Chapter 5 - The Family Buried Alive
Naen called Gabriel.
No answer.
Roman.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Her fear sharpened into anger.
She called Miriam.
The executive answered on the fourth ring.
“Naen?”
“I need Roman's emergency security number.”
“What happened?”
“No time.”
Miriam gave it to her.
Within minutes, Roman's secondary security team contacted Gabriel.
The railway meeting was aborted.
Roman returned at 1:17 a.m.
He entered the house furious.
“You spoke to Adrian?”
Naen stood in the library.
“Yes.”
“And you believed him?”
“I believed enough to warn you.”
Roman paced.
“My father died nine years ago.”
“Did you see his body?”
Roman stopped.
Naen immediately knew the answer.
“No.”
“What is it with your family and closed coffins?”
“Naen.”
“I'm serious.”
Roman dragged a hand over his face.
“My father died overseas.”
“According to who?”
Roman didn't answer.
Gabriel entered carrying a folder.
“Boss.”
Roman looked at him.
“We checked.”
Gabriel placed an old passport photograph on the desk.
The man had Roman's eyes.
“Your father entered Switzerland six months after his supposed death.”
Roman sat down.
For the first time, Naen saw him look genuinely lost.
The myth around Roman Vale had always been power.
But power couldn't protect a man from discovering his childhood was built on lies.
Naen sat beside him.
“You don't have to solve everything tonight.”
Roman laughed without humor.
“Someone tried to kill me.”
“Yes.”
“My dead brother is alive.”
“Yes.”
“My dead father may also be alive.”
“Yes.”
“And you're telling me to sleep?”
“Pretty much.”
He looked at her.
“You're insane.”
“You liked me better when I was holding your organs inside.”
Roman stared.
Then laughed.
It was the first real laugh Naen had heard from him.
For a few seconds, he wasn't Roman Vale.
He was simply Roman.
A tired man with too much family history.
Then he looked at her differently.
Naen felt it.
The air changed.
Roman lifted his hand.
Slowly.
Giving her time to move.
His fingers brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek.
“Why did you stop that day?”
“You know why.”
“No.”
His voice softened.
“Most people wouldn't.”
Naen thought of Leo.
“Because I want my son to grow up believing people stop.”
Roman's eyes held hers.
“When someone falls?”
“When someone needs them.”
Roman's hand remained near her face.
“And if stopping costs you everything?”
Naen smiled sadly.
“Then you rebuild.”
Roman leaned closer.
Naen didn't move.
Their kiss was quiet.
No urgency.
No dramatic sweep.
Just two exhausted people allowing themselves one honest moment.
Then Leo shouted from upstairs.
“Mommy!”
Naen jumped.
Roman closed his eyes.
“Your timing is terrible, kid.”
She laughed and ran upstairs.
***
The next morning brought answers.
Adrian surrendered himself to Roman's security.
The brothers met privately.
Hours later, Roman emerged.
His eyes were red.
Naen pretended not to notice.
“He saved me,” Roman said.
“Adrian?”
Roman nodded.
Seven years earlier, Adrian discovered that their father, Vincent Vale, intended to force Roman into inheriting the criminal side of the organization.
Adrian resisted.
Vincent staged Adrian's death and forced him underground.
Two years later, Vincent staged his own death.
From abroad, he continued controlling Victor and others.
Roman had never truly inherited the empire.
He had been managing a machine whose creator still held hidden controls.
“And now?” Naen asked.
“Now my father wants the legitimate businesses back.”
“Why?”
“Because I've been dismantling everything he built.”
Roman looked toward Leo playing in the garden.
“My father believes fear is inheritance.”
“And you?”
Roman watched Leo.
“I think inheritance should be something better.”
Naen took his hand.
That afternoon, Adrian entered the garden.
He resembled Roman enough to make Naen stare.
Same gray eyes.
Same dark hair.
But Adrian smiled more easily.
“You must be Naen.”
“You must be the dead brother.”
He laughed.
“I like her.”
Roman looked irritated.
“Everyone does eventually.”
The reunion should have been hopeful.
Instead, Adrian brought bad news.
Vincent had acquired controlling interests through shell companies in several Vale properties.
Including Laura.
“He wants you to meet him,” Adrian said.
“Where?”
“Laura.”
Naen frowned.
“Why there?”
Adrian looked at her.
“Because that's where Roman's mother met their father.”
Roman became still.
Laura wasn't simply another restaurant.
His mother had worked there as a waitress decades earlier.
Vincent had bought it after marrying her.
When she died, Roman inherited it.
Suddenly the name made sense.
“Laura was your mother?”
Roman nodded.
Naen remembered David throwing her paycheck onto the kitchen floor.
A waitress humiliated in a restaurant named for another waitress.
Roman seemed to recognize the same irony.
“My mother hated what my father became.”
Adrian nodded.
“That's why he chose it.”
Roman's expression hardened.
“He thinks sentiment makes me weak.”
Naen squeezed his hand.
“Maybe it makes you different.”
That evening, Roman prepared to meet Vincent.
Not with guns.
With attorneys.
Federal investigators had been quietly reviewing David's evidence.
Roman had decided to cooperate.
Doing so could cost him pieces of his empire.
Perhaps all of it.
Naen found him adjusting his jacket.
“Scared?”
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised her.
“Good.”
Roman raised an eyebrow.
“Fear means you understand the stakes.”
He touched her cheek.
“If this goes badly—”
“No.”
“Naen.”
“No goodbye speeches.”
“You don't know what I was going to say.”
“Yes, I do.”
She straightened his collar.
“You're going to tell me where money is hidden and ask Gabriel to protect us forever.”
Roman looked guilty.
“Was I that obvious?”
“Painfully.”
Naen kissed him.
“Come home instead.”
Roman rested his forehead against hers.
“I'll try.”
At Laura, Vincent Vale was already waiting.
Seventy years old.
Silver-haired.
Elegant.
Alive.
Roman entered alone.
Vincent smiled.
“My son.”
Roman stared at the father he'd buried nine years earlier.
“You're supposed to be dead.”
Vincent lifted a glass.
“So were many men in our family.”
Roman sat.
“Why now?”
“Because you are destroying my legacy.”
“I am cleaning it.”
“You're weakening it.”
Roman shook his head.
“No. I'm ending it.”
Vincent smiled.
“You think a waitress changed you?”
Roman's expression became cold.
“Leave her out of this.”
“That reaction answers my question.”
Vincent leaned forward.
“I know about the boy.”
Roman froze.
“Leo.”
Vincent smiled.
“Five years old.”
Roman's hand tightened.
Vincent continued.
“Such a sweet child.”
Roman stood.
“If you go near him—”
“I already have.”
Roman's blood went cold.
Across town, Naen heard the front door open.
“Roman?”
No answer.
She walked into the hallway.
The security guard who should have been stationed outside was gone.
On the floor lay Leo's stuffed dinosaur.
Naen's heart stopped.
“Leo?”
Silence.
Then a voice came from behind her.
“Mommy?”
Naen spun.
Leo stood at the top of the stairs.
She ran to him and pulled him into her arms.
“Thank God.”
Then she noticed what he was holding.
An envelope.
“A man gave me this.”
Naen's hands trembled.
She opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Not of Leo.
Not of her.
It was an old photograph of Roman's mother, Laura.
On the back were seven handwritten words:
May you like
ASK ROMAN WHO REALLY OWNED THE RESTAURANT.
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