Chapter 5 - The Betrayal Inside His House
Roman didn't reach for his weapon.
That surprised Gemma more than the gun.
"Why?" Roman asked.
Dominic swallowed.
"My daughter."
Roman's expression changed.
Vincent had taken her.
Dominic explained quickly.
Three days earlier, his seventeen-year-old daughter Sofia had disappeared from boarding school.
Vincent sent photographs.
Instructions followed.
Help him enter Roman's penthouse.
Or Sofia died.
"You should have told me."
Dominic laughed bitterly.
"And gamble my daughter's life?"
Roman stepped forward.
Dominic raised the weapon.
"Don't."
Gemma watched both men.
"Dominic."
He looked at her.
That was enough.
Roman moved.
He knocked the weapon sideways.
A shot struck the ceiling.
The men crashed into the wall.
Gemma grabbed the fallen gun.
"STOP!"
Both froze.
Gemma pointed it toward the floor.
"We're not doing this."
Roman stared at her.
Dominic was breathing heavily.
Gemma looked at him.
"Where is Sofia?"
"Vincent has her."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Gemma looked toward Roman.
"Then find her."
Roman understood what Gemma was doing.
Giving Dominic another option.
Roman extended his hand.
"Give me twenty-four hours."
Dominic stared.
"If I fail, you can kill me yourself."
After a long silence, Dominic nodded.
The search began.
Gemma returned to the evidence from the painting.
Everyone else saw criminal records.
She saw restoration notes.
Antonio had marked several photographs with pigments.
Ultramarine.
Ochre.
Burnt sienna.
They weren't random.
They corresponded to paintings.
Gemma suddenly understood.
"Roman."
He approached.
"What?"
"My father encoded locations using artwork."
She arranged the documents.
One painting corresponded to a warehouse Vincent owned through a shell company.
Queens.
Roman's men surrounded it before dawn.
Sofia was inside.
Alive.
So was Vincent.
But Vincent escaped through a tunnel moments before Roman arrived.
Dominic embraced his daughter.
Roman turned away.
Gemma watched him.
The man newspapers called ruthless had risked an entire operation to rescue the child of someone who had betrayed him.
Later, outside the warehouse, Gemma found him alone.
"You saved her."
"Dominic would have done the same for me."
"He pointed a gun at you."
"Because he loves his daughter."
Gemma looked at Roman differently.
"You understand people better than you pretend."
Roman smiled faintly.
"That's dangerous."
"Why?"
"Because now you're trying to understand me."
Gemma stepped closer.
"Maybe I already do."
This time Roman didn't step away.
Their kiss began carefully.
Almost reluctantly.
Then ten years of Roman denying himself anything resembling tenderness collapsed at once.
He pulled back first.
"Gemma."
"I know."
"No. You don't."
"Then tell me."
"If this continues, I won't know how to let you go."
Gemma touched his face.
"Maybe stop deciding what I want."
Roman looked into her eyes.
Then kissed her again.
For one night, there was no Costa family.
No Bellini ledger.
No Vincent.
Only Roman and Gemma.
Morning destroyed the illusion.
Federal agents surrounded the building at 6:12.
Roman woke to alarms.
Dominic called.
"FBI."
Roman dressed.
Gemma appeared in the doorway.
"What happened?"
Roman looked at the evidence.
Gone.
Someone had copied it.
Vincent had sent everything to federal authorities.
But selectively.
Enough to implicate Roman.
Not himself.
Roman was arrested thirty minutes later.
Gemma watched agents handcuff him.
Roman looked at her.
"Don't come after me."
She ignored him.
"Roman—"
"Listen."
He moved close enough to whisper.
"Vincent will come for the original evidence."
"Where is it?"
Roman smiled slightly.
"You have it."
Gemma frowned.
Then Roman was taken away.
For three days, Gemma searched.
Nothing.
Then she remembered.
The emerald dress.
The ruined dress Roman had ordered preserved because it was evidence of negligence at the gallery.
Gemma retrieved it.
She examined the torn seam.
Something had been sewn into the hem long before it caught on the brass fitting.
A tiny memory card.
Her father had hidden it there.
Gemma inserted it into a laptop.
One video file appeared.
Antonio Bellini sat before a camera.
"If you're watching this, Gemma, I'm probably dead."
She covered her mouth.
Antonio continued.
"The evidence inside the painting is incomplete. The memory card contains the master file."
Names appeared.
Dates.
Audio recordings.
Photographs.
Then one final recording.
Vincent's voice.
Clear.
Ordering Elena Bellini's death.
And discussing his plan to murder Vittorio Costa years earlier.
Gemma froze.
Roman's father had not died naturally.
Vincent had killed him.
The entire Costa empire had been manipulated from within.
Then Antonio said something else.
"Gemma, there is one final truth."
She leaned closer.
"I returned because Vincent discovered something about Roman."
Antonio looked directly into the camera.
"Roman Costa was never Vittorio Costa's biological son."
Gemma's eyes widened.
"His real father was the only honest man inside the Costa organization."
Antonio paused.
"And Vincent killed him too."
Gemma stared at the screen.
The video ended with a name.
A name Gemma recognized.
She whispered it aloud.
Then someone behind her said:
"Now you understand why Roman can never see that recording."
Gemma turned.
Vincent Moretti stood in the doorway.
May you like
Holding a gun.
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