Chapter 3 - The Secret My Father Died For
I wanted to go home immediately.
Roman said no.
That became our first serious fight.
“My apartment is being searched by the man who fired me.”
“Which is precisely why you are not going there.”
“My things are there.”
“They can be replaced.”
“My entire life is there.”
Roman’s eyes moved toward Leo.
“Your entire life is standing next to you.”
That shut me up.
I hated him for being right.
Marcus had sent two security officers to detain David until police arrived, but by the time they entered the building, he was gone.
My front door had been forced open.
Drawers emptied.
Mattress overturned.
Kitchen cabinets searched.
Nothing obviously stolen.
Which meant David had not broken in to steal.
He had been looking for something.
The question was what.
“I don’t have anything,” I said.
Roman stood near the library windows while a doctor replaced his bandages.
“You may have something without knowing it.”
“That sentence sounds like a cheap thriller.”
“It would be more convenient if this were fiction.”
The doctor gave him a warning look.
“Stop moving.”
Roman ignored him.
I paced.
“My father disappeared eleven years ago. If he had evidence, why would anyone think I have it now?”
“Because Sebastian has been looking for something for eleven years.”
I stopped.
“How do you know?”
Roman nodded toward Marcus.
Marcus opened a leather folder.
“Your family moved six times after your father vanished.”
“My mother couldn’t afford the mortgage.”
“Your storage unit was broken into in 2018.”
I stared.
“How do you know that?”
“Police report.”
“I thought teenagers did it.”
“Nothing was stolen.”
Cold moved through me.
Marcus continued.
“Your mother’s house was burglarized twice before she died.”
I remembered.
Jewelry untouched.
Television still on the wall.
Drawers emptied.
Papers scattered everywhere.
At the time, police called it unusual.
I suddenly felt twenty-three again, standing in my mother’s kitchen while an officer told us we were lucky.
We had not been lucky.
Someone had been searching.
“What was my father hiding?”
Roman answered quietly.
“A ledger.”
I laughed once.
“A ledger.”
“It contained financial records linking Sebastian to bribery, trafficking routes, shell companies, judges, police officers, contractors.”
“Trafficking?”
Roman’s face darkened.
“Guns. Stolen goods. Eventually narcotics.”
“You were part of this?”
“No.”
“But your family was.”
“Yes.”
There was no defensiveness in his answer.
That somehow made it worse.
“My father and Sebastian built parts of it together.”
“And you inherited it.”
“Yes.”
“So why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
I stared.
Roman continued.
“Trust is earned.”
That answer caught me off guard.
“You saved my life without knowing anything about me,” he said. “I am not asking you to excuse what my family did. I’m asking for enough time to keep you and Leo alive.”
Leo was in the next room watching cartoons with one of the housekeepers.
I lowered my voice.
“If Sebastian thinks I have this ledger, he has had eleven years to kill me.”
“He may not have known where it went.”
“Why now?”
“Because I am close to dismantling his network.”
“And suddenly he remembers me?”
Roman shook his head.
“No. I think someone told him you matter.”
“To whom?”
Roman looked at me.
I understood.
“You.”
“Yes.”
My laugh came out bitter.
“Wonderful.”
His jaw tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
His eyes flashed.
“You think I wanted this?”
“I think your world destroys people who never asked to enter it.”
That landed.
He looked away.
I immediately regretted it.
Not because it wasn’t true.
Because I had seen something move across his face.
Pain.
Old pain.
Then Leo entered carrying a toy dinosaur.
“Mom, Mr. Roman has a movie room.”
Roman’s mouth twitched.
“Apparently I do.”
“You didn’t know?”
“I rarely use it.”
Leo looked horrified.
“That’s sad.”
I covered a laugh.
Roman stared at him.
“You think so?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Movies are important.”
“What is your favorite?”
Leo held up the dinosaur.
“Guess.”
For the first time since I had arrived, Roman laughed.
Not the controlled half-smile from the alley.
A real laugh.
Warm.
Unexpected.
It changed the entire room.
And it scared me for reasons I could not explain.
That afternoon, Marcus took me back to my apartment under heavy security.
The place looked like a storm had moved through it.
My clothes covered the floor.
Cabinet doors hung open.
Leo’s toy box had been emptied.
I stood in the doorway and felt violated.
“Take whatever matters,” Marcus said.
“What if what matters is what they were looking for?”
He nodded.
“Then we search too.”
We spent two hours examining everything.
Photographs.
Old bills.
My mother’s recipe cards.
Leo’s baby records.
Nothing.
Then I opened the hall closet.
A cardboard box sat on the upper shelf.
MOM.
I had not opened it since her funeral.
Inside were photographs, nursing certificates, birthday cards, and a jewelry box containing her wedding ring.
Marcus examined each item.
At the bottom was an old children’s book.
The Velveteen Rabbit.
My father used to read it to me.
I smiled despite myself.
Then something felt wrong.
The back cover was thicker than I remembered.
“Marcus.”
He came over.
I ran my fingers beneath the paper lining.
It peeled away.
Inside the cover was a brass key.
Tiny.
No label.
Marcus stared.
