Chapter 6 - The Last Signature
The fastest drive of my life was the one I remember least.
I remember red lights.
Damian shouting directions.
My phone ringing until I finally threw it onto speaker.
Theo.
Tessa.
Noah.
Everyone talking at once.
I remember only one sentence.
Tessa’s.
“Roman, Victor filed the emergency proxy electronically twenty-two minutes ago.”
“I didn’t sign it.”
“I know.”
“Then how?”
“Pike’s credentials.”
A dead man was apparently still useful to Victor.
“What happens if it processes?”
“Victor gets temporary operational authority. Maybe forty-eight hours before I can challenge it.”
Forty-eight hours was enough to empty companies.
Destroy records.
Move money.
Make people disappear.
“Stop it.”
“I’m trying.”
“No. Stop it.”
There was silence.
Then Tessa said quietly, “Get Claire. I’ll handle the paper.”
The old me would have argued.
The old me would have tried to control both battles.
Tonight, I trusted her.
“Do it.”
I ended the call.
Damian looked at me.
“That was almost healthy.”
“Don’t ruin the moment.”
He laughed despite everything.
Ten minutes later, North Shore Airfield appeared beyond the trees.
A private runway.
Three hangars.
One aircraft idling near the far end.
The ambulance stood beside it.
My heart hit my ribs.
We stopped before the main gate.
Locked.
Damian looked at me.
“Victor changed the access code.”
“You used to manage the system.”
“I also taught him not to reuse codes.”
I got out.
A security truck approached from inside.
For half a second, I assumed Victor’s men had seen us.
Then the gate rolled open.
Theo was driving.
I stared.
He lowered the window.
“You really thought I was staying in Marblehead?”
“You have a concussion.”
“I’ve had worse.”
Behind him sat Noah.
Tessa occupied the passenger seat with two laptops open.
I looked at her.
“Paper?”
“Victor’s proxy is frozen.”
“How?”
“I made three judges very unhappy.”
For the first time that night, something almost like hope entered my chest.
Then a scream carried from the hangar.
Claire.
Nothing else mattered.
We moved.
Not like an army.
Like five people with one purpose.
Theo and Noah took the side entrance.
Tessa remained behind to keep an open line with state police and federal authorities she had finally decided we could trust.
Damian and I entered through the main hangar door.
Claire was on a folding medical cot.
Two emergency technicians stood near her.
Real technicians, judging by the terror on their faces.
Probably hired under false pretenses.
Victor stood near the aircraft.
Two armed men beside him.
One held a folder.
The proxy.
Victor looked at me and smiled.
“You always did have trouble following instructions.”
Claire turned her head.
Her face was pale.
Sweat dampened her hair.
“Roman.”
I went toward her.
Victor raised his gun.
“Stop.”
I did.
“How far apart?” I asked Claire.
“Three minutes.”
One of the technicians spoke.
“She needs a hospital now.”
Victor ignored him.
“Sign.”
He threw the folder onto a table.
I looked at Claire.
She shook her head.
“Don’t.”
Victor laughed.
“Your wife has always underestimated the value of your signature.”
“Let her go and it’s yours.”
“No.”
“Victor.”
“You still don’t understand.”
He stepped closer.
“This was never only about the company.”
“Then what?”
“Correction.”
The word sounded insane.
“My father built the first warehouses. Your father took them. Salvatore took everything.”
Family mythology.
Old men fighting through younger generations.
I was suddenly exhausted by all of it.
“My father is dead.”
“And yet you sit in his chair.”
“I don’t want his chair.”
Victor looked almost offended.
“That’s what makes you unworthy of it.”
Behind me, Damian entered the light.
Victor’s gaze moved to him.
“Still here?”
Damian stopped.
“You planned to kill me.”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
Damian flinched anyway.
Victor shrugged.
“You wanted to be a DeLuca so badly. Consider betrayal your inheritance.”
I saw something die inside Damian.
Maybe the last illusion.
Maybe the part of him that had believed any of this would end with a family accepting him.
Claire cried out.
The medical technician checked her.
“We cannot wait.”
Victor pointed toward the paper.
“Sign.”
I walked to the table.
Claire shook her head harder.
“Roman, no.”
I picked up the pen.
Victor smiled.
“You see? In the end, everybody has a price.”
I looked at him.
“You’re right.”
