Chapter 4 - The Man Inside Roman’s House
Grant’s attorney, Samuel Pike, sat in the dining room with two guards behind him.
Roman placed both hands on the table.
“Where are the documents?”
Pike looked at me.
“I don’t know.”
Roman pulled out a chair.
“Sit, Evelyn.”
“I can stand.”
“That wasn’t about authority. You’re pale.”
I sat.
Pike noticed the exchange.
“You care about her now?”
Roman turned his head.
“Be very careful.”
Pike immediately looked away.
I asked, “Why did Grant send you?”
“To retrieve something.”
“What?”
“He didn’t say.”
“You found it?”
“No.”
I studied him.
“You’re lying.”
Roman looked almost amused.
“Apparently it’s contagious.”
Pike exhaled.
“Fine.”
He reached slowly into his jacket.
Luca moved.
Pike froze.
“It’s just a key.”
He placed a small brass key on the table.
I recognized it.
My mother’s jewelry box.
“Where did you get that?”
“Inside the piano.”
My breath caught.
Roman picked up the key.
“The documents?”
“Gone before I arrived.”
“Then who took them?”
Pike hesitated.
“Grant said someone else knew.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
“I only heard a name.”
“What name?”
“Victor Hale.”
Roman went still.
Luca muttered something under his breath.
I looked between them.
“Who is Victor?”
Roman’s answer came quietly.
“My uncle.”
Everything changed.
Victor Caruso Hale had worked beside Roman’s father and brother for decades.
If Grant had paid someone inside the Caruso organization before the ambush, Victor suddenly made sense.
Roman called him immediately.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Luca checked his phone.
“His car entered the Long Island estate forty minutes ago.”
Roman’s face emptied.
Grant was there.
So was Victor.
And we were fifty miles away.
“Call security,” Roman ordered.
Luca did.
No answer.
Roman was already moving.
The drive back felt endless.
Halfway there, Roman’s phone rang.
Grant.
Roman answered.
“Where’s my wife?”
Grant laughed.
“Your wife?”
Roman’s eyes shifted toward me.
Grant continued.
“You’ve known her one day.”
“And somehow I’ve protected her better than you did in thirty years.”
Silence.
Then Grant said, “Come home, Roman.”
“What do you want?”
“The evidence.”
“We don’t have it.”
“I think Evelyn knows where another copy is.”
I did.
And Grant knew I did.
Roman looked at me.
He understood from my expression.
“Grant,” Roman said, “if you touch anyone in that house—”
“You’re making threats?”
“No.”
Roman’s voice became terrifyingly calm.
“I’m explaining the last mistake you’ll ever make.”
Grant hung up.
Roman turned toward me.
“Another copy?”
“My mother’s jewelry box.”
“The key.”
I nodded.
“There’s a safe-deposit number engraved inside the lid.”
“Which bank?”
“Mercer Private Trust.”
Luca stared at me.
“That institution closed two years ago.”
“The accounts were transferred.”
Roman understood.
“Where?”
I told him.
Roman immediately called someone.
Minutes later, he had confirmation.
A box existed under my mother’s maiden name.
And it had not been opened in eleven years.
Roman leaned back.
“We don’t need Grant anymore.”
I looked at him.
“What are you going to do?”
“End this without becoming your father.”
The answer surprised me.
“You could kill him.”
“Yes.”
“You want to.”
“Yes.”
“But?”
Roman stared out the window.
“My brother spent his life telling me power wasn’t the ability to destroy someone.”
He looked at me.
“It was the ability to decide not to.”
When we reached the estate, Roman’s loyal guards had regained control.
Victor was gone.
Grant had escaped with him.
But they had made one mistake.
They believed the documents were still inside Roman’s house.
By sunrise, Luca retrieved the safe-deposit box.
Inside were ledgers.
Bank transfers.
Photographs.
Recorded conversations.
Enough evidence to prove Grant had financed the betrayal that killed Roman’s brother.
But there was something else.
A handwritten letter from my father.
Roman read it twice.
Then handed it to me.
Arthur Mercer had known.
My father had discovered Grant’s betrayal shortly before his stroke.
And he had planned to expose him.
At the bottom of the letter were six words.
Evelyn tried to warn me. I failed her.
I stared at the sentence.
Roman quietly took the paper when my hands began shaking.
“You were telling the truth,” he said.
“I know.”
“No.”
He stepped closer.
“I mean about everything.”
I looked at him.
Roman’s voice softened.
“You spent years surrounded by people who made you prove your own pain.”
He folded the letter.
“You never have to prove it to me again.”
For the first time since the wedding began, I didn’t know what to say.
Then Luca entered.
“Boss.”
Roman turned.
“We found Victor.”
“Where?”
“Brooklyn docks.”
“And Grant?”
“With him.”
Luca paused.
“They’re preparing to leave the country.”
Roman looked at me.
May you like
“This ends tonight.”
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