Chapter 4 - THE NIGHT MY FATHER SAVED ROMAN DELUCA
I had never heard Roman talk about the night he almost died.
He was fourteen.
His father had recently taken control of the DeLuca organization.
A rival group attacked their car on the way home from a charity dinner.
Roman's driver was killed.
His father was wounded.
Roman suffered a gunshot injury and severe blood loss.
Thomas Bennett—my father—had been driving an ambulance for the city that night.
He arrived before DeLuca security.
Before police.
Before anyone else.
Roman looked at the photograph.
"Your father stayed with me."
His voice was distant.
"He kept pressure on the wound. He rode in the ambulance. When the hospital couldn't immediately reach my family, he stayed until my mother arrived."
I stared.
"Dad never told me."
"My mother remembered him."
Roman swallowed.
"Apparently better than I did."
Something painful crossed his face.
I understood.
He had grown up surrounded by men who kept score.
Favors.
Debts.
Loyalty.
Yet the man who saved his life had never asked for anything.
Years later, when Dad needed help for Lily, he wrote to Margaret DeLuca.
She remembered.
And she helped.
No loan.
No interest.
Just gratitude returned quietly.
I began crying.
Roman sat beside the bed.
He didn't touch me until I reached for his hand.
"Everything I believed about Dad's debt was a lie."
"Yes."
"And Vivian knew."
"We don't know how much she knew."
I laughed bitterly.
"She knew enough to threaten Lily."
Roman's expression hardened.
A knock sounded.
Rebecca entered carrying another folder.
"We found something."
My stomach tightened.
"What?"
"Charles Mercer purchased several accounts from the medical fund after Margaret DeLuca died."
Roman stood.
"He couldn't purchase charitable grants."
"He didn't legally."
Rebecca placed documents on the table.
"He created false loan agreements and transferred them to one of his private companies."
I stared.
"How many families?"
"At least thirty-seven."
My stomach turned.
Thirty-seven families.
Parents.
Children.
People terrified enough to sign whatever they were given.
Roman looked murderous.
But his voice remained calm.
"Send copies to the attorney general's office and financial investigators."
Rebecca nodded.
Then hesitated.
"There's more."
She opened a second file.
"One account was treated differently."
Mine.
Instead of being routed through standard collections, the Bennett account had been personally monitored by Charles Mercer.
Every payment.
Every address change.
Every update regarding Lily.
My heart pounded.
"Why?"
Rebecca looked toward Roman.
"We found internal correspondence."
She read aloud.
"Continue surveillance on Claire Bennett. Her father may have left her something."
I stared.
"Left me what?"
Nobody knew.
Then Roman's security chief entered.
He carried a recovered phone.
"The man from the carriage house dropped this in the snow."
My breath caught.
"Can you identify him?"
"Yes."
He turned the screen toward us.
A driver's-license photograph.
I recognized the face immediately.
The man from Harbor Ridge.
His name was Adrian Cole.
Former employee of Mercer Security.
Roman looked at the phone.
"Any messages?"
The chief nodded.
"One matters."
He handed it to Roman.
A message sent Christmas Eve.
Get Bennett outside. Search her before she reaches the carriage house. We need the key.
Roman looked at me.
"What key?"
I shook my head.
"I don't know."
Then I remembered my father's last Christmas gift.
A small brass key I'd carried on my necklace for three years.
The necklace I'd been wearing when I stepped into the storm.
May you like
My hand flew to my throat.
It was gone.
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