Chapter 6 - The Man Behind Roman’s Throne
The video resumed after seven seconds.
Seven seconds should not have felt long.
To Sadie, they felt like years.
Elias Mercer reappeared.
“If this recording reaches you, do not assume the woman knows what she carries.”
Roman frowned.
Tommy leaned closer.
Mercer continued.
“Her name today is Evelyn Cross.”
Sadie’s breath caught.
She knew that name.
Roman saw it.
“Who?”
Sadie looked at him.
“My aunt.”
Roman went still.
“My mother’s younger sister.”
Mercer explained.
Evelyn had worked at St. Agnes with Rebecca Callahan.
But she had not merely volunteered.
She kept records.
Anthony Vale had discovered Victor’s hidden network using charitable organizations as fronts for secret payments.
St. Agnes was one of them.
Anthony wanted evidence.
Rebecca and Evelyn helped him collect it.
Daniel, still a teenager, discovered what they were doing.
Rebecca made him promise never to tell Nora.
Then Anthony died.
Rebecca became ill months later.
Evelyn disappeared.
Mercer helped her.
But before leaving, Evelyn copied every record.
Names.
Accounts.
Transactions.
Dates.
Orders.
Victor called those records “the ledger.”
Sadie stared at the screen.
“My aunt is alive.”
Mercer nodded from the recording.
“If Victor finds Evelyn, he will find enough evidence to destroy him.”
Sadie looked at Roman.
“I was told she died.”
“By whom?”
“My mother.”
Mercer continued.
“Rebecca lied to protect both daughters of the family.”
Sadie frowned.
Both daughters?
Then she understood.
Her mother and aunt.
The video explained Evelyn changed her name repeatedly.
Mercer alone knew the final identity.
He had contacted Daniel years later after realizing Victor’s network had survived.
Daniel found Evelyn.
That was why he died.
He had been preparing to bring her testimony to investigators.
Victor learned enough to stop him.
But he never learned where Evelyn lived.
Roman looked furious.
“Where is she?”
Mercer answered as if anticipating him.
“I will not record her location.”
Tommy cursed quietly.
“But Nora can find her.”
Sadie leaned forward.
“How?”
Mercer held up the photograph Victor had stolen from the red book.
Rebecca and Evelyn stood outside a small beach house.
On the back was written a phrase.
Where the lighthouse blinks twice.
Sadie recognized it immediately.
Cape Meredith.
Her mother had taken Nora and Daniel there every summer when they were children.
There was an old lighthouse across the bay.
Its beam rotated in a pattern that seemed to blink twice from the beach.
Sadie whispered, “Maine.”
Roman looked at her.
“You know the place?”
“Yes.”
A strange memory surfaced.
A woman with red hair.
Laughing.
Giving eight-year-old Nora seashells.
Aunt Evelyn.
Sadie had been told Evelyn died in a car accident two years later.
The video ended.
Roman turned to Tommy.
“Plane.”
Sadie immediately said, “No.”
Both men looked at her.
“No plane.”
Roman raised an eyebrow.
“Why?”
“If Victor is watching airports or your aircraft, we announce exactly where we’re going.”
Tommy nodded.
“She’s right.”
Roman looked irritated.
Sadie almost smiled.
“You’re not used to that sentence.”
“No.”
“We drive.”
“To Maine?”
“Yes.”
“Eight hours.”
“You’ve survived longer dinners.”
Tommy laughed.
Roman glared at him.
By dawn they were northbound.
Sadie sat beside Roman in the rear of the SUV.
For the first two hours neither spoke.
Snow-covered highways stretched ahead.
Eventually Roman said, “You should sleep.”
She looked at him.
“Was that an order?”
“Suggestion.”
“Improvement.”
He looked out the window.
Sadie studied him.
“Did you love your father?”
Roman did not answer immediately.
“Yes.”
“What was he like?”
“Complicated.”
“That sounds diplomatic.”
“He could be ruthless.”
Roman glanced at her.
“But he had lines.”
“Lines you don’t have?”
“I do now.”
Sadie absorbed that.
“What changed?”
He looked at her for a long time.
“You left.”
She looked away.
“Don’t make me responsible for your conscience.”
“I’m not.”
Roman’s voice remained quiet.
“You leaving only forced me to notice I had one.”
Silence returned.
Roman continued.
“I spent months angry.”
“At me?”
“At everyone.”
“That sounds more like you.”
“Yes.”
He almost smiled.
“Then I realized I had spent years telling myself that controlling danger meant controlling the people I cared about.”
Sadie’s chest tightened.
Roman stared ahead.
“I thought protection gave me permission.”
“It didn’t.”
“I know.”
“You decided where I went.”
“Yes.”
“Who drove me.”
“Yes.”
“Who I saw.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“You took my passport.”
“Yes.”
She looked at him.
“I was afraid of you.”
Roman closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them, he said, “That is the worst thing anyone has ever told me.”
Sadie’s anger softened by one degree.
Not forgiveness.
Never that easily.
But recognition.
He was hearing her now.
Three years too late.
Still hearing.
“You never hit me.”
Roman looked almost offended.
“Of course not.”
