Chapter 6 - Dinner With the Romano Family
By the time Sophie reached her street, firefighters had contained the flames.
Her apartment was gone.
Smoke poured from the broken windows.
Water ran down the stairs.
Neighbors stood outside wrapped in blankets.
Sophie stared from the sidewalk.
Eight years of her life had become blackened debris.
Books.
Her mother’s photographs.
Her father’s old jacket.
Student drawings.
Everything.
Julian stood beside her.
For once, he did not tell her what to do.
Sophie whispered, “My mother’s piano music was in there.”
Julian looked toward the building.
“I’m sorry.”
“Police will say electrical.”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Marco found the accelerant.”
Sophie closed her eyes.
Someone had burned her home.
Because of a key.
Because of her father.
Because she had sat in the wrong seat.
Julian removed his coat and placed it around her shoulders.
She almost refused.
Then she didn’t.
“Come with me.”
“To your house?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Sophie.”
“I’m not living with you.”
“One night.”
“No.”
“Where will you go?”
“My friend Rachel.”
“Then my security goes too.”
“She has a one-bedroom apartment and a cat that hates men.”
“Marco likes cats.”
Marco, several feet away, looked surprised by this information.
Sophie almost laughed.
Instead, she started crying.
Not dramatically.
Just one tear.
Then another.
Julian turned slightly, shielding her from cameras gathering across the street.
She realized photographers had arrived.
Of course they had.
Julian Romano standing beside his mystery woman while her apartment burned was irresistible.
“Don’t let them photograph me like this,” she whispered.
Julian stepped in front of her.
His body blocked every lens.
Marco opened the car door.
Julian escorted Sophie inside.
The next morning, photographs still appeared online.
But the most shared image wasn’t Sophie crying.
It was Julian standing between her and dozens of cameras.
Headline:
CHICAGO’S COLDEST BILLIONAIRE SHIELDS MYSTERY TEACHER AFTER SUSPICIOUS FIRE.
Comments exploded.
Who is she?
Why does Romano care?
She’s a teacher??
Look at the way he looks at her.
Sophie hated every one.
Except maybe the last.
She refused to analyze why.
At Julian’s house, he gave her an entire guest wing.
“I need clothes.”
“They’re being delivered.”
She turned.
“What?”
“I asked Marco to arrange essentials.”
“You cannot buy my clothes.”
“I didn’t.”
“Good.”
“My assistant did.”
“Julian.”
“What?”
“That is still buying my clothes.”
He looked genuinely confused.
Sophie laughed despite herself.
The sound surprised them both.
Later that afternoon, Detective Lena Morales arrived.
Unlike the officers from the previous night, Morales did not appear intimidated by Julian.
Sophie liked her immediately.
“We found a partial print on the device used to start the fire,” Morales said.
“Whose?”
“No match yet.”
Julian leaned against the fireplace.
“What else?”
Morales looked at him.
“This is a police investigation.”
“And?”
“And I enjoy keeping my badge.”
Sophie hid a smile.
Morales turned back.
“Ms. Carter, did your father ever mention a man named Samuel Price?”
“Yes.”
Morales slid a folder across the table.
Inside was a recent photograph.
Samuel Price.
Alive.
Sophie stared.
“You said he disappeared.”
Julian came closer.
Morales nodded.
“He disappeared from federal records.”
“Where was this photo taken?” Julian asked.
“Three weeks ago.”
“Where?”
“Outside Franklin Elementary.”
Sophie went cold.
The photograph showed Samuel Price standing across the street from her school.
Watching.
“Why was he there?”
“We don’t know.”
Sophie looked at Julian.
The story they believed had just shifted.
Samuel Price wasn’t a dead investigator.
He was alive.
And he had been watching her before the concert.
Meaning the wrong seat may not have started anything.
Someone had already been waiting.
Morales continued.
“We also checked your father’s accident report.”
Sophie braced herself.
“The original report is missing.”
“Missing?”
“The digital record was altered six years ago.”
“By whom?”
“We traced the administrative access.”
Morales looked at Julian.
“Dominic Vale.”
Silence.
Julian’s expression became stone.
Sophie whispered, “Why would a lawyer edit a police record?”
Morales closed the folder.
“That’s what I intend to ask him.”
She never got the chance.
At 6:14 that evening, Dominic Vale’s car was found abandoned near the river.
Driver’s door open.
Phone inside.
Blood on the steering wheel.
No Dominic.
By midnight, the news was everywhere.
ROMANO ATTORNEY MISSING.
And beneath the headline was another photo.
Sophie leaving Julian’s estate.
The caption called her “the woman at the center of a growing Romano mystery.”
At 12:31 a.m., Sophie received a text from an unknown number.
It contained only a photograph.
Her classroom.
Empty.
Dark.
Taken from inside.
Underneath were five words.
STOP LOOKING OR SCHOOL OPENS EARLY.
Sophie was already reaching for her shoes.
Julian caught her at the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
“My school.”
“No.”
“There could be someone inside.”
“Police are going.”
“My students will be there in seven hours.”
Julian blocked the door.
“Sophie.”
“Move.”
“No.”
“Move!”
Her voice cracked.
Julian saw the fear underneath.
Something in him changed.
He stepped closer.
“You are not going alone.”
She looked up.
May you like
“Then come with me.”
And Julian Romano—the man who had spent most of his life keeping people outside his world—followed a third-grade teacher into hers.
