusted you.”

Belini’s expression tightened.

Emma saw something in Gabriel’s face.

Not jealousy.

Guilt.

He had brought Carlo closer to the company because Belini vouched for him.

Everyone had been used.

Luca asked the important question.

“What did Roberto want tonight?”

Carlo answered.

“The control clause.”

Emma looked at him.

“He knew I had fifty-two percent?”

“He knew Daniel had protected you. He did not know how.”

“So he needed the original register.”

“Yes.”

“And the fake deletion?”

“To make regulators believe Emma and Gabriel were destroying evidence together.”

Gabriel understood.

“If both of us were removed—”

“The emergency board would appoint an outside restructuring trustee.”

Vale finished the thought.

“Salazar & Crane.”

Carlo nodded.

His father’s firm.

Control without ownership.

Elegant.

Legal-looking.

Temporary.

Long enough to sell the port assets.

Emma felt cold.

“To whom?”

Carlo looked at Luca.

“A consortium.”

“What consortium?”

“Moretti competitors.”

Luca’s face changed.

Finally, something personal.

“Names.”

Carlo gave them.

Three families.

All old enemies.

The Navarro takeover was not just about Navarro.

It was meant to weaken Luca’s shipping network too.

Emma looked at him.

“So I was not your fake girlfriend because I was convenient.”

Luca glanced at her.

“You were still convincing.”

Wrong time.

She almost smiled anyway.

Marco entered.

“Nicolas escaped custody.”

Everyone turned.

“How?” Luca asked.

“Transport vehicle hit near the tunnel.”

Carlo closed his eyes.

“My father.”

“No,” Emma said.

Carlo looked at her.

“Why?”

She remembered Roberto’s face in the warehouse.

Calm.

Certain.

Even after arrest.

“He expected Nicolas to leave.”

Luca’s eyes sharpened.

Emma continued.

“Roberto was willing to lose himself.”

Vale understood.

“To save the consortium.”

Marco’s phone rang.

He listened.

Then looked at Luca.

“Pier contracts are being transferred right now.”

Emma stood.

“To whom?”

Marco’s answer made Luca completely still.

“Moretti Coastal Holdings.”

Emma frowned.

“That’s yours.”

Luca’s voice dropped.

“No.”

He looked at Marco.

“That company was dissolved five years ago.”

Marco shook his head.

“Apparently not.”

Someone had revived one of Luca’s dead companies.

The same trick used with Daniel’s dead account.

And suddenly Emma understood the final layer.

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The Salazars were not trying to sell Navarro assets to Luca’s enemies.

They were trying to make it look as though Luca himself had stolen them.