Then I signed.
Claire closed her eyes.
Victor stepped forward.
He picked up the page.
Looked at the signature.
Then frowned.
“What is this?”
I had not signed Roman DeLuca.
I had written two words.
GO TO HELL.
Victor’s face changed.
The hangar side door opened.
Theo entered.
Noah behind him.
Victor’s men turned.
Everything broke at once.
One man ran.
The other reached for Claire.
Damian hit him before he got there.
Victor fired.
Damian jerked backward.
Blood spread across his shirt.
I went for Victor.
The gun slid beneath the aircraft.
We hit the ground.
My uncle was sixty-three.
He fought like a man who had spent his life paying other people to do it for him.
It ended quickly.
I pinned him beneath me.
For one terrible second, I wanted to kill him.
He saw it.
Maybe he expected it.
Maybe he wanted it.
Then Claire screamed my name.
I let Victor live.
That was the moment I knew I would never become my father.
State police entered less than a minute later.
Victor was handcuffed.
His surviving men surrendered.
Damian remained conscious long enough to look at me from the floor.
“I’m sorry.”
I stared at him.
There were too many things inside those words.
Seven months.
A basement room.
A pregnant woman living on food-bank groceries.
Bullets through a window.
A family shattered.
“I know,” I said.
It was not forgiveness.
But it was all I had.
Then I went to Claire.
The ambulance ride to Boston felt longer than seven months.
I sat beside her.
This time, when I reached for her hand, I stopped halfway.
She looked at it.
Then placed hers in mine.
“Don’t let go.”
“I won’t.”
At the hospital, they took her straight upstairs.
There were complications.
Fetal distress.
Blood pressure dropping.
Words doctors use because they have learned how to speak calmly while destroying a man’s ability to breathe.
They prepared Claire for an emergency C-section.
Before the doors closed, she looked at me.
“Roman.”
“I’m here.”
“If something happens—”
“No.”
“Listen to me.”
I forced myself to.
“Choose the baby.”
My throat closed.
“Claire—”
“Promise me.”
“No.”
Her eyes filled.
“Roman.”
“I am not agreeing to live in a world where somebody asks me to choose between you.”
A nurse tried to move the bed.
Claire squeezed my hand.
“Then fight for both.”
“I will.”
The doors closed.
Forty-one minutes later, I heard my daughter cry.
There has never been a sound like it.
Small.
Furious.
Alive.
I sat down because my legs stopped working.
The doctor came through the doors.
“Your wife is stable.”
I covered my face.
“And the baby?”
“Small. Strong. She’ll need monitoring, but she’s breathing on her own.”
I laughed.
Or sobbed.
Possibly both.
Theo put a hand on my shoulder.
Tessa hugged me without asking permission.
Even Noah looked away.
For exactly six minutes, I believed it was over.
Then four men in federal jackets stepped out of the elevator.
The man in front displayed identification.
“Roman DeLuca?”
I stood.
“Yes.”
“Special Agent Aaron Ross.”
Tessa immediately moved beside me.
“What is this?”
Ross held out a warrant.
“Roman DeLuca, you are under arrest for conspiracy, financial fraud, obstruction, kidnapping, and two counts connected to the deaths of witnesses Gerald Pike and Matthew Soren.”
Pike.
And a name I didn’t recognize.
Tessa grabbed the warrant.
“This is fabricated.”
Ross nodded to the agents behind him.
They moved toward me.
I did not resist.
Not here.
Not outside the operating room where my wife had nearly died.
One cuff closed around my wrist.
Then Claire’s voice came from behind us.
Weak.
“Stop.”
Every person turned.
A nurse stood beside her wheelchair.
Claire looked exhausted.
White hospital blanket around her shoulders.
But her eyes were fixed on Agent Ross.
Not me.
Ross smiled politely.
“Mrs. DeLuca, you need to rest.”
Claire stared at him.
Then she looked at me.
I knew that expression.
She had seen something.
“What?” I asked.
Her face changed.
Fear.
“Roman.”
Ross stepped between us.
“Ma’am, return to your room.”
Claire gripped the wheelchair.
“No.”
“Claire?”
She pointed at Ross.
“I know his voice.”
Nobody moved.
Ross’s smile vanished.
May you like
Claire looked straight at me.
“He’s the man who answered our house phone the night I tried to call you.”
