Chapter 4 - ROMAN'S BROTHER WAS STILL RUNNING THE GAME
Roman did not speak for the entire drive back to the city.
Harper sat beside him in the rear of the town car.
Natalie’s words repeated in her mind.
Marcus Falco.
Roman’s brother.
According to Roman, Marcus had disappeared from public life eight years earlier after prosecutors failed to prove a criminal conspiracy.
Roman claimed Marcus had moved overseas.
Natalie claimed otherwise.
“He came to Derek’s apartment twice,” she had said.
“He scared Derek.”
That detail mattered.
Derek bullied people weaker than himself.
Whoever Marcus was, Derek feared him.
Back in Manhattan, Roman unlocked a private office above one of his restaurants.
Inside were boxes.
Old ledgers.
Photographs.
Court filings.
Roman opened a safe and removed a file.
“My father died nine years ago. Marcus took control afterward.”
“What happened?”
“He became exactly like him.”
Roman’s voice remained calm, but Harper heard something beneath it.
Disgust.
“Racketeering. Loan collection. Port contracts. Protection. I wanted out. Marcus said legitimate business was weakness.”
“So why did he disappear?”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“Because someone tried to kill me.”
Harper stared.
Roman touched the scar near his collarbone.
“The bullet entered here.”
Marcus disappeared three days later.
Roman had assumed his brother fled because rival groups blamed him.
Now he reconsidered.
“What if he ordered it?” Harper asked.
Roman looked at her.
Neither of them needed to say more.
Harper returned to the financial records.
She followed Derek’s transfers backward.
A consulting company led to a Delaware corporation.
That corporation paid a freight company.
The freight company shared an accountant with another entity.
M.F. Holdings.
She turned the laptop toward Roman.
“Marcus Falco.”
Roman looked at the screen.
“Maybe.”
Harper searched incorporation dates.
M.F. Holdings had formed two weeks after Roman was shot.
Then her phone buzzed.
Derek.
The restraining order prohibited contact.
He had sent one photograph anyway.
Harper’s apartment door.
Open.
Inside, drawers had been emptied.
Furniture overturned.
The caption read:
YOU LEFT SOMETHING HERE.
Harper immediately called police.
Roman stood.
She stopped him.
“No.”
“He broke into your apartment.”
“And if you go there, you become exactly what he wants.”
Roman remained still.
Harper called the detective.
When police searched the apartment, they found no Derek.
Nothing stolen.
Except one thing.
Harper’s old laptop.
The laptop she had used while occasionally working from home.
The laptop containing archived client files.
Including a private audit she completed six months earlier.
Harper suddenly remembered the client.
Westbridge Shipping.
She opened her firm’s server.
The audit had flagged irregular cash movements she assumed were clerical errors.
Now the amounts looked familiar.
Same shell companies.
Same transaction structure.
Roman stared at her.
“Harper.”
She nodded slowly.
“I found Marcus’s money six months ago.”
Then she realized the real secret.
May you like
Derek had not started dating her by accident.
He had chosen her because of her job.