“That isn’t the standard you think it is.”
His expression changed.
“You’re right.”
She stared at him.
“You really are different.”
“No.”
Roman shook his head.
“I’m trying to be.”
That felt more truthful.
They reached Cape Meredith shortly after noon.
The town was small.
Winter had emptied the tourist streets.
Sadie directed Tommy toward an old coastal road.
Eventually they reached the beach house.
It looked almost exactly as she remembered.
Gray shingles.
White trim.
Blue door.
No car outside.
Roman surveyed the property.
Sadie walked toward the porch.
He did not stop her.
She appreciated that.
Sadie knocked.
Nothing.
Again.
Still nothing.
She tried the handle.
Locked.
Then she noticed a shell hanging beside the door.
A small white sand dollar.
Her aunt used to collect them.
Sadie turned it over.
Written on the back:
NORA, IF IT’S REALLY YOU, USE THE KEY MOM GAVE YOU.
Sadie’s heart pounded.
“What key?” Roman asked.
She touched the necklace beneath her sweater.
A tiny silver key hung there.
Her mother had given it to her at sixteen.
Sadie had always assumed it belonged to an old jewelry box.
She inserted it into the blue door.
The lock opened.
Roman and Tommy remained behind her.
Sadie stepped inside.
The house smelled like cedar and coffee.
Someone lived there.
A fire smoldered in the fireplace.
“Evelyn?”
No answer.
Sadie moved through the living room.
Photographs lined a shelf.
Rebecca.
Daniel.
Sadie herself.
Pictures taken from newspapers.
School graduations.
One photograph showed Nora at twenty-five.
Another showed Roman beside her at a charity event.
Sadie picked it up.
Someone had circled Roman’s face.
Beneath it:
HE DOESN’T KNOW.
Sadie’s pulse quickened.
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Roman immediately moved forward.
Sadie held up a hand.
He stopped.
She climbed the stairs alone.
At the top was a hallway.
A woman stood at the far end.
Sixty-ish.
Red hair streaked with white.
A shotgun rested in her hands but pointed toward the floor.
Sadie recognized her before memory could explain why.
“Aunt Evelyn?”
The woman’s face crumpled.
“Oh, Nora.”
Sadie’s knees nearly failed.
Evelyn lowered the weapon.
Sadie crossed the hallway.
They embraced.
For a moment the last twenty years vanished.
Evelyn held her face.
“You look like Rebecca.”
Sadie began crying.
“You’re alive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Everyone said you died.”
“I had to.”
Sadie laughed through tears.
“Apparently that runs in the family.”
Then Evelyn looked over Sadie’s shoulder.
Roman stood at the bottom of the stairs.
Evelyn’s expression changed.
Sadie noticed.
“You know him.”
Evelyn nodded.
“I knew his father.”
Roman slowly approached.
Evelyn studied his face.
“You have Anthony’s eyes.”
Roman stopped.
“What happened to him?”
Evelyn’s expression turned sad.
“Victor happened.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“Do you have the ledger?”
Evelyn looked at Sadie.
Then back at Roman.
“Yes.”
Tommy exhaled.
Roman asked, “Where?”
Evelyn did not answer.
Instead she walked into the bedroom.
Sadie followed.
Evelyn opened a closet and removed a battered suitcase.
Inside were dozens of old folders.
Cassette tapes.
Bank statements.
Photographs.
Names.
Twenty-two years of evidence.
Roman stared.
Evelyn said, “This can destroy Victor.”
Roman nodded.
“Good.”
Evelyn’s eyes narrowed.
“It can also destroy you.”
Silence filled the room.
Sadie looked at Roman.
He did not flinch.
“I assumed it would.”
Evelyn seemed surprised.
“You understand what’s here?”
“Enough.”
“If this goes to federal investigators, Victor goes down.”
“Yes.”
“So do half the people working for you.”
“Yes.”
“And maybe you.”
Roman looked at Sadie.
Then back at Evelyn.
“Yes.”
Sadie’s heart shifted strangely.
Evelyn studied him for a long moment.
“Anthony once had the same choice.”
Roman looked at her.
“What did he choose?”
“He chose to expose everything.”
“And Victor killed him before he could.”
“Yes.”
Roman nodded slowly.
Evelyn closed the suitcase.
“Then tell me something, Roman Vale.”
“What?”
“If I give this to you, why should I believe you won’t make the same choice Victor did?”
Roman looked at Sadie.
There was no hesitation.
“Don’t give it to me.”
Evelyn frowned.
Roman continued.
“Give it to her.”
Sadie stared.
Roman looked directly into her eyes.
“And let Nora decide what happens next.”
Outside the house, tires crunched over gravel.
Tommy moved to the window.
His face changed.
“Roman.”
Three black vehicles stopped outside.
Men stepped out.
Evelyn went pale.
“They found me.”
Roman looked toward Sadie.
For once he did not issue an order.
He simply asked:
“What do you want to do?”
Sadie looked at the suitcase.
At Evelyn.
At the vehicles outside.
Then at the man she had spent three years believing was the greatest danger in her life.
She made her choice.
May you like
“We stop running.”
---
