Chapter 3 - THE BROTHER MY FATHER BURIED
I did not take Claire home.
That was the first decision I made differently.
Seven months earlier, I would have taken her straight to the most fortified property I owned, surrounded her with armed men, locked down every entrance, and called it protection.
Instead, I asked her.
“Do you trust Theo?”
She looked through the windshield at the man driving.
“I don’t know him.”
“Neither did Damian when I hired him.”
Theo glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
Under other circumstances, he might have taken that personally.
Today, he understood.
“Where do you feel safest?” I asked Claire.
She looked at me as though I had started speaking another language.
“You’re asking me?”
“Yes.”
Her expression shifted.
Not forgiveness.
Not trust.
But something.
“There was a house in Marblehead,” she said slowly. “The one your aunt left you.”
I knew the place.
Small by my standards.
Three bedrooms overlooking the water.
No permanent staff.
No company security.
The property remained registered through an old family trust Damian had probably forgotten existed.
“Marblehead.”
Theo changed direction without asking another question.
For the next hour, I made only three calls.
One to Noah Brennan.
One to Tessa Ward, my attorney.
One to nobody else.
Especially not Damian.
By noon, Claire was asleep upstairs beneath a quilt my aunt had owned for thirty years.
I stood in the kitchen while Tessa worked through the files on the cracked phone.
She was forty-two, ruthless, irritatingly calm, and the only attorney I knew who had once told me during a board meeting that if I interrupted her again, she would bill me double.
I had trusted her ever since.
“These screenshots are fabricated,” she said.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure enough to stake your favorite building on it.”
“I don’t have a favorite building.”
“The Atlantic tower.”
I frowned.
She smirked.
“You absolutely have a favorite building.”
This was not the time.
“What about the transfers?”
“Real money. Fake authorization.”
My stomach tightened.
“How much?”
“Just under four million dollars across eighteen months.”
I stared at her.
“To whom?”
“Shell companies. Clinics. Security vendors. A church foundation. Three consulting firms.”
“The church foundation?”
Claire appeared at the kitchen door.
I hadn’t heard her come downstairs.
Tessa turned the laptop.
“Hopewell Family Outreach.”
Claire went pale.
“That’s who paid my first rent.”
I felt something ugly settle in my chest.
Damian had not simply frightened Claire into disappearing.
He had financed the disappearance with my own money.
Money moved out of companies I controlled.
Money that created a paper trail making it look as though I had arranged everything.
If Claire had died somewhere, the evidence would have pointed directly at me.
Tessa understood the same thing.
“This wasn’t just about hiding her,” she said.
“It was about building a case.”
“Against me.”
“Yes.”
Claire slowly sat.
“What kind of case?”
Tessa looked at me before answering.
“Kidnapping. Coercion. Potentially conspiracy. Depending on what else they fabricated.”
There it was.
Not only remove Claire.
Destroy Roman.
Noah Brennan arrived twenty minutes later carrying a file thick enough to stop a bullet.
“I should have caught this,” he said before sitting down.
“You weren’t inside the house.”
“I still should have caught it.”
I respected him for saying that.
He opened the folder.
“I went back through every lead Damian’s office gave us during the search.”
“And?”
“Half were designed to waste time.”
He slid maps across the table.
A bus station in Albany.
A hospital in Montreal.
A hotel outside Baltimore.
Each place had supposedly produced a sighting.
Every lead had pulled investigators farther away from Claire’s real locations.
“He was controlling the search,” Claire whispered.
“He was controlling me,” I said.
That landed harder.
Because it was true.
For seven months, I had believed I was mobilizing an army.
Damian had been deciding where the army marched.
Theo leaned against the counter.
“So what do we do?”
I looked at Claire.
“Nothing reckless.”
Everyone in the room stared at me.
I almost laughed.
Apparently that sentence sounded strange coming from my mouth.
“We need to know who Damian is working with.”
Tessa closed the laptop.
“And you plan to find that out how?”
“By going home.”
Claire stood immediately.
“No.”
“I’m not taking you.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know.”
