Chapter 5 - The Woman Nobody Expected
By afternoon, Victor was gone.
Roman's men discovered that he'd been quietly moving money through shell companies for almost two years.
Keystone Produce was one of them.
The attack on Leo hadn't been designed to kill him.
It had been designed to take him.
Leverage.
Against Roman.
Victor called that evening.
Roman put the call on speaker.
“Give me what I want,” Victor said, “and the boy stays safe.”
Roman's face became stone.
“You already failed.”
Victor laughed.
“You think this ends because the waitress pulled him from a car?”
“Bakery cashier,” I muttered.
Roman looked at me.
Even then, he almost smiled.
Victor continued.
“Send her home, Roman. She's seen enough.”
That bothered me.
Because Victor knew I was still there.
Roman ended the call.
“He has someone inside,” I said.
Roman nodded.
I looked toward the security monitors.
Then something occurred to me.
“Your people keep watching the gates.”
“Obviously.”
“Victor grew up here, didn't he?”
Roman looked at me.
“Yes.”
“So why would he use the gates?”
Silence.
I remembered something Leo had mentioned over breakfast.
A tunnel.
An old service tunnel beneath the estate that children once used to reach the abandoned greenhouse.
Roman turned toward his security chief.
“Greenhouse.”
Men moved immediately.
The tunnel was discovered twenty minutes later.
So was Victor.
He had returned secretly, believing Roman would be watching every road except the one entrance that had existed before the security system was built.
Victor was taken away.
No dramatic confrontation.
No spectacle.
Just Roman standing beneath the greenhouse lights while the man he'd trusted since childhood realized he had lost.
Before Victor was removed, he looked at me.
“You.”
I folded my arms.
“Me.”
“You ruined everything.”
“No.”
Roman stepped beside me.
“You did that yourself.”
And for the first time since meeting him, I understood why people feared Roman DeLuca.
May you like
He didn't need to shout.
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