Blood Ledger The Minter's Rise

My brother was the kind of man who thought himself above the frost and snow. The eldest daughter of the most powerful Don on the Eastern Seaboard, the woman every made man in the territory would kill to marry? He found the whole thing beneath him.

He ran off with a nightclub singer instead.

Me, though? I was the vulgar one.

After I married Rosalia Castellano in my brother's place, I spent every waking hour crunching numbers and chasing profit.

In just one year, the Castellano family's holdings overflowed with gold and jade, its operations spanning the entire territory.

Even the old man who watched the gate at the compound ate meat three times a month.

Rosalia declared before everyone:

"Meeting Angelo Ferraro was the greatest fortune of my life."

Business was booming. Then my brother came back, alone, with nothing but a worn leather bag on his back.

He jabbed a finger at my face:

"A man who reeks of money like you, and you think you deserve to stand beside the Don's daughter?

"You've turned this entire operation into a den of greed! Have you given a single thought to the family's reputation?"

With that, he dropped to his knees before Rosalia:

"My brother is crude and unworthy. He has tarnished the Castellano name! I am willing to take over the household and restore dignity to this family!"

Rosalia looked at my brother's refined, austere face.

Her cheeks flushed.

"Granted."

Severance papers landed on the table.

I became the laughingstock of Kingsport.

I didn't argue. Didn't make a scene. I packed my things and left like I was told.

So why did they all come begging me to come back?

……

When Rosalia Castellano said "Granted,"

I was caught off guard.

I had rolled up my sleeves and poured myself into running her family's operations for an entire year.

She had praised me more than once in front of others.

She said I was the greatest fortune of her life.

And now, after one look at my brother's face,

she was ready to hand him everything?

Emilio slid me a sidelong glance, dripping with contempt.

It was always like this.

He had been a prodigy with words and letters since childhood, groomed to be a consigliere of the highest order.

All I ever knew was arithmetic, the lowly craft of earners.

Every time he dazzled a room with some effortless quotation from Machiavelli or Dante, he would turn and give me that same look. That quiet, cutting dismissal.

I always assumed he would stay up on that pedestal forever.

But now, staring at his threadbare bag,

I wasn't so sure.

The steward's seal passed into his hands.

He straightened his spine and swept an arm toward the carved beams and painted pillars I had built for the compound:

"Rosewood and gilded dragons! This kind of gaudy excess is exactly why the operation has gone to ruin! Tear it all down within three days!

"Replace every piece with marble panels, hand-carved with the Castellano crest, to reflect the dignity befitting a Don's household!"

I swallowed hard.

Swapping everything for marble would cost ten times what the rosewood and gold had.

The house steward winced:

"Sir, we don't have enough in the accounts for that."

"How can the Castellano family not have enough!"

Emilio Ferraro's brows drew together like a blade. He adjusted his glasses with his index and middle finger, that precise, professorial gesture he always made before saying something he believed was brilliant.

"Sir, the treasury has always been managed by the son-in-law. Everything was under his control."

"Ha."

Emilio's expression shifted to one of grim understanding:

"The entire family's wealth was in the hands of someone as base as Angelo? Angelo, you've treated the Don's daughter like she doesn't exist!"

"Guards."

Rosalia's voice was ice:

"Hand over the treasury keys to Emilio Ferraro."

I stared at her.

I had thought this was a passing whim. I hadn't imagined she truly intended to give my brother everything I had built.

The gold and silver I had earned for this family over the past year filled the vault floor to ceiling. Clean cash, laundered revenue, stacked investments. Every dollar accounted for, every pipeline humming.

The moment the vault doors swung open, the blinding glare of gold forced Emilio back two steps.

Something flickered in his eyes.

He smothered it quickly, replacing it with disgust:

"So this is the source of the rot! This is what turned the Castellano operation into a house of vulgar excess!"

He spun around and threw himself to his knees before Rosalia:

"Angelo hoarded all of this for his own indulgence, with no regard for the family's reputation or dignity! What kind of man does that?"