Chapter 4 - The Man Outside the GateMaya learned about the photograph at breakfast.
Roman did not soften it.
Someone was watching her.
She was not to leave alone.
A car would take her home.
A security officer would accompany her.
Maya listened until he finished.
Then said, “No.”
Roman stared.
Elena stopped chewing.
Dante looked at the ceiling.
Roman spoke slowly.
“What?”
“I’m not having one of your men follow me into the grocery store.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No.”
“Maya—”
“I spent years asking permission to leave my own apartment.”
Roman’s expression changed.
She continued.
“I’m not doing it again.”
“This is different.”
“It always sounds different to the person making the rules.”
Roman planted both palms on the table.
“There is a man outside this house who may have murdered my mother, crippled my sister and abused you for years.”
Maya flinched.
Roman immediately regretted the word crippled.
Elena noticed.
He continued more quietly.
“He knows where you are.”
Maya looked at him.
“So what do you expect me to do? Move into a locked room?”
“If necessary.”
“No.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“You two are exhausting.”
Neither listened.
Roman said, “You’re under my protection.”
Maya stood.
“I never asked to be.”
“Maybe you should have.”
That hurt.
Roman saw it immediately.
Maya’s eyes hardened.
“Maybe men should have stopped hurting me without requiring another man to claim jurisdiction first.”
Silence.
Roman stepped back.
She walked out.
Elena stared at her brother.
“You are unbelievably bad at this.”
“At what?”
“People.”
Roman rubbed his face.
“I’m keeping her alive.”
“You could try doing that without making her hate you.”
“She doesn’t hate me.”
Elena raised an eyebrow.
Roman frowned.
“She doesn’t.”
“Sure.”
Later that morning, Maya packed her things.
Not because she wanted to leave Elena.
Because she refused to become a source of danger.
She had nearly reached the staff entrance when Roman appeared.
He saw the bag.
“No.”
She stopped.
“You can’t fire me and also prevent me from quitting.”
“I’m not firing you.”
“I’m quitting.”
“No.”
Maya stared.
“Do you hear yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Saves time.”
Roman stepped closer.
Then stopped before entering her space.
“I was wrong.”
Maya said nothing.
Roman DeLuca was not a man known for apologies.
“I treated protection like an order.”
Still nothing.
“I don’t know how else to do it.”
That surprised her.
Roman looked almost angry at the admission.
“When I was twenty-three, my father was shot outside a restaurant.”
Maya waited.
“I learned that hesitation gets people buried.”
His voice remained flat.
“So I stopped hesitating.”
Maya looked at him.
“But I’m not one of your men.”
“I know.”
“I’m not Elena.”
“I know.”
“You don’t control me.”
Roman held her gaze.
“I know.”
This time, the words cost him something.
Maya’s grip loosened around her bag.
Roman continued.
“I’m asking you to stay because my sister trusts you.”
His eyes dropped briefly to her knee.
“And because the man who did this to you has decided to come back.”
Maya swallowed.
“If I stay, I choose what security follows me.”
Roman almost objected.
Caught himself.
“Fine.”
“No one enters my apartment.”
“Unless there’s an emergency.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Actual emergency.”
“Fine.”
“No tracking my phone.”
Roman’s silence lasted too long.
“Roman.”
He blinked.
It was the first time she had used his first name.
“Fine.”
“And no investigating every person I speak to.”
“That one is unreasonable.”
“Roman.”
“Mostly unreasonable.”
She nearly smiled.
“Try.”
He nodded.
She put the bag down.
Dante watched from the hallway.
Later, he told Elena, “Your brother just negotiated.”
Elena nearly fell out of her wheelchair laughing.
For the next two weeks, life changed.
Security increased.
But so did Elena’s progress.
Maya found a way to make rehabilitation feel less like rehabilitation.
They danced.
Not literally.
Not yet.
They practiced weight shifting to music.
Toe movements became rhythm exercises.
Core exercises became “terrible nightclub choreography.”
Elena stood between parallel bars for eleven seconds.
Then twenty.
