Chapter 12
Leo tested the emergency button on a Tuesday afternoon.
Owen knelt in the hallway with him.
Jackson stood several feet away.
Leo held the device but would not press it.
“It works,” Owen said.
Leo looked at Jackson.
Jackson remembered the night his son pressed twice.
Nothing happened.
“Don’t tell him.”
Owen stopped.
Jackson crouched.
“You want to see?”
Leo nodded cautiously.
Jackson held up his own phone.
“When you press, this should make noise.”
“And Owen?”
“Owen’s people too.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
Jackson answered truthfully.
“Then we fix it again.”
Leo looked at the button.
Then pressed.
Jackson’s phone alarm sounded immediately.
Three seconds later, Owen’s radio activated.
A bodyguard appeared at the far end of the hall.
Leo’s eyes widened.
“Again.”
He pressed it again.
Another alert.
Leo smiled.
Then pressed it five more times because he was four.
Owen eventually took the device gently.
“I think we know it works.”
Leo laughed.
The sound hit Jackson harder than he expected.
Trust, he realized, sometimes needed proof simple enough for a child to understand.
The corporate version was slower.
Bellandi Holdings appointed an outside compliance officer.
Delegated executive access was eliminated.
No family member could approve cash withdrawals above a low threshold without independent review.
Private social-club games were suspended.
One older cousin called the reforms insulting.
Jackson asked whether he preferred another fabricated ledger under his table.
He did not.
The audit also found two executives unrelated to Chad who had abused informal expense procedures.
Jackson dismissed one.
The other repaid funds and was demoted.
No one received immunity simply because the investigation began for a different reason.
That earned Jackson enemies.
It also earned something he had valued less when he was younger.
Credibility.
The lenders did not cancel the refinancing.
They delayed it pending completion of remediation.
For the first time, Jackson believed the deal might survive.
Then the prosecutor’s office requested an interview regarding Chad.
Not the financial dispute alone.
Leo.
The bat.
The disabled emergency system.
The deliberate destruction of property beside a trapped child.
Jackson called Daniel Greene, Chad’s lawyer, and made one thing clear.
“No family settlement involving my son.”
The lawyer answered:
“Chad is your cousin.”
Jackson looked toward the hallway where Leo was playing.
May you like
“That mattered to him too.”
Then he ended the call.
