Chapter 5 - “She’s My Wife”
By midnight, the Duca residence had transformed into a fortress.
Roman’s private security team searched the grounds twice.
Police were not called.
Serena noticed that immediately.
“Why no police?”
Roman stood in his study, sleeves rolled to his forearms, speaking to Marcus over a digital map of the surrounding streets.
“Because I don’t know who sent the photograph.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Roman glanced at her.
“It does if I don’t know who inside the department I trust.”
Serena stared.
Sometimes Roman spoke one sentence and accidentally revealed entire sections of his life she had never been permitted to enter.
Marcus cleared his throat.
“I’ll give you two a minute.”
He left.
Serena walked toward Roman’s desk.
“You don’t trust the police.”
“Some.”
“Which ones?”
“A short list.”
“Why?”
Roman leaned back against the desk.
“You really want to do this tonight?”
“I wanted to do it six years ago.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then nodded.
“All right.”
Serena was so unprepared for agreement that she did not know what to ask first.
Roman noticed.
A faint, humorless smile touched his mouth.
“You’ve spent years wanting answers.”
“I didn’t expect you to suddenly give them.”
“I didn’t expect you to pack a suitcase.”
Fair.
Serena sat down.
Roman remained standing.
“Are you a criminal?”
His eyebrows rose.
She folded her arms.
“You said answers.”
“I did.”
“Well?”
Roman considered.
“My businesses are legitimate.”
“That was carefully phrased.”
“Yes.”
“Roman.”
“When I was younger, some of the people around my family were involved in things I would not defend now.”
“Your father.”
His gaze changed.
“You know that much.”
“I know almost nothing about your father except that you hated him.”
Roman walked toward the window.
“My father believed fear was the most reliable form of loyalty.”
Serena remained silent.
“He ran unions, construction contracts, trucking routes. Some legal. Some not.”
“And you?”
“I inherited pieces of that world.”
“Did you participate?”
Roman looked back at her.
“Yes.”
The honesty landed heavily.
Serena swallowed.
“How bad?”
“I never trafficked people. Never drugs. Never hurt children. I never ordered civilians harmed.”
“That is a horrifying list of qualifications.”
“I know.”
“Did you hurt people?”
A long pause.
“Yes.”
Serena looked away.
Roman did not approach her.
Did not justify it.
“I was twenty-three when my father died. By twenty-eight, I had dismantled most of what remained.”
“Most?”
“Some relationships don’t disappear because you file new incorporation papers.”
Serena laughed once, nervously.
“That might be the most Roman Duca sentence ever spoken.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Then she asked, “Why marry me?”
His expression changed completely.
“That is the easiest question you have asked.”
“Then answer.”
“Because I loved you.”
Past tense.
Serena noticed.
“So you don’t anymore?”
Roman looked genuinely startled.
“What?”
“You said loved.”
“Serena.”
“No. Words matter tonight.”
He crossed the room.
Stopped before her.
“I love you.”
She could barely breathe.
Roman continued.
“I loved you when you spilled coffee on my coat at that bookstore.”
“You were standing behind me.”
“I was standing six feet away.”
“You walked into the spill radius.”
“I was nowhere near—”
Serena stared.
Roman stopped.
For the first time that night, something warm passed between them.
Then the heaviness returned.
“I loved you when you refused to give me your phone number,” Roman said. “I loved you when you finally gave it to me and intentionally changed one digit.”
“You still found me.”
“I own telecommunications companies.”
“That was deeply unsettling.”
“I know that now.”
Despite herself, Serena smiled.
Roman’s voice softened.
“I loved you when your father got sick. I loved you when you screamed at me because I arranged the specialist without asking. I loved you at the funeral when you held my hand so hard I lost feeling in two fingers.”
Serena’s smile disappeared.
“And I love you now.”
“Then why does it feel like you only love me when no one is watching?”
Roman had no immediate answer.
That was the wound.
Not whether he loved her.
How he had chosen to love her.
Finally he said, “Because my father taught me that anything visible can be targeted.”
Serena nodded slowly.
“So you hid me.”
“Yes.”
“You hid us.”
“Yes.”
“And when Julian took my hand, you forgot all your rules.”
Roman’s jaw shifted.
“I didn’t forget.”
“You broke them.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked at her as though the answer were obvious.
“She’s my wife.”
Serena blinked.
Roman seemed to hear his own words from the ballroom.
A quieter version of them came now.
“You’re my wife.”
“That didn’t answer the question.”
“It did.”
“No.”
Roman exhaled.
Then he sat in front of her.
Not beside her.
In front, so she could see his face.
“Because watching another man touch you made me understand something I should have understood years ago.”
“What?”
“I had confused possession with presence.”
Serena said nothing.
“I assumed because you were my wife, because you came home with me, because we shared a bed and a name and a life, that you knew what you meant to me.”
“You never showed me.”
“I showed you privately.”
“People can starve in beautiful houses, Roman.”
He flinched.
Serena had never seen that before either.
“I know,” he said.
A knock interrupted them.
Marcus entered.
“We found the camera position.”
Roman stood instantly.
“Where?”
“Vacant property two houses east.”
“Prints?”
“Possibly.”
“And?”
Marcus hesitated.
“What?”
“There was an envelope.”
He held it out.
Roman opened it.
Inside was an old photograph.
Serena rose from her chair.
Roman stared at the picture.
She moved closer.
A much younger Roman stood beside his father.
Next to them was another young man Serena did not recognize.
Someone had drawn a red circle around Roman’s face.
On the back, a sentence had been written.
Your father stole my family. Now I take yours.
Roman’s expression became terrifyingly calm.
Serena whispered, “Who is that?”
Roman stared at the young man beside his father.
A ghost from twenty years earlier.
“Adrian Vale.”
“Who is he?”
Roman looked at her.
“A man I thought was dead.”
And for the first time, Serena understood that the danger surrounding her husband had not begun at the hotel.
May you like
It had been waiting for decades.
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