Chapter 13
Chad requested a meeting with Jackson.
Claire said no.
Then Chad offered to meet with attorneys present and provide information about older Bellandi financial practices in exchange for Jackson supporting a private resolution.
Claire looked at Jackson.
“He’s bargaining.”
“He always bargains.”
“You want to hear him?”
“Yes.”
The meeting took place in a downtown law office.
No estate.
No bodyguards inside.
No bats.
Chad looked thinner than he had a month earlier.
The arrogance remained.
He sat across from Jackson.
“You opened everything.”
“Yes.”
“You gave strangers our books.”
“Yes.”
“You cost the family millions.”
“Maybe.”
Chad laughed bitterly.
“Leo cried for ten minutes and you dismantled thirty years of family structure.”
Jackson’s expression changed.
Claire started to speak.
Jackson raised one hand.
“No.”
He looked at Chad.
“Say that again.”
Chad realized too late what he had revealed.
He leaned back.
“I’m saying you overreacted.”
“You stood over my son with a baseball bat.”
“I never intended to hit him.”
“You smashed a glass table inches away.”
“Safety glass.”
Jackson stared at him.
Chad looked away.
That tiny qualification told Jackson almost everything about how his cousin had justified the moment to himself.
No real injury.
Therefore not real abuse.
Chad continued.
“I was protecting what this family built.”
“By framing me?”
“By stopping you.”
“Same thing.”
“You were giving banks control.”
“I was giving the company financing.”
“You were closing clubs.”
“Some.”
“Cutting family positions.”
“Yes.”
“Turning people who spent their whole lives with us into employees who need permission from outsiders.”
Jackson leaned forward.
“They were employees.”
“To you.”
Chad’s face hardened.
“To me, they were family.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“You keep saying family when you mean entitlement.”
Chad stood.
Claire immediately looked toward the door.
Jackson remained seated.
Chad paced once.
“The North Club supports people.”
“It makes money.”
“It supports people too.”
“You bought an undisclosed option in it.”
“Because I knew you’d kill it.”
“You planted evidence under my table because your investment might disappear.”
“I planted evidence because you needed to understand what outside control does.”
Jackson actually laughed.
“What?”
“You wanted outsiders to think I was a criminal so I would learn outsiders are dangerous.”
Chad stopped.
The logic sounded uglier when spoken plainly.
Jackson continued.
“You disabled children’s emergency calls.”
“I didn’t know Leo would go in there.”
“You wrote a script specifically for the children’s devices.”
“Because there were kids at the reception.”
Claire spoke for the first time.
“That sentence is not helping you.”
Chad looked at her.
Then back at Jackson.
“I needed thirty minutes.”
“You needed my four-year-old son to be unable to reach me for thirty minutes.”
Silence.
Jackson leaned back.
The motive was finally naked.
Not hunger.
Not desperation.
Fear of losing status disguised as loyalty.
Chad had convinced himself that preserving the Bellandi structure justified temporary terror.
Jackson stood.
“I came because I wanted to know whether you understood what you did.”
Chad’s face tightened.
“And?”
“You understand the plan.”
Jackson looked at him.
“You still don’t understand the child.”
He left.
May you like
The meeting had been Chad’s chance to accept responsibility.
He had used it to explain why everybody else should have tolerated him.