“Did you know about that?”
“No.”
Beneath the key was a faded receipt.
Chicago Union Station.
Locker 214.
Dated eleven years earlier.
My knees weakened.
“My mother knew.”
“Maybe.”
I looked at the date.
The day after my father disappeared.
Marcus immediately called Roman.
Within an hour, we were at Union Station.
Locker 214 no longer existed.
The station had renovated that section years earlier.
Roman had people checking archived records.
I stood beneath the massive ceiling feeling ridiculous.
“All of this for a key that probably opened a locker removed ten years ago.”
Roman examined it.
“Maybe not.”
“What?”
“This is not a station locker key.”
“How do you know?”
He held it beneath the light.
A tiny symbol was engraved near the top.
A crown inside a circle.
Marcus saw it.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Roman handed him the key.
“The Imperial Safe Company.”
I frowned.
“What is that?”
“A private vault company.”
“Where?”
Roman’s eyes met mine.
“The original location was beneath a bank my father owned.”
Of course it was.
The building was now a luxury hotel.
Roman owned that too.
By six that evening, we were in a basement three floors beneath street level where the original bank vault still existed behind decorative walls.
The hotel manager looked terrified.
Roman ignored him.
The key opened box 214.
My hands shook as I pulled it open.
Inside were three things.
A photograph.
A flash drive.
And a handwritten letter.
My name was on the envelope.
Natalie.
My father’s handwriting.
I could not breathe.
Roman stepped away.
“This is yours.”
I opened the letter.
Nat,
If you are reading this, then I failed to come home.
I need you to know something before anyone tells you lies about me.
I did terrible work for dangerous men because I believed money could solve problems. By the time I understood what I had become part of, leaving was not simple.
I tried anyway.
There is proof on the drive.
Do not take it to the police.
Some of them are paid.
Do not take it to the DeLucas unless you know which DeLuca is asking.
Trust the son who hates what his father built.
He may still be young when you read this, but if Roman became the man I hope he would become, he will know what to do.
I stopped.
Roman had gone completely still.
“What does it say?” Marcus asked.
I handed him the letter.
Roman refused to take it at first.
Then he read.
His face changed.
“You knew my father?” I asked.
“No.”
“He knew you.”
“I was nineteen when Daniel disappeared.”
“Why would he trust you?”
Roman looked toward the vault wall.
“Because I tried to stop something.”
“What?”
His voice became quiet.
“When I was nineteen, Sebastian brought narcotics into one of our warehouses. My father had rules. Violent rules, hypocritical rules, but drugs were forbidden.”
“What did you do?”
“I burned the shipment.”
Marcus looked surprised.
“You never told me that.”
Roman ignored him.
“My father beat me so badly I spent four days in a private clinic. Sebastian wanted me killed. My mother stopped them.”
I stared.
“My father must have heard.”
“Apparently.”
I looked at the flash drive.
“Then we finally have what Sebastian wants.”
Roman shook his head.
“No.”
“No?”
“He wants this destroyed.”
Marcus inserted the drive into an isolated laptop.
Encrypted files filled the screen.
Financial ledgers.
Names.
Dates.
Bank transfers.
Photographs.
Scanned documents.
Eleven years of secrets waiting inside a device smaller than my thumb.
Then we found a folder dated two weeks before my father disappeared.
Inside was a video.
Marcus clicked.
My father appeared on screen.
Older than I remembered him.
Terrified.
“If anything happens to me, Sebastian Marchesi ordered it.”
My knees almost failed.
Roman steadied me.
I watched.
My father named judges.
A police commander.
Businessmen.
Then one final name.
David Keller.
I stared.
David had been twenty-five at the time.
A junior accountant.
“He worked for Sebastian before LaRue,” Marcus said.
My blood turned cold.
That was why David hired me.
It had never been random.
He had known exactly who I was.
For three years, I had worked under a man connected to my father’s murderer.
“He was watching me.”
Roman nodded grimly.
“Waiting for you to reveal where Daniel hid the evidence.”
I felt sick.
Then the laptop beeped.
Marcus frowned.
“What?”
A hidden file had appeared.
Protected by a second password.
The title contained only two words.
ROMAN DELUCA.
Roman stared.
I entered my father’s birthday.
Nothing.
My birthday.
Nothing.
Then I remembered the letter.
Trust the son who hates what his father built.
I typed:
BURNITDOWN.
The file opened.
Inside was one photograph.
Roman at nineteen.
Standing beside another young man.
The second man looked enough like Roman to be family.
Marcus whispered.
“Luca.”
I looked at Roman.
“Who is that?”
“My brother.”
“I thought you were an only child.”
His face had gone pale.
“I am.”
The next document loaded.
A death certificate.
Luca DeLuca.
Age twenty-one.
Vehicle accident.
Roman stared at it.
Then another photograph appeared.
Taken three months after the date on the death certificate.
Luca.
Alive.
Standing beside Sebastian Marchesi.
Roman stopped breathing.
Marcus whispered, “That’s impossible.”
Roman touched the screen.
May you like
His voice cracked for the first time since I had met him.
“My brother is alive.”
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