I looked at the directors who had allowed it.
“Who opened this meeting?”
No one answered.
“Who recorded a vote appointing Ryan as chair?”
Again, silence.
Cassidy’s voice rose.
“Everyone here understood that Ryan was acting with your authority.”
“Did you?” I asked.
She glanced at the ring on her hand.
I followed her gaze.
The diamond had belonged to my grandmother.
She had worn it through fifty-three years of marriage, two fires, one flood, and every harvest my grandfather thought would ruin them.
When she died, she left it to me in a signed memorandum attached to the family trust.
It was not community property.
It was not Ryan’s to give away.
And it had not been in my jewelry box when I returned from the hospital.
Cassidy curled her fingers into a fist.
Ryan saw me looking.
“The ring is not relevant.”
“It is evidence of how comfortable you became taking things that were never yours.”
Cassidy pulled her hand behind her back.
“He gave it to me.”
“I know.”
The words struck Ryan harder than anger would have.
Until then, he had been holding on to the idea that he could explain the betrayal as a business decision.
The ring destroyed that excuse in front of every witness in the room.
Henry stood.
“I have a question,” he said.
Ryan glared at him.
“Sit down.”
Henry remained standing.
He had worked at Hart & Vine for thirty-four years.
He had taught me how to test sugar levels when I was ten and how to tell when a barrel had turned before I was old enough to drive.
He did not frighten easily.
“Why did Cassidy order me to prepare an inventory of the reserve cellar?”
Cassidy’s face changed.
Marisol turned toward her.
“What inventory?”
“The family reserve.
Every vintage from the founding year forward.” Henry looked at me.
“She said the bottles were being valued for collateral.”
A cold feeling moved through me.
The reserve cellar was not simply expensive wine.
It was the history of the estate, including the final bottles made by my grandfather.
“Collateral for what?” I asked.
Henry reached into his jacket and placed a folded copy of an email on the table.
The text was too far away for me to read, but I recognized Cassidy’s signature line at the bottom.
Ryan lunged for it.
Henry put one hand over the page.
“Do not,” he said.
Ryan stopped.
Marisol read the email first.
Her expression shifted from concern to disbelief.
“There is a proposed bridge loan,” she said.
“Secured against reserve inventory and future distribution revenue.”
I looked at Ryan.