“Roman, whoever shot at that apartment knew exactly where I was.”
“Yes.”
“And you think walking into the house of the man who arranged it is intelligent?”
“No.”
That stopped her.
“I think it’s necessary.”
Her voice lowered.
“You could die.”
Seven months ago, I might have heard that as affection.
Now I heard what it really was.
Fear.
“I’m coming back,” I said.
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
I hated that answer.
But I had promised myself I would stop giving Claire certainty I didn’t actually possess.
So I walked toward her.
Stopped two feet away.
And waited.
She understood.
After a moment, she stepped forward.
Not into my arms.
Just closer.
“Come back,” she said.
“I will do everything I can.”
It wasn’t romantic.
It was better.
It was true.
I returned to Boston at six that evening.
The townhouse looked exactly as it always had.
Warm windows.
Black iron gates.
Two guards outside.
My car rolled through.
Damian stood at the top of the front steps.
Gray suit.
No coat.
Hands in his pockets.
Calm.
He smiled when I climbed out.
“You look terrible.”
I had imagined killing him twelve different ways on the drive.
Instead, I smiled back.
“Long day.”
“Any luck?”
There it was.
My wife had been shot at three hours earlier and Damian Cross was asking whether I had found her.
“Nothing.”
He watched me carefully.
“No Claire?”
“No Claire.”
For the first time, I saw something flicker behind his eyes.
Not surprise.
Calculation.
We walked inside.
I let him pour bourbon.
I let him talk about security reports.
I let him tell me Brennan wanted more money.
I let the man who had stolen seven months of my wife’s life sit six feet away and complain about my investigators.
Then I gave him bait.
“I’m ending the search.”
His glass paused halfway to his mouth.
“Why?”
“Because she doesn’t want to be found.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I do now.”
He studied me.
“Just like that?”
“Nothing about this is just like that.”
I took the bourbon but didn’t drink.
“She may have left the country months ago.”
Damian looked toward the fireplace.
“If she’s thirty-five weeks along, travel will be difficult.”
Silence.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
But it was there.
He had made a mistake.
I never told him how far along Claire was.
No doctor had.
No investigator had.
The townhouse had been under communications blackout since I found her.
Damian slowly looked at me.
He knew.
I knew.
The game ended between one heartbeat and the next.
“Thirty-five weeks?” I asked.
He placed his glass down.
Neither of us moved.
“Roman.”
“How far along is my wife, Damian?”
His face changed.
Twelve years disappeared.
The easy humor.
The loyalty.
The man at my hospital bed.
The friend who had stood beside me at my wedding.
All of it vanished.
“What did she tell you?”
I crossed the room.
“Everything.”
That was a lie.
I wanted him to believe it.
His jaw tightened.
“You should have stayed away from Revere.”
There it was.
I hit him.
One punch.
Hard enough to put him against the bookshelf.
He laughed.
Actually laughed.
Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.
“That felt good?”
“No.”
“That’s disappointing.”
“Why?”
He straightened.
“You really don’t know?”
“I trusted you.”
“Yes.”
“I gave you everything.”
“No, Roman.”
Something twisted in his face.
“You gave me a room.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“For twelve years, I lived in your family’s houses. I protected your family’s money. I bled for your family’s name.”
“You were family.”
His smile was bitter.
“Was I?”
The word hung between us.
“What are you talking about?”
He reached inside his jacket.
I nearly drew my weapon.
Instead, he removed an envelope.
Old.
Yellowed at the edges.
He threw it onto the desk.
Inside was a laboratory report.
A paternity test.
Dated thirteen years earlier.
I read the names once.
Then again.
SALVATORE DELUCA.
Probability of paternity: 99.97%.
The second name belonged to Damian.
My father.
My dead father.
I looked at him.
Damian’s eyes were wet now.
Not with regret.
With twelve years of hatred.
“You want to know why I knew every lock in this house?” he asked.
“Why?”
“Because our father put me here.”
The room stopped breathing.
Damian stepped closer.
“You weren’t the only son of Salvatore DeLuca, Roman.”
May you like
His voice dropped.
“I was just the son he buried.”
