Chapter 7 - THE MEDICAL PROXY AND THE BROKEN PEN
The heavy gold key sat on the pristine white linen, gleaming under the chandelier light like a loaded gun.
The entire room stared at it.
Bianca let out a sound that was half-gasp, half-shriek. She lunged for the key, her manicured hands scrambling across the table, knocking over a crystal water goblet.
Nico was faster.
His large hand clamped down over the key, securing it against the table. He shoved Bianca backward with a forceful, dismissive sweep of his arm. She stumbled, her hip crashing painfully into the edge of a mahogany chair.
“Don't you ever touch anything belonging to my family again,” Nico snarled, his voice vibrating with a lethal, suppressed violence.
He picked up the gold key, holding it up to the light. The intricate ‘402’ engraved on the bow of the key caught the reflection of the shattered glass on the floor.
Nico turned to Mara. The look in his eyes was a mixture of profound shock and desperate gratitude.
“She gave this to you?” Nico asked, his voice thick with emotion. “When?”
“When the aide was wheeling her out,” Mara answered, her chin held high, ignoring the furious glares of the lawyers. “She grabbed my wrist. She was terrified, Mr. Bellandi. She wasn't confused. She knew exactly what they were doing to her. She told me to protect it.”
“You lying, opportunistic trash!” Bianca screamed, completely losing the last shred of her carefully curated sanity. She pointed a trembling finger at Mara. “She stole it! She picked the old bat’s pocket to try and extort us! Arrest her!”
“The only person going to jail tonight is you, Bianca,” Nico said quietly.
He turned his attention to Davis, the lawyer, who was hastily shoving documents back into his briefcase, realizing the war was lost.
“You think a key saves you, Nico?” Davis sneered, though his hands were shaking. “The bank doesn't open for ten hours. The judicial order goes into effect at 6:00 AM. We will have the police at your mother’s estate before you can even get into the vault. We’ll take her, and we’ll destroy the contents of that box before you ever see them.”
Nico looked down at the gold fountain pen still resting in his hand. The pen Bianca had tried to force him to use to sign his empire away.
“You’re right, Davis,” Nico said calmly. “The bank is closed. And an emergency judicial order is hard to fight at midnight.”
Bianca let out a breathless, wicked laugh, pulling herself up from the chair. “Exactly. You lose, Nico. Hand over the key, sign the proxy, and we can all pretend this ugly little misunderstanding never happened.”
Nico looked at his fiancée. He looked at the woman he had almost married, seeing the absolute rot beneath the expensive silk and diamonds.
Then, with a deliberate, terrifying calmness, Nico gripped the heavy gold fountain pen with both hands.
He applied pressure.
SNAP.
The expensive resin and metal cracked loudly. Dark black ink exploded over Nico’s hands, dripping onto the pristine white tablecloth like spilled blood.
He tossed the broken halves of the pen onto the judicial order inside the velvet box, staining the red state seal with black ink.
“I don't need the bank to open,” Nico said, his voice echoing in the silent room. “Because my mother is not incompetent. And I don't need a piece of paper in a box to prove you are a thief, Bianca. I just needed you to admit it.”
Nico reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his cell phone.
The screen was lit up. It showed an active, ongoing phone call.
The call had been connected for the last ten minutes.
“Did you get all of that, Inspector?” Nico asked into the speakerphone.
A deep, gravelly voice echoed from the phone’s speaker, filling the dining room.
“Loud and clear, Mr. Bellandi. We have multiple units en route to the restaurant, and a tactical team currently securing your mother’s estate. The aide has already been detained.”
Bianca’s face went the color of dead ash.
“You… you called the police?” she whispered, stepping backward, her eyes darting toward the exits.
“The Chicago Police Department’s Financial Crimes and Elder Abuse task force,” Nico corrected her. “I dialed them the second I saw my mother’s handwriting on that photograph. I just kept you talking so they could record the confession.”
Chaos erupted.
Davis bolted for the side door, but Nico’s private security men—who had been waiting quietly by the walls—stepped forward, grabbing the lawyer by the lapels and slamming him against the wood paneling.
The society reporter was practically vibrating with excitement, snapping photos of Bianca’s ruined face on her iPhone.
Bianca spun around, looking frantically for an escape. She locked eyes with Mara.
With a feral shriek, Bianca lunged at Mara, her hands outstretched, aiming for Mara’s face. “This is your fault! You ruined everything!”
Mara didn't flinch. She had spent a decade dodging drunk politicians and furious chefs; a spoiled heiress in stilettos was nothing.
Mara simply stepped sharply to the left.
Bianca, carried by her own blind momentum, crashed heavily into the service station. The remaining stacks of dessert plates clattered to the floor, and Bianca went down with them in a tangled mess of emerald silk and shattered china.
As Bianca hit the floor, her heavy, jewel-encrusted designer clutch spilled open.
Lipstick, a compact, and a cell phone scattered across the carpet.
But something else fell out, too.
It was a thick, folded document bound in blue legal ribbon. It had been folded repeatedly to fit into a hidden, zippered lining of the purse.
Nico stepped over the broken plates. He bent down and picked up the blue-bound document.
He unfolded it.
His eyes scanned the heavy parchment, finding the official notary seals and his mother’s signature from five years ago.
It wasn't a copy.
“Well,” Nico said softly, looking down at Bianca, who was sobbing hysterically on the floor. “It seems we don't need to visit Box 402 after all.”
May you like
He held up the document for the room to see.
“Because you already stole the original will, Bianca,” Nico said, his voice ringing with finality. “You just didn't have time to burn it yet.”
