Chapter 9 - Stripping the Matriarch
“I did it for this family!” Carmen suddenly shrieked, her voice cracking into a high, hysterical wail that shattered the dignified silence of the estate.
She pushed herself off the wall, her hands clawing the air, her face mottled with red, ugly patches of fury and desperation.
“Julian was a fool!” Carmen screamed, tears of pure, unrepentant hatred streaming down her powdered cheeks. “He was going to ruin everything his grandfather built! That… that girl he married was a parasite! Her father worked on the rail yards! Her mother was a waitress! If I had let that baby carry the DeLuca name, her family would have drained our accounts! They would have dragged our name through the probate courts!”
She pointed a trembling, manicured finger toward the private study where Renata lay on the sofa.
“She doesn't belong here!” Carmen spat, venom dripping from every syllable. “I saw her eyes the day you brought her home, Mauricio! I knew it was her! Every time she looked at me with Julian’s smile, I felt sick to my stomach! She is a stain on this house, and I will not apologize for keeping our bloodline pure!”
Arthur DeLuca looked at his wife of forty-six years as if he were staring at a venomous snake that had nested in his bed.
“My God, Carmen…” Arthur whispered, his voice cracking with a sudden, devastating frailty. “You stole my son’s only child.”
The grandfather took two slow, staggering steps backward, his hand grasping the edge of a mahogany console table to keep his balance. He looked toward the study door, his weathered, stern features contorting with an agony of guilt so profound that he seemed to age ten years in ten seconds. He remembered the cold words he had spoken twenty minutes earlier in the kitchen: They are our real granddaughters.
The words tasted like ash and acid on his tongue.
Mauricio stepped directly into his mother’s personal space. His towering, broad-shouldered frame eclipsed the light from the chandeliers, casting Carmen into total, suffocating darkness.
“You are done, Carmen,” Mauricio said.
The words were not shouted. They were delivered with the terrifying, absolute finality of a judge passing an irreversible capital sentence.
“As of eight o’clock this morning,” Mauricio whispered, his gravelly voice vibrating with lethal certainty, “I hold the executive power of attorney for the DeLuca Corporation. I hold seventy-two percent of the voting shares across the logistics, shipping, and real estate trusts.”
He pulled his smartphone from his pocket, tapped the screen three times, and brought it to his ear.
“Marcus,” Mauricio commanded into the speaker.
A gravelly voice answered instantly: “Yes, Don Valin.”
“Execute the emergency shareholder resolution,” Mauricio ordered, his eyes never leaving Carmen’s terrified face. “Strip Carmen DeLuca of all corporate directorships. Freeze her personal trust draw at the Bank of America. Cancel her credit lines with Chase Private Client. Change the biometric security codes on the Gold Coast estate, the Palm Beach villa, and the Geneva apartment.”
“Mauricio, no!” Carmen screamed, lunging forward, her hands reaching out to claw at his navy shirt. “You can’t do this! I am your mother! This is my house!”
Mauricio caught her wrists with a single, lightning-fast motion of his left hand.
He did not squeeze hard enough to break bone, but his grip was an iron vise, holding her hands suspended in mid-air, rendering her completely helpless.
“This house is owned by the DeLuca Maritime Trust, Carmen,” Mauricio whispered into her ear, his voice colder than the blizzard howling outside. “And as of ten minutes ago, ninety percent of that trust belongs to Julian’s sole surviving daughter: Renata DeLuca.”
He released her wrists with a sharp, dismissive flick that sent her stumbling back onto the carpet.
“You have one hour to pack two suitcases of personal clothing,” Mauricio said, his dark eyes dead to her existence. “Marcus has two security operatives waiting in the driveway. They will escort you to the airport. You have a one-way ticket to a residential suite in Scottsdale, Arizona. If you ever set foot in the city of Chicago again, if you ever attempt to contact my daughter, I will have the state’s attorney file felony kidnapping and fraud charges against you before the sun rises.”
Carmen collapsed onto her knees on the Persian runner, her navy evening gown bunching around her like spilled oil, her hands burying themselves in her silver-blonde hair as she began to wail—a loud, pathetic, broken sound of total, unmitigated ruin.
May you like
Mauricio did not look down at her. He turned his gaze to Arthur, whose eyes were hollowed out by grief.
“Get your things, Father,” Mauricio said quietly. “Take your wife and get out of my house.”
