Chapter 6 - The Counterstrike
The days following the confrontation at Manhattan Trust moved with the violent velocity of an avalanche.
Under Matteo’s direct protection, I was moved into the penthouse suite of the Romano Tower overlooking Central Park. Top-tier corporate litigators, forensic accountants, and former federal prosecutors filed in and out of the boardroom from dawn until dusk, categorizing the evidence my mother had left behind.
"It’s an open-and-shut case of systemic corporate fraud, grand larceny, and patent theft," explained Marcus Vance, Matteo’s chief legal strategist. "The toxicity cover-ups alone will trigger immediate FDA recalls and criminal indictments from the Department of Justice. But more importantly, the partnership contract is completely binding. Abigail isn't just entitled to restitution—she legally owns a controlling forty-eight percent stake in Sinclair Global Holdings."
I sat at the mahogany conference table, drinking chamomile tea, feeling the sheer surrealism of the reality washing over me. Three weeks ago, I was worried about purchasing diapers. Now, lawyers were telling me I held the fate of a twenty-billion-dollar empire in my hands.
"Are you holding up alright?"
Matteo slipped into the chair beside me after the attorneys cleared out for an afternoon recess. He had loosened his tie, looking uncharacteristically tired, yet the fierce intensity in his eyes remained undimmed.
"It feels like I'm watching someone else's life through a glass window," I admitted, looking down at my hands. "I just wanted to be a good mother, Matteo. I never wanted war."
"You didn't start this war, Abigail," Matteo said gently, his fingers brushing against mine on the polished table. "Richard Sinclair started it twenty-eight years ago when he targeted a brilliant, defenseless woman. You are simply finishing it."
"Why are you doing all of this?" I asked, looking up into his piercing gaze. "You repaid the debt for Isabella ten times over already. You gave me safety, doctors, legal teams. Why are you putting your own empire on the line against the Sinclairs?"
Matteo was silent for a long moment. His eyes traced the curve of my cheek, where the faint shadow of Vanessa’s slap had finally faded.
"When Isabella was dying on that gurney eight years ago, I prayed to a God I hadn't spoken to since I was a boy," Matteo confessed, his voice dropping to a low, gravelly timbre. "I promised that if someone saved my sister, I would guard their life with my own. But when I saw you on that ballroom floor... it stopped being about an old debt."
A jolt of electricity arced between us. The air grew thick, heavy with unspoken emotions that had been simmering beneath the surface of the past two weeks.
Before either of us could say another word, the double doors of the penthouse burst open. Lev stepped inside, his phone held tight to his ear, his face etched with urgent tension.
"Boss," Lev said sharply. "We have a leak. Someone just filed an emergency injunction in the State Supreme Court to freeze the safety deposit contents. And that’s not all."
Matteo stood immediately, the warmth vanishing, replaced by absolute command. "Speak."
"It’s Marcus Bennett," Lev said, glancing at me with hesitation.
My blood turned to ice. Marcus. My ex-fiancé. The man who had walked out on me the moment I became pregnant, stealing our savings.
May you like
"What about him?" I gasped, rising to my feet.
"Richard Sinclair’s private investigators tracked him down in Miami two days ago," Lev explained grimly. "They just paid him half a million dollars. Marcus just signed a sworn affidavit claiming that the journals were stolen from Sinclair Labs by him, and that you conspired with him to commit corporate extortion. The press has already picked it up. Sinclair is trying to paint Abigail as a common criminal before the federal grand jury can convene."
