Chapter 10 - THE BROTHER WHO NEVER BELONGED
Roman laughed once.
Not with humor.
“With your wife?” he asked Thomas.
Thomas’s face hardened.
“Years ago.”
“Vittorio knew?”
“Yes.”
Everything about Adrian suddenly shifted.
The favorite son.
The protected one.
The boy Vittorio loved despite knowing he was not his.
Adrian’s rage made a different kind of sense.
“You told him?” Roman asked.
Thomas nodded.
“Eventually.”
“When?”
“Before he disappeared.”
“So you convinced him Vittorio would never choose him.”
“No.”
Thomas smiled bitterly.
“I told him the truth. Vittorio already had.”
Roman went still.
“What truth?”
“Vittorio planned to leave the legitimate empire to you.”
“And Adrian?”
“Money.”
“Enough?”
“Never.”
Roman’s face closed.
Adrian’s voice came through the speaker.
“He gave Roman everything that mattered.”
Thomas looked toward the laser.
“And I offered you more.”
“You offered me theft.”
“I offered you freedom.”
Adrian laughed.
“Same thing in your world.”
Then the vault lights died.
Gunfire erupted upstairs.
Roman shoved me behind steel shelving.
Marco returned fire.
Thomas grabbed the ledger.
David ran.
Ethan tackled him.
Chaos.
When lights returned, Thomas was gone.
So was the ledger.
David lay bleeding from the leg.
Ethan had a cut across his forehead.
Roman was untouched.
I shook.
Anger.
Fear.
Exhaustion.
“I’m done.”
Everyone looked at me.
“I am done with vaults, gold, dead men, fake deaths, brothers, fathers, accounts, and every man who thinks ‘I had a plan’ makes consequences disappear.”
No one spoke.
Good.
Roman stepped forward.
“What do you want?”
That question again.
Choice.
“I want Leo out.”
“Out of Chicago?”
“Out of this.”
He nodded.
“I can arrange it.”
“No.”
He stopped.
“I’ll arrange it.”
His mouth almost smiled.
“Okay.”
“I want authorities involved.”
Roman’s expression tightened.
“All authorities?”
“The ones who can legally seize that ledger if we get it.”
“That may implicate people connected to me.”
“Then decide what kind of man you want to be.”
Silence.
Ethan looked at Roman.
Roman looked at me.
Then:
“Do it.”
Marco froze.
“Boss.”
“Contact federal counsel.”
“You’re sure?”
“No.”
Roman’s face hardened.
“But do it.”
That changed everything.
For the first time, Roman chose truth over control.
Then David groaned from the floor.
I looked at him.
“My son is your nephew.”
He laughed weakly.
“Yes.”
“You watched him struggle.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“My father told me not to interfere.”
“You listened.”
“Yes.”
“What do you want now?”
He stared at the ceiling.
“To not die.”
Fair.
He gave us Thomas’s secondary property.
Lake Geneva.
That was where Thomas planned to meet Adrian.
The ledger would change hands there.
Roman coordinated with federal investigators.
No revenge assault.
No execution.
Evidence.
Arrests.
It felt strangely civilized.
Then Ethan asked to speak to me alone.
“No.”
“Megan.”
“No.”
“I need to tell you one thing before this ends.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Daniel left you something.”
My heart tightened.
“What?”
“A letter.”
“You had it five years?”
“Yes.”
Rage rose.
“Why?”
“He made me promise to give it to you only if Leo was safe.”
“That was not your decision.”
“I know.”
“Where is it?”
Ethan handed me a sealed envelope.
My name.
Daniel’s handwriting.
Inside:
Megan,
If you ever learn the truth, I’m sorry I disappeared before I could tell you.
Leo may be mine biologically, but Ethan is the man who stayed when I was too afraid.
I stopped.
Stayed.
The word hurt.
Because Ethan had not stayed.
Not ultimately.
Daniel continued.
If I don’t come back, do not let any Kesler turn our son into inheritance.
Let him be a child.
I cried.
Then reached the final line.
There is one person I trust if everything collapses.
Roman Duca.
He does not know me well enough to love us.
That is exactly why he may protect us without trying to own us.
I looked up.
Roman stood across the basement.
May you like
Daniel had trusted him before I ever met him.
And somehow, five years later, I had found him bleeding in an alley.
