Chapter 2 - The Man Roman Had Called FatherRoman did not return home.
By 2:00 in the morning, the Duca estate could no longer be considered secure.
Three guards had disappeared.
Two surveillance feeds had been deliberately disabled.
A hidden transmitter was discovered inside Roman’s private office.
Victor had spent decades beside the family.
If he wanted access to the estate, he probably knew more ways inside than Roman did.
So Roman took Elena somewhere nobody expected.
A small house in Queens.
Matteo stared at it when their convoy stopped.
“This?”
Roman got out.
“Yes.”
“You own this?”
“My mother does.”
Matteo looked toward the faded green siding.
“Your mother owns a suburban house?”
“She bought it before I was born.”
Roman glanced at him.
“And if you repeat that to anyone, I’ll deny everything.”
For the first time all night, Matteo smiled.
The house had belonged to Roman’s maternal grandmother.
No Duca meetings had ever taken place there.
No guards had been stationed there.
Victor had visited once, perhaps twenty-five years ago.
It was as close to invisible as anything Roman possessed.
Elena entered quietly.
Blood still stained her hands.
Roman noticed immediately.
“Bathroom is upstairs.”
She nodded.
“I’ll clean up.”
He caught her wrist.
Gently.
Elena looked down.
Roman’s thumb hovered near a cut across her palm.
“This is yours.”
“It’s small.”
“You said none of the blood was yours.”
“I didn’t notice.”
Roman’s expression darkened.
“Sit.”
“I can wash it myself.”
“Sit.”
Elena raised an eyebrow.
“I understand why people dislike taking orders from you.”
Roman looked at her.
“People usually don’t say that aloud.”
“I’m beginning a new phase.”
“What phase?”
“Honesty.”
“That would be convenient.”
The accusation landed.
Elena sat at the kitchen table.
Roman found an old first-aid kit.
He cleaned the cut in silence.
She watched him.
“You know how to do that?”
“I’ve been stabbed.”
“Of course you have.”
“Twice.”
“That wasn’t admiration.”
He almost smiled.
Then he remembered Carlo’s body.
His expression hardened.
Elena noticed.
“Ask.”
“What?”
“The question you’ve been trying not to ask.”
Roman wrapped gauze around her hand.
“Did you know Victor killed my father?”
“No.”
“You suspected.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Since before the wedding.”
Roman tied the bandage.
“Then start at the beginning.”
Matteo and four trusted guards searched the property.
Roman sent everyone else away.
Only Matteo remained inside.
Elena stared at the table.
“My father’s name was Gabriel Santoro.”
“I know.”
“You knew the version Victor gave you.”
Roman said nothing.
Elena continued.
“Gabriel worked for Lorenzo for almost twelve years. Officially he managed accounts for several construction companies.”
“And unofficially?”
“He tracked money nobody was supposed to know existed.”
Roman leaned back.
“My father’s private funds.”
“Some.”
“What else?”
“Payments made by captains without authorization. Bribes. Side businesses. Secret alliances.”
Matteo folded his arms.
“Why would Lorenzo trust him with that?”
“Because my father had no family connection to the organization when he started.”
Roman frowned.
“He was an outsider.”
“Yes.”
“Elena Santoro is not exactly an outsider name.”
“My mother was a Santoro. My father took her surname after his family disowned him.”
Roman stared.
“That was unusual.”
“So was my father.”
Despite himself, Roman believed that.
Elena continued.
“About a year before Lorenzo died, my father noticed money moving through a company called Vesper Holdings.”
Matteo frowned.
“I know the name.”
Roman did too.
An old logistics shell company.
Victor had administered it.
“Payments were leaving Duca accounts,” Elena said, “then appearing in companies connected to the Barone family.”
Roman’s face hardened.
“The family blamed for my father’s murder.”
“Yes.”
Roman understood.
Victor had funded the enemy used as a scapegoat.
“How much did Lorenzo know?”
“Enough to become frightened.”
“My father wasn’t frightened easily.”
“Neither was mine.”
She looked at him.
“That was probably their mistake.”
Roman got up and walked toward the window.
He could still remember the night Lorenzo died.
Roman had been seventeen.
He and his father had argued that afternoon.
About school.
About responsibility.
About Roman wanting nothing to do with the family business.
Lorenzo left the house angry.
Hours later, his car was ambushed.
Two guards died.
Lorenzo survived the first shots but was dragged from the vehicle.
Victor had been the one who found Roman afterward.
