The meeting was set for Tuesday.

A private club on the north side, members only, the kind of place where the staff had been trained not to remember faces.

Valentina arrived first.

She had called ahead.

The two families Senn was meeting with — Corso from Abruzzo and a man named Halden representing a northern interest — had agreed to let the meeting proceed as scheduled.

She had spoken to both of them personally the day before, shown them the full report, and let them read Renata's written account at their own pace.

Neither of them had said much.

They hadn't needed to.

Senn walked in at seven-oh-two, two minutes late, with the easy confidence of a man who had never once considered that the room might not be arranged in his favor.

He wore a dark suit.

No tie.

The kind of deliberate casualness that was meant to signal he was above formality.

He saw Valentina at the table and stopped.

Corso was to her left.

Halden to her right.

Marco stood near the door.

"Aldric," Valentina said.

"Sit down."

He didn't sit.

"This wasn't the arrangement."

"The arrangement changed when your catering company put forged documents in my daughter's cooler." She gestured to the chair across from her.

"Sit down."

He sat.

But his hands went flat on the table, and his eyes moved once to the door behind him.

Marco was already there.

"Tomas Vrek," Valentina said.

"We found him this morning.

He's been very cooperative." She set the report on the table.

"He's given us the full construction timeline for the fabricated files.

The shell company.

The payments.

The time zone artifact in the metadata that pointed us to the system he used." She slid the report toward Senn.

"Your name appears seventeen times."

Senn looked at the report without touching it.

"Whatever Vrek told you—"

"Is corroborated by Renata Ferraro's written account, the metadata analysis, the payment records, and the testimony of two people you hired to place the drives at my luncheon." Valentina folded her hands.

"You built a forgery.

You used a grieving widow to carry it.

You used a child's thirst to try to deliver it.

And you called a meeting of seven families to watch me lose my seat on the basis of documents you manufactured yourself."

Senn's jaw tightened.

"You can't prove intent."

"I don't need to prove it to a court tonight." She looked at Corso, then Halden.

"I need to prove it to this table.

And I have."

Corso leaned forward.

"Aldric.

I've known you for four years.

I brought you into two of my family's financial arrangements on the basis of that relationship." His voice was calm and very flat.

"Tell me I'm wrong about what I'm reading."

Senn said nothing.

"Tell me," Corso said again.

The silence stretched.

Then Senn tried the only move he had left.

He looked at Valentina and said: "The eastern accounts are real.

Carlo Ferraro built them.

His family has a legitimate claim to review.

Whatever the method—"

"The method was fraud," Valentina said.

"And the claim was fabricated.

Carlo's accounts have been managed correctly since his death.

The Ferraro family receives exactly what Carlo's arrangements specified.

Renata knows this now.

She's reviewed the actual records." She paused.

"You found a wound and put a knife in it.

That's not a financial dispute.

That's something else entirely."

Halden stood up first.

He picked up his copy of the report, folded it once, and put it in his jacket pocket.

He looked at Senn without expression and walked to the door.

Corso stood next.

He looked at Senn for a long moment.

"Don't contact my office again," he said.

He left.

Senn sat alone across from Valentina.

"What happens now?" he said.

His voice had lost its shape.

The confidence was still there in the posture, but it had gone hollow.

"The report goes to every family at last Thursday's table," Valentina said.

"With full documentation.

Your name, the shell company, the timeline, the payments." She stood.

"What they choose to do with that information is their business.

I won't be directing it."

"You're not going to—"

"No." She picked up her copy of the report.

"I'm going to go home.

My daughter is waiting." She looked at him one final time.

"You used a three-year-old child as a delivery mechanism for a fraud.

Whatever comes next for you, Aldric, you built it yourself."

She walked to the door.

Marco fell into step beside her.

They went down the stairs and out into the night air.

She didn't look back.