Chapter 9 - Three Words That Changed Everything
Dominic had vanished from his hospital room forty minutes earlier.
A guard had been found unconscious.
Security cameras showed nothing.
Sophie sat beside Julian while Marco replayed the phone call.
Dominic’s voice.
Good evening, Sophie.
Then static.
Then three words whispered by Thomas in the background.
“Trust the wolf.”
Sophie looked toward Julian’s black signet ring.
The wolf.
“Dad meant you.”
Julian said nothing.
“Unless you know another terrifying man with wolf jewelry.”
“Not personally.”
Despite everything, Sophie smiled weakly.
Then Julian became serious.
“Thomas wants you to trust me.”
“Do you?”
“What?”
“Trust yourself?”
Julian looked away.
“That is a complicated question.”
“Answer it.”
“I trust what I’ll do to protect you.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“It’s what matters.”
Sophie stood.
“No. Because everyone keeps deciding what I need without telling me anything.”
She paced across the room.
“My father disappears to protect me. Daniel lies to protect me. You surround me with guards to protect me. Everybody is protecting me so aggressively that I barely understand my own life.”
Julian listened.
“Then ask.”
“Anything?”
“Yes.”
“Did your family commit crimes?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
Sophie had expected evasion.
The answer still hit hard.
“Have you?”
Julian’s expression changed.
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“I’ve threatened people.”
“Hurting people?”
“I have ordered men removed from businesses.”
“That is a very polished sentence.”
“I know.”
“Did you kill anyone?”
Julian met her eyes.
“No.”
She searched his face.
“Do you expect me to believe you?”
“I expect nothing.”
That answer mattered.
Sophie sat again.
“Why did my father tell me to trust you?”
Julian removed the wolf ring.
He placed it on the table.
“My father gave me this when I was eighteen.”
“So?”
“He gave Thomas one too.”
Sophie stared.
“What?”
“Not a ring. A pin. It was part of an internal security group.”
He opened a drawer and removed an old photograph.
Five people.
Alessandro.
Thomas.
Daniel.
Samuel Price.
And a young Julian Romano.
Sophie stared.
“You knew my father.”
“I met him.”
“You said you knew of him.”
“I was trying not to overwhelm you.”
Her glare sharpened.
“Poor choice.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three times.”
“What was he like?”
Julian paused.
“He hated my hair.”
Sophie blinked.
“What?”
“I was twenty-one. It was long.”
She laughed.
She couldn’t help it.
“My dad complained about men with long hair?”
“Constantly.”
“That sounds like him.”
“He also thought I was spoiled.”
“You were.”
“Probably.”
For a moment Thomas was not a conspiracy.
He was her father again.
Then Julian pointed toward the photograph.
“This group investigated corruption inside Romano Maritime. They called themselves the Wolves because my father was dramatic.”
“That explains you.”
Julian ignored her.
“Someone betrayed them.”
“Dominic?”
“Likely.”
“What happened to Samuel Price?”
“We need to find out.”
Marco entered carrying a laptop.
“We traced the call.”
“To where?”
“South Side freight district.”
They found an abandoned warehouse.
Empty.
Thomas gone.
But he had left something.
Three words painted in chalk across a steel door.
FIFTH PIANO KEY.
Sophie understood.
Saint Agnes.
Again.
They returned to the old piano.
Sophie counted.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
She pressed the fifth key.
Nothing.
Julian examined underneath.
A small compartment opened.
Inside was a flash drive.
The missing evidence.
Files.
Transactions.
Recordings.
Photographs.
And one video.
Thomas Carter speaking directly into a camera fifteen years earlier.
“If Sophie sees this, then everything else failed.”
Sophie sat.
Thomas continued.
“Dominic Vale discovered what we were doing. But he wasn’t alone.”
He displayed a photograph.
Vittorio Romano.
Julian’s uncle.
Sophie looked at Julian.
His expression went blank.
The video continued.
“Vittorio provided access. Dominic moved the money. But neither is the architect.”
Thomas leaned closer.
“The person behind it is someone Alessandro trusted more than his own brother.”
He held up another photograph.
A woman.
Elegant.
Dark-haired.
Sophie had seen her portrait at the Romano estate.
Julian whispered:
“My mother.”
Isabella Romano.
Thomas continued.
“Isabella learned that Alessandro planned to dismantle the network. She believed the Romano empire would collapse if he did. She ordered the cleanup.”
Sophie stared at Julian.
He looked as though the floor had disappeared beneath him.
“My mother died ten years ago.”
Thomas’s recording continued.
“Alessandro’s death was not natural. Isabella ordered Dominic to arrange it.”
Julian turned away.
For the first time since Sophie met him, his control disappeared.
His father killed on his mother’s orders.
His entire family history rewritten in seconds.
Sophie stepped toward him.
“Julian.”
“Don’t.”
It was the same word she had used when she was breaking.
So she stopped.
Thomas finished:
“Isabella kept records as insurance. After her death, Dominic inherited them. He will never let them surface.”
The video ended.
Silence.
Then Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“We have a location on Thomas.”
“Where?”
Marco hesitated.
“The Romano estate.”
Julian looked up.
His childhood home.
His mother’s home.
The place where they had eaten dinner with Dominic and Vittorio.
Sophie whispered, “Why would Dominic take him there?”
Julian looked at the photograph of his mother.
May you like
“Because there’s something in that house he thinks Thomas can find.”
And somewhere inside the Romano estate, a secret waited that Julian’s own mother had been willing to kill to protect.