Victor had told him exactly what happened.
The Barone family.
Retaliation.
War.
Roman had spent the next decade destroying nearly everything the Barones owned.
“What if they didn’t do it?” Roman whispered.
Elena knew what he meant.
“Then Victor used your grief as a weapon.”
Roman’s hand tightened on the windowsill.
He had killed men because Victor told him they were responsible.
Not personally every time.
But his orders.
His organization.
His revenge.
Elena came closer.
“Roman.”
He did not turn.
“How many?”
She understood.
“I don’t know.”
“How many people did I bury for something they didn’t do?”
“You couldn’t have known.”
Roman turned sharply.
“That doesn’t resurrect them.”
“No.”
He stared at her.
Most people would have lied.
Told him he was innocent.
Elena didn’t.
That made him trust her more.
He hated that too.
“Why marry me?”
She looked away.
“We’re not there yet.”
“We’re exactly there.”
Elena folded her arms.
“Victor came to me first.”
Roman went still.
“When?”
“Ten months ago.”
“Before he suggested the marriage to me.”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“He said my family owed money.”
“You knew that was false?”
“I knew the number was false. I wasn’t sure whether my brother had borrowed something without telling me.”
“Victor threatened you?”
Elena hesitated.
Roman’s voice dropped.
“What did he say?”
“That if I didn’t marry you, the remaining Santoro properties would disappear.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“And?”
“And he showed me a photograph of my younger cousin leaving school.”
Roman became terrifyingly still.
“He threatened a child.”
“Not directly.”
“That is exactly what he did.”
Elena nodded.
“I agreed.”
Roman paced.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“On our wedding day, you spoke exactly fourteen words to me before the ceremony.”
Roman stopped.
She continued.
“You told me, ‘This arrangement protects both families. Do not mistake it for affection.’”
Roman remembered.
Word for word.
At the time he had considered the statement honest.
Now it sounded cruel.
Elena’s mouth twisted sadly.
“You didn’t exactly inspire confessions.”
Roman looked at her.
“I thought you wanted the marriage.”
“I wanted everyone I loved to stay alive.”
The answer cut deep.
Roman sat again.
“And after?”
“I tried to understand why Victor wanted me near you.”
“So you searched.”
“Yes.”
“Through my things?”
“No.”
“My office?”
“Once.”
Roman raised an eyebrow.
“Honesty phase.”
She sighed.
“Twice.”
Matteo coughed to disguise a laugh.
Roman glared.
Matteo became extremely interested in the wall.
Elena continued.
“I found nothing about my father. Then three months ago, Isabella gave me a box.”
Roman’s expression changed.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“What box?”
“She said Lorenzo had left it with her.”
Roman stood.
“My mother knew?”
“Not everything.”
“Where is the box?”
Elena looked toward the front door.
“Hidden.”
“Where?”
“My father’s old apartment.”
Roman reached for his jacket.
Matteo stepped forward.
“Boss, we don’t know who’s watching that place.”
Roman looked at Elena.
“Does Victor know?”
“No.”
“You’re certain?”
“I’ve never gone there since the wedding.”
Roman nodded.
“Then we go before sunrise.”
The apartment stood above a closed tailor shop in Brooklyn.
Gabriel Santoro had owned it under his mother’s maiden name.
Victor’s records apparently never connected it to Elena.
Roman entered first.
Dust.
Old furniture.
Covered windows.
Elena moved through the space differently.
Carefully.
Emotionally.
“This is where you lived?”
“Until I was fourteen.”
Roman watched her touch the back of a wooden chair.
“My father used to cook breakfast on Sundays.”
“What did he make?”
“Terrible pancakes.”
Roman looked at her.
She smiled faintly.
“He insisted they were authentic Italian.”
“Pancakes are not Italian.”
“I knew that at age eight.”
For a moment they were not discussing murder.
Roman wished it lasted longer.
Elena led him into a bedroom.
She pulled the wardrobe away from the wall.
Behind it was a narrow compartment.
Inside sat a metal box.
Roman stared.
“Your father built that?”
“He was paranoid.”
“He worked for my father.”
“Same thing.”
Roman almost smiled.
Elena used a key from a chain around her neck.
The box opened.
Inside were photographs.
Letters.
A cassette recorder.
And documents.
Roman picked up one.
His father’s signature.
Lorenzo Duca.
“This is authentic.”
“Yes.”
The document described Vesper Holdings.
Transfers.
Dates.
Names.
One line had been underlined.
