Chapter 2 - THE OTHER SON
Roman did not move.
On the tablet, the man wearing his face sat inside a dark sedan, one hand resting casually on the steering wheel.
Same jaw.
Same eyes.
Even the thin scar beside his left eyebrow matched.
But there was one difference.
A silver watch circled the man’s wrist.
Roman stared at it.
Natalie noticed.
“You know that watch?”
Roman’s voice came quietly.
“It belonged to my mother.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
That was answer enough.
Roman turned toward her.
“Start talking.”
Across the dining room, Camera 4 still glowed red.
The stranger beside the briefcase looked toward it.
Natalie remembered what the technician had said.
Whatever happened here would automatically upload.
“Roman,” she warned. “The camera.”
He understood immediately.
His security chief reached toward his jacket.
Roman stopped him.
“Nobody touches anyone.”
The stranger smiled.
“Smart.”
Roman stepped directly beneath Camera 4.
“If federal investigators are watching this tomorrow, they should see exactly what happened.”
Then he faced the stranger.
“Take your hand out of your jacket. Slowly.”
The man obeyed.
He removed a phone.
Nothing else.
The trap had failed.
At least this part of it.
Roman looked at Evelyn.
“Who is Luca?”
Her lips trembled.
“Your brother.”
Bianca made a broken sound behind him.
Roman didn’t.
“My brother died.”
“That’s what your father told you.”
“I was seven.”
“I know.”
“My mother buried him.”
“No.”
Roman’s composure finally slipped.
Evelyn whispered, “She buried an empty casket.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Natalie looked at the tablet again.
The man in the video continued speaking.
“Our father decided there could only be one Calder heir in public. One son went home. The other disappeared.”
Roman’s eyes remained on Evelyn.
“Which one am I?”
“I don’t know.”
He almost laughed.
“You were ordered to marry me, you’ve been sending my schedule to him for four years, and you expect me to believe you don’t know?”
“I was never allowed to know.”
“Allowed by whom?”
Evelyn glanced at the stranger.
He said nothing.
Then Natalie saw the silver watch again.
Roman wore no watch tonight, but she remembered something from the PZ MASTER footage.
One surveillance clip had shown Roman’s father, Anthony Calder, leaving a courthouse years earlier.
The older man had been wearing that same silver watch.
“Your mother’s watch,” Natalie said. “How did your father get it?”
Roman looked at her.
“It was hers first. She gave it to him on their tenth anniversary.”
“And after she died?”
“He told me it was lost.”
Onscreen, Luca raised his wrist deliberately.
“He lied about that too.”
Roman stopped the video.
“Where is he?”
The stranger answered.
“Close.”
Roman looked at him.
“Name.”
“Daniel Mercer.”
“Who gave you Calder credentials?”
Daniel glanced toward Evelyn.
She shook her head desperately.
Not at Daniel.
At Roman.
“Don’t believe what he says next.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
For the first time, his confidence disappeared.
“I got them from Martin Shaw.”
Bianca stared.
“Martin?”
“He hired me three months ago.”
“To do what?”
“Deliver information between him and Luca.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“So Martin was working with him.”
“No.”
Daniel hesitated.
“He was trying to stop him.”
That reversal landed harder than an accusation.
Natalie remembered Martin’s desperate call.
Don’t let them recover PZ MASTER.
Maybe Martin hadn’t meant to hide crimes.
Maybe he knew the file itself was dangerous.
Roman asked, “Where is Martin now?”
Daniel looked at the six ringing phones inside the briefcase.
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to understand that Luca doesn’t trust anyone enough to tell them everything.”
Evelyn finally stepped forward.
“He’s telling the truth.”
Roman looked at her with such cold disappointment that she stopped.
“You’ve lost the privilege of telling me what truth sounds like.”
Evelyn absorbed that without defending herself.
Then she reached beneath the neckline of her dress.
Roman’s security chief tensed.
She pulled out a thin chain.
A tiny gold medal hung from it.
Saint Christopher.
Roman went pale.
“My mother wore that.”
Evelyn removed the necklace and placed it on the table.
“Luca gave it to me the night he recruited me.”
Natalie stared at her.
“Recruited you to marry Roman?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you agree?”
Evelyn’s eyes filled.
“Because Harbor Light wasn’t mine.”
She looked at Roman.
“It belonged to my father.”
Roman frowned.
“Your father was a high school principal.”
“That’s what the newspapers said after he died.”
She touched the medal.
“He built Harbor Light with your father twenty-three years ago.”
The room seemed to shrink.
Evelyn explained that her father had discovered Anthony Calder was secretly recording judges, contractors, police commanders, and politicians.
At first, the recordings had been insurance.
Then they became leverage.
Then money.
Harbor Light became the laundering mechanism.
“When my father tried to leave,” Evelyn said, “Anthony threatened my family.”
“But Anthony’s been dead nine years,” Bianca said.
“Yes.”
Evelyn looked toward the tablet.
“Luca inherited the system.”
Roman’s eyes hardened.
“And you?”
“He came to me four years ago. He had every recording. Every payment. Everything my father had done.”
“What did he want?”
“You.”
Roman said nothing.
“He wanted someone close enough to know your routines. Your security. Your business habits. Your signatures.”
Natalie understood.
“He was studying Roman through you.”
Evelyn nodded.
“I thought he wanted information.”
Roman looked at the words beneath the video.
SUBJECT WILL REPLACE CALDER AFTER THE WEDDING.
“But he wanted more.”
Evelyn began crying.
“I didn’t know that until three weeks ago.”
Roman looked away.
That hurt her more than anger would have.
The technician approached.
“Mr. Calder.”
“What?”
“The automatic upload from Camera 4 was interrupted.”
Roman turned.
“By us?”
“No.”
The technician showed him the screen.
Someone outside the mansion had canceled it at 10:47.
Natalie frowned.
“Why?”
The technician opened a system log.
“Because the target changed.”
A new scheduled upload had appeared.
Tomorrow.
9:00 a.m.
Location:
BROOKS BAKERY — CICERO.
Natalie’s blood went cold.
“My mother.”
Roman was already moving.
Then the technician caught his arm.
“There’s more.”
On the screen appeared a photograph.
Natalie’s nephew, twelve-year-old Noah, sitting at a bakery table doing homework.
Beside him lay a red napkin.
May you like
And on top of it—
the silver Calder watch.