Then thirty-four.
On the day she reached one minute, Maya cried harder than Elena did.
Roman watched from the doorway.
He didn’t interrupt.
At night, however, the investigation continued.
Aaron Pike had vanished again.
Then one detail broke the case open.
The anonymous envelopes.
Dante had learned about them while reviewing Maya’s financial history.
Roman asked her directly.
“How many?”
“Four this year.”
“Eight hundred dollars each?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you use them?”
“I didn’t know where they came from.”
“Where are they?”
“Under my bed.”
Roman stared.
“Of course they are.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you live in a rooming house with three thousand two hundred dollars under your bed.”
“I have a lock.”
Roman closed his eyes.
“I’m reconsidering our agreement about your apartment.”
“You promised.”
“I was younger then.”
“It was twelve days ago.”
“I’ve changed.”
Maya laughed.
Roman looked at her.
For half a second, neither moved.
It was the first time she had laughed because of him.
Not near him.
Because of him.
Something shifted.
They both felt it.
Maya looked away first.
Dante collected the envelopes with her permission.
Forensic testing found no usable fingerprints.
But every bill was sequential.
The bank traced the original withdrawal.
A small branch in Hammond, Indiana.
Security footage showed the person collecting the cash.
Not Aaron.
A woman.
Late fifties.
Gray hair.
Roman recognized her instantly.
“Marianne Pike.”
Aaron’s mother.
They found her two days later.
She lived alone in a small house outside Crown Point.
Roman went personally.
Maya insisted on coming.
The old woman opened the door and nearly closed it again when she saw Roman.
Maya caught it with her hand.
“Why did you send me money?”
Marianne stared.
Her face collapsed.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“All of it.”
Maya became pale.
Roman stepped closer.
Marianne looked at him.
“You’re Roman DeLuca.”
“Yes.”
She started crying.
“My son killed your mother.”
The world stopped.
Maya gripped the doorframe.
Roman’s face emptied of all emotion.
Marianne backed into the house.
“He came to me that night. He was drunk. There was blood on his shirt.”
Roman’s voice became frighteningly quiet.
“Whose blood?”
“I don’t know.”
She cried harder.
“He said there had been an accident. Said another car went through the barrier.”
Maya whispered, “Why didn’t you call the police?”
Marianne covered her mouth.
“Because he was my son.”
Roman took one step forward.
Maya touched his arm.
Not to restrain him.
Just enough to remind him she was there.
Marianne continued.
“He made me help him hide the SUV.”
Roman looked at her.
“The bracelet?”
Marianne’s eyes went to Maya.
“He put it there.”
Maya closed her eyes.
“Why?”
“To make sure he had insurance.”
“Against what?”
Marianne sobbed.
“Against you.”
Roman understood first.
“If the vehicle was ever found, he wanted evidence connecting Maya.”
Marianne nodded.
“He said if the DeLucas came after him, he’d tell them his wife was driving.”
Maya looked physically ill.
Roman’s jaw flexed.
“He planned to frame her.”
“Yes.”
The room became silent.
Then Maya asked the question that mattered most.
“Why did you send me money?”
Marianne looked at her.
“Because I knew about the loans.”
Maya’s face twisted.
“You knew?”
“I found his records after he disappeared.”
“And you let me pay him for three years?”
“I was afraid.”
Maya laughed bitterly.
“Everyone was afraid of Aaron except the woman he was hurting.”
Marianne lowered her head.
“I’m sorry.”
Maya stepped backward.
Roman followed her outside.
She made it halfway to the car before her legs gave out.
Roman caught her.
This time she didn’t flinch.
She simply folded against him.
“I paid him,” she whispered.
Roman held her.
“I know.”
“I paid him for ruining my life.”
“I know.”
Twenty-three thousand dollars.
Years of hunger.
Pain.
Shame.
All engineered by a man who had intended to use her as a shield for murder.
Roman tightened his arms.
Maya cried against his coat.
For the first time since she entered his house, he did not try to fix anything.
May you like
He simply stood there.
And let her break.
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