Chapter 3 - THE NIGHT ROMAN NEVER SPOKE ABOUT
Harper pulled her hand away.
For a moment, the dining room disappeared.
She saw only Roman.
“You were there?”
Roman did not answer quickly enough.
That was answer enough.
Harper stood.
Her chair scraped against the floor.
“You were there when my brother died?”
“Harper.”
“How do you know my name?”
Roman looked toward his mother.
“She signed it ten minutes ago.”
Harper almost hated him for the reasonable answer.
“You knew Leo?”
“No.”
“But you were there.”
“Yes.”
The word was quiet.
Harper stared at him.
For fifteen years, she had carried one version of Leo’s death.
A car.
A wet street.
A stranger who fled.
A paramedic arriving too late.
Her mother refusing to discuss it.
Harper being thirteen and furious because adults kept telling her she was too young to understand.
Now Roman Moretti sat six feet away and quietly admitted he had been there.
Beatatrice signed urgently.
Sit. Please.
Harper almost walked out.
Instead, she sat because she needed the truth more than she needed pride.
Roman folded his hands on the table.
“I was twenty-two.”
Harper did the math.
“You were at St. Clare.”
“My mother volunteered there.”
Beatatrice nodded.
Roman continued.
“There was a fundraising dinner that night. My father donated money to the center. He liked his name on buildings.”
Bitterness sharpened the final sentence.
“My mother was inside. I left after arguing with him.”
“With your father?”
“Yes.”
“What about?”
Roman glanced at Beatatrice.
“That part belonged to them.”
Harper did not like the answer, but Beatatrice gave a small nod.
Roman continued.
“I was halfway down Mercer when I heard tires.”
Beatatrice could not hear the story, so Roman began signing as he spoke.
His ASL was slower than Harper’s.
Less graceful.
But he knew it.
That surprised her almost as much as everything else.
“I saw a sedan jump the curb.”
His fingers stopped briefly.
“There was a kid near the service entrance.”
Harper’s throat closed.
Roman looked directly at her.
“Blue jacket. One sneaker came off.”
Harper’s eyes filled.
Leo had been wearing a blue Mets jacket that night.
Her father had bought it used because Leo wanted one just like his best friend’s.
That detail had never appeared in any newspaper article.
Roman continued.
“I got to him first.”
Harper covered her mouth.
“He was conscious?”
“For a little while.”
Roman’s voice grew rougher.
“He couldn’t hear me. I knew enough sign because of my mother.”
Harper could barely force out the question.
“What did he say?”
Roman looked down at his hands.
“He asked if his glasses were broken.”
Harper laughed once through tears.
“His hearing aids.”
“I know that now.”
“What else?”
Roman’s eyes met hers.
“He said he was cold.”
Harper stopped breathing.
“So I took off my jacket.”
Roman swallowed.
“I signed that help was coming.”
His hand closed slowly around nothing.
“He asked me not to leave.”
Harper’s tears fell.
“And?”
“I didn’t.”
The answer shattered something inside her.
For years Harper had imagined Leo dying frightened and alone beneath flashing streetlights.
Now that terrible picture changed.
Roman Moretti had knelt beside him.
Roman had signed to him.
Roman had stayed.
Harper hated the relief almost as much as she needed it.
“Why didn’t anyone tell us?”
Roman’s face hardened.
“My father.”
Beatatrice’s expression changed.
Roman looked at her.
“He arrived before the ambulance left.”
Harper frowned.
“How?”
“He had people everywhere.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No.”
Roman leaned back.
“He ordered me into another car.”
“And you went?”
His jaw tightened.
“I was twenty-two.”
“You keep saying that like twenty-two is twelve.”
One of Roman’s men shifted.
Roman raised a hand without looking away from Harper.
“No. I’m saying it because I was old enough to know better and young enough to still believe my father could control every consequence.”
Harper had not expected him to admit that.
“He told me the boy survived.”
Harper went still.
“I found out the next morning that he hadn’t.”
“And then?”
“I confronted him.”
“What did you do after that?”
Roman said nothing.
Harper understood.
“You did nothing.”
“I was told the family had handled everything with yours.”
“My family received nothing.”
Roman’s gaze sharpened.
“That’s not what I was told.”
Beatatrice suddenly reached into her handbag again.
This time she removed a small velvet pouch.
Roman watched her.
“Ma?”
She placed it on the table.
Harper noticed Roman’s posture change.
Beatatrice opened the pouch and tipped something into her palm.
A watch.
Heavy.
Gold.
The crystal was cracked from one edge to the other.
The hands were frozen at 10:17.
Roman stared.
For the first time since entering Laura, Roman Moretti looked genuinely shaken.
“Where did you get that?”
Beatatrice pushed it toward him.
Roman did not touch it.
Harper noticed the engraving on the back.
R.M.
“It’s yours,” she whispered.
Roman nodded.
“My grandfather gave it to me.”
“I lost it that night.”
Beatatrice signed.
It was found beneath Leo when the paramedics lifted him.
Harper looked at Roman.
His face had gone pale.
Beatatrice continued.
Salvatore gave it to me at the hospital.
Roman’s father.
Harper knew the name.
Everyone did.
Salvatore Moretti had died eight years earlier surrounded by politicians, business leaders, priests, and enough armed men to invade a small country.
Roman finally reached for the broken watch.
Beatatrice caught his wrist.
She signed more sharply.
He told me never to show it to anyone.
Roman stared at her.
“Why?”
Beatatrice’s mouth trembled.
Then her hands moved.
Because the police had already photographed it.
Harper felt cold.
Beatatrice looked from Roman to Harper.
Your father made them remove your name from the report.
Roman’s fingers closed around the watch.
Harper whispered, “Why would he need to erase your name?”
Beatatrice’s eyes hardened.
May you like
Then she signed the truth she had hidden for fifteen years.
Because Roman was not the only Moretti there.
