Reborn to Marry the Rival Mafia Boss

Chapter Six

The revised departure time stayed on the screen while Tessa pulled up the approval history. Her warning was still attached to Luis's trip sheet, with my authorization below it. Nothing in the file explained why someone had moved the truck ahead of the morning release.

"Can you hold B-418 until the two addresses match?" I asked, resting my hand on the edge of the counter.

"I can mark the route unconfirmed. If your father clears the load, night dispatch can't keep it here without another reason." Tessa opened the status menu and waited for me to read the options. "I'll make the conflict visible to whoever releases it."

"Do it. I'll put my name on that too." I leaned aside so she could reach the keyboard. I watched Tessa enter the two addresses and the time of Luis's call. I approved the flag. The change appeared on the trip sheet, but it wasn't a stop order. If my father overrode it, Luis could be on the highway long before I sat down across from him.

At the hotel I kept my phone on the bedside table with the volume up. Adriana answered my message before midnight: she had received my description of the dispatch records and would advise me on preserving copies when we met. She asked me to write down the entry numbers and when I'd viewed them. I sent her that information, set an alarm for four, and slept badly enough that I was awake when it sounded.

I called the depot. A supervisor I knew from the early shift answered over a radio squawking in the background. He confirmed that my route flag was in the file, but a release from Vittorio's office had cleared B-418 for departure. He wouldn't tell me who had spoken to my father. I thanked him and called Luis.

"I'm at the yard. Tessa's note is on my sheet," Luis answered, his voice rough with the hour. "They're saying I still leave at four twenty."

"Use the main road and the east terminal address on your driver sheet. If anyone gives you another instruction, call dispatch and me before you turn." I stood beside the hotel window, watching a delivery van stop at the curb below.

"I have both numbers. I'll check in at the fuel point." Luis moved away from someone calling for him, and the background noise softened. "Is there a reason you called this early?"

"I wanted to make sure you had the warning in writing. I should have settled the booking last night." I kept my hand around the phone until he answered.

"I'll stick to the sheet." Luis ended the call when his name came over the yard speaker. By the time I reached Adriana's office at eight thirty, the truck had left the depot. Luis sent a short message from the first staffed fuel point to say he was on the approved route. I showed Adriana the message and the entry numbers before we went over the paperwork my father wanted signed.

"They still haven't sent the full operating agreement," Adriana told me, sliding a copy of her request across the desk. "His office says we'll see what they consider relevant when we get there. If you don't want to sign, say so. You don't owe them an argument first."

"I want that authorization taken down too. They rejected the signature page, but the file is still there with my name on it." I tucked Luis's message away as I stood.

"I'll ask them to explain the signature in writing and keep the original file. You talk to your father; I'll make a record of what he says." Adriana printed the refusal we'd discussed, let me read it, then gathered her folder and came with me to the lift.

My father's offices occupied the top floors of the Bellandi building. I had spent most mornings there since Granddad died, but today the woman at reception looked at Adriana's card before giving me the usual greeting. My father's assistant came to collect us. She didn't mention the form uploaded through her account.

In the conference room, my father sat at the head of the table. Marco stood at the window with his jacket open, and his father took the chair nearest the folder laid out for me. The company secretary waited at the far end with a pen and a receipt ledger. There were four copies of a signature page, each with space for a witness. The rest of the agreement was clipped beneath a cover sheet.

"You brought counsel." My father rose and kissed my cheek. His cologne stayed on my skin when I stepped back. "You could have called me, sweetheart. I would have answered your questions."

"I've been asking to see the agreement since yesterday." I placed my bag beside the chair across from him. "This is Adriana Costa. She's my lawyer for the shares."

"Then let's give Ms. Costa whatever she needs." My father offered Adriana a hand, though he kept his eyes on me. Adriana introduced herself and requested the complete operating agreement, the proposed amendments, and the proxy in their final forms. Marco's father pushed the folder toward her without speaking. The amendment pages inside had no version date. Adriana set them flat and began taking notes.

"You've kept operations running while we put this together," my father told me, settling back into his chair. "Once the expansion is through, I'll put you in charge of something bigger than the depot."

"I like the work I do." I kept my hands away from the pens arranged beside the signature pages. "Granddad refused this proposal until the Rinaldis' financing could be audited. I want to see what changed."

"That old proposal isn't the agreement in front of you. My father's put new money into it." Marco turned from the window and came closer to the table.

"Then the audit shouldn't be difficult to provide." I looked at him long enough to see his smile fade. My father drew a page from the folder and set it between us. The proxy would let him vote my interest for five years, including votes on new financing and amendments to the company agreement. The internal authorization from yesterday would have given him some of those powers immediately if it had passed verification.

"If the Rinaldis get a different answer from every shareholder, they'll walk," my father warned, placing two fingers on the margin. "I need your vote with mine until the financing is settled."

"I run operations. I know what a voting proxy does." I moved the page back toward him. "I'm not signing it. I also didn't sign the internal authorization uploaded yesterday. I want its original and the record of who submitted it."

The room went quiet. Marco's father turned a page he'd barely glanced at, while Adriana wrote down the time and my exact words.

"It was a draft," my father replied, pulling his hand away from the proxy. "My assistant used a signature on file. The page was rejected, and I haven't voted your shares."

"You didn't ask me to use my signature." I heard how angry I sounded and didn't lower my voice. "I want that answer in writing."

Marco came around the table and stopped near my chair. "Sofia, come with me for a minute. You can ask whatever you want without everyone listening."

"You can answer them here." I looked up at him without standing. I could still see his hand at Valentina's waist, but I kept that video out of this room.

"Does she have to listen to every word?" Marco glanced at Adriana and then at his father.

"I want her here." I reached into my bag and took out the written refusal Adriana had prepared from my instructions that morning.

Adriana slid a copy to my father and one to the company secretary. The secretary had been waiting to witness the proxy; instead, she watched me sign only the refusal. Adriana signed as witness and asked her to acknowledge receipt of the second copy. The woman initialed it after my father gave a small nod.

"You know I can't put your vote behind the deal without this," my father told me, holding the proxy by one corner. His voice had gone flat.

"Then I'll vote them myself when there's a proposal I can examine." I took the acknowledged copy from the secretary and put it in my bag.

Adriana and I left before anyone offered another version. In the lift, I checked my phone for a message from Luis. There wasn't one. A company alert arrived instead: my access to the Bellandi operations portal had been suspended at my father's request. The route history and the warning I'd signed for Luis were behind that login, while his truck was still on the road.