V. Solerno authorized.
Roman felt sick.
Matteo read over his shoulder.
“Victor’s signature.”
Roman flipped pages.
More payments.
Then a photograph.
Victor meeting with Don Barone two weeks before Lorenzo’s murder.
Roman sat down.
For twenty years, Victor had said he never negotiated with the Barones.
Elena picked up the cassette.
“My father recorded meetings.”
Roman looked at her.
“You heard this?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I was afraid.”
It was the most vulnerable admission she had given him.
Roman understood.
“Play it.”
The old recorder still worked after Matteo replaced the batteries.
Static filled the room.
Then Lorenzo’s voice.
Roman stopped breathing.
Twenty years vanished.
His father sounded younger than Roman remembered.
Angrier.
“Victor, I know about the transfers.”
Silence.
Then Victor.
Roman recognized the voice immediately.
“You know what you were meant to know.”
Lorenzo laughed.
“You’ve been feeding Barone.”
“I’ve been preparing alternatives.”
“For what?”
“For the day this family needs someone stronger.”
Roman closed his eyes.
The recording continued.
Lorenzo said, “My son will inherit.”
Victor replied, “Your son wants nothing to do with this world.”
“He’s seventeen.”
“He’s weak.”
Roman’s eyes opened.
Victor’s voice continued.
“You protect him from everything. One day somebody will show him what power costs.”
Lorenzo said, “Stay away from Roman.”
Then static.
Movement.
The recording ended.
Roman sat perfectly still.
Elena crouched in front of him.
“Roman.”
He looked at her.
Victor had called him weak.
Had murdered his father.
Then spent twenty years molding Roman into exactly the kind of man Victor respected.
Ruthless.
Suspicious.
Feared.
Victor had not merely stolen Lorenzo.
He had tried to erase whatever Lorenzo wanted Roman to become.
Roman laughed bitterly.
“He won.”
Elena shook her head.
“No.”
“Look at me.”
“I am.”
“I became exactly what he wanted.”
“No.”
Roman’s eyes hardened.
“You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“I know enough.”
“Then don’t romanticize me because we’re married.”
“I’m not.”
Elena stood.
“You are violent. Controlling. Sometimes arrogant enough to make me want to throw plates at you.”
Matteo looked away.
Roman stared.
Elena continued.
“But tonight, when you saw strangers holding me, you didn’t ask whether protecting me was politically useful.”
Roman said nothing.
“You protected me because you believed no one had the right to hurt me.”
“That is a very low standard.”
“It is still a choice Victor would never make unless it benefited him.”
Roman looked down at the documents.
Elena touched his hand.
“You are not him.”
For the first time since the ballroom, Roman’s anger loosened.
Then Matteo’s phone vibrated.
His expression changed immediately.
“What?”
He looked at Roman.
“The estate was attacked.”
Roman stood.
“My mother?”
“Safe. Guards moved her through the south tunnel.”
Roman exhaled.
“Casualties?”
“Three.”
“Victor?”
“Not confirmed.”
Another message came.
Matteo stared at the screen.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“A video.”
He handed Roman the phone.
Victor appeared on-screen.
Sitting comfortably in a dark room.
Older than Roman remembered him seeming yesterday.
Calm.
Almost paternal.
“Roman,” he began, “if you’re watching this, then Elena has shown you enough to make you angry.”
Roman’s hand tightened.
Victor smiled.
“You were always easiest to control when angry.”
Roman nearly crushed the phone.
Victor continued.
“Ask your wife why she really married you.”
Elena went pale.
Roman looked at her.
Victor’s recording continued.
“She will tell you I threatened her. True.”
A pause.
“But fear was not her only reason.”
Roman stared at Elena.
Victor smiled.
“Gabriel Santoro left his daughter instructions.”
Elena whispered, “No.”
Victor leaned toward the camera.
“She was supposed to get close enough to a Duca to finish what her father began.”
Roman turned toward Elena.
Her face had lost all color.
Victor delivered the final blow.
“You thought you married a frightened woman to settle a debt.”
His smile widened.
“She married you to find evidence against your family.”
The video ended.
Silence.
Roman looked at his wife.
“Is that true?”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“It was.”
Roman stepped backward.
May you like
And suddenly the woman whose hand he had bandaged, whose life Victor wanted to end, whose fear he had begun to trust, became another person standing inside a room full of secrets.
For the first time that night, Roman wondered whether Victor was not the only one who had built their marriage on a lie.
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