Chapter 5 - The Lie Marty Never Told Him
Roman waited until they were alone.
Then he locked the door.
Marty stood across the room.
“Who hired you?”
Marty sighed.
“Rachel.”
Roman stared at him.
“My wife hired you three years after she died?”
“No.”
Marty reached inside his jacket.
Roman's hand moved toward his gun.
Marty removed an envelope.
“She hired me before she died.”
Roman didn't take it.
“Explain.”
“Rachel contacted Daniel first. When Daniel became afraid, he contacted me.”
Marty placed the envelope down.
“Rachel knew someone was going to kill her.”
Roman's jaw tightened.
“She asked me to protect you if she failed.”
“You waited two years before becoming my chauffeur.”
“I needed proof.”
Roman grabbed the envelope.
Rachel's handwriting was on the front.
For Roman, when he finally knows.
His hands trembled.
Inside was a letter.
Roman,
If you're reading this, then I wasn't able to finish what I started.
He sat down.
Rachel explained everything.
She had discovered Vincent's secret.
She had discovered Vale.
She had discovered Grant's role.
But the letter contained something else.
Something Roman never expected.
Rachel had known Grant was trying to protect Roman.
Grant had warned her repeatedly.
He had even offered to help her escape with Sophia.
Rachel refused.
She believed running would condemn Roman.
So she continued gathering evidence.
Her final lines broke him.
Don't spend the rest of your life avenging me.
Sophia needs a father more than Chicago needs another war.
Destroy what your father built.
Then come home.
Roman read those lines three times.
Marty remained silent.
Roman finally asked, “Why didn't you give me this sooner?”
“Would you have believed it?”
Roman looked at him.
No.
Eleven months earlier, Roman would have killed Marty before finishing the first page.
Perhaps Rachel had understood him better than he understood himself.
The following weeks changed Chicago.
Vale's arrest triggered investigations.
Bank records were seized.
Halcyon executives were questioned.
Officials resigned.
Some disappeared.
Grant agreed to cooperate in exchange for reduced charges.
Roman did something nobody expected.
He cooperated too.
Not completely.
Roman was still Roman.
But he surrendered the pieces of his father's hidden network that Rachel had wanted destroyed.
Warehouses closed.
Shell companies dissolved.
Officials were exposed.
For the first time since he was twenty-one, Roman began imagining a life that didn't require checking every window before sitting down.
Then Evelyn called.
The chemical tests were back.
Roman met her at the hospital.
“Tell me.”
She placed the results on the table.
“The good news is your exposure stopped before permanent neurological damage.”
Roman exhaled.
“And the bad?”
“Your heart has been under stress for years.”
He smiled faintly.
“So has the rest of me.”
“I'm serious.”
“So am I.”
She told him recovery would take time.
No more poison.
Less stress.
Regular treatment.
Roman laughed at the second recommendation.
Then he remembered Rachel's letter.
Come home.
Maybe stress could wait.
Sophia entered the room.
She had been crying.
Roman stood.
“What happened?”
She handed him another document from Rachel's trust.
“I found something.”
Roman read it.
Rachel had created a second beneficiary.
Not Sophia.
Not Roman.
A name neither recognized.
Daniel Cole.
Marty's brother.
Roman frowned.
Why would Rachel leave money to Daniel?
Marty arrived an hour later.
He saw the document.
His expression changed.
“She paid him?”
“No,” Sophia said. “Look at the date.”
The trust amendment had been signed after Daniel's supposed death.
Marty stared.
“That isn't possible.”
Roman looked at him.
“Unless your brother didn't die when you thought he did.”
Marty shook his head.
“I identified his body.”
“Did you?”
Marty stopped.
The body had been badly burned.
Identification had relied primarily on dental records.
Records Halcyon could manipulate.
Evelyn searched old internal files.
They found something.
A patient identified only as D.C. had been transferred from a Halcyon facility two years after Daniel's supposed death.
Destination unknown.
Marty stared at the screen.
“My brother might be alive.”
Roman immediately understood why Vale had smiled.
Vale had one last piece on the board.
They questioned him.
Vale refused to answer.
Until Roman mentioned Rachel's trust.
Then Vale laughed.
“Daniel Cole became inconvenient.”
“Where is he?”
“Somewhere your wife thought you'd never look.”
Roman leaned forward.
“Where?”
Vale smiled.
“Where your father began everything.”
The original Calder property.
A lake house outside Chicago.
The same lake house Rachel had left on the night she died.
Roman felt the pieces connect.
They drove there immediately.
The house had been empty for years.
Roman hadn't entered since Rachel's death.
They searched the basement.
Nothing.
Then Marty noticed an electrical panel mounted too far from the wall.
Behind it was a hidden door.
They opened it.
A staircase descended underground.
At the bottom was a sealed medical room.
Empty.
But recently used.
A bed.
Medical equipment.
Food containers.
Someone had been living there.
Marty found a photograph.
His hands began shaking.
Daniel.
Older.
Thinner.
But alive.
On the back was a date.
Three weeks earlier.
Then Roman noticed something written underneath.
HE KNOWS WHERE THE ORIGINAL FORMULA IS.
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Roman turned.
Someone was inside the house.
Marty whispered, “Daniel?”
Roman drew his gun.
Footsteps moved closer.
The basement door opened.
A man appeared at the top of the stairs.
Marty's face collapsed.
“Danny?”
The man stepped into the light.
He looked exactly like the photograph.
Daniel Cole was alive.
May you like
But he wasn't alone.
A gun was pressed against Sophia Calder's back.
