Chapter 4 - The Night Aldrich Learned Why She Ran
For the first time in Aldrich Ferrante's adult life, he doubted everything he believed about his grandfather.
Cosmo had built the Ferrante organization.
Or so Aldrich had always believed.
Now Roland stood inside the hidden archive claiming Cosmo had spent decades trying to dismantle it.
“Explain.”
Roland leaned against the doorway.
“Cosmo got old.”
“That isn't an explanation.”
“No. It's the reason.”
Riona remained beside the desk.
Roland continued.
“When your grandfather was younger, he believed power solved problems. By the time he reached seventy, he'd watched enough people lose their families to understand power mostly creates new ones.”
Aldrich remembered Cosmo during his final years.
Quieter.
Less involved.
Always encouraging legitimate investments.
Hotels.
Construction.
Logistics.
Real estate.
Aldrich had assumed age had softened him.
Maybe it had redirected him.
Roland nodded toward the ledger.
“He began moving assets out of illegal operations twenty years ago. Slowly. Quietly. Into legitimate companies.”
“Why hide it from me?”
“Because Serafina opposed him.”
Aldrich's face tightened.
“My aunt?”
“Your aunt believed retreat was weakness.”
Riona interrupted.
“And I discovered the transfers.”
Roland nodded.
“Accidentally.”
Memory returned to her.
Eight years earlier, Riona had worked in compliance for one of the Ferrante logistics companies.
She had noticed irregular internal payments.
Not criminal transactions.
The opposite.
Money moving away from suspicious entities and into legitimate holdings through unusually complex paths.
She had asked questions.
Too many.
“I remember,” she whispered.
Aldrich turned toward her.
“You told me you found accounting inconsistencies.”
“Yes.”
“I told you I'd look into them.”
“You never did.”
“I asked Roland.”
Riona stared.
Roland gave a bitter smile.
“And I told Serafina.”
Aldrich's anger returned.
“You manufactured evidence.”
“I was ordered to.”
“You could've refused.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you?”
Roland met his eyes.
“Because Serafina knew what I had done years earlier.”
Silence.
“What?”
Roland looked at Riona.
“My brother owed money to people he should not have owed. I used Ferrante accounts to erase part of it. Serafina discovered it. She owned me from that moment forward.”
Riona crossed her arms.
“So you destroyed my life to protect yours.”
Roland looked down.
“Yes.”
No excuse.
No dramatic justification.
The simplicity made it worse.
Aldrich moved closer.
“You told me she had been meeting Omont contacts.”
“Fabricated.”
“The photographs?”
“Selected angles. Innocent meetings made suspicious.”
“The bank transfers?”
“Manufactured.”
Aldrich's voice became quieter.
“The messages?”
“Fragments assembled from several conversations.”
Aldrich turned away.
Riona watched him.
He gripped the edge of the desk.
Eight years.
He had spent eight years believing betrayal had driven Riona away.
Now he knew his own failure had.
“She tried to tell me.”
Roland said nothing.
Aldrich looked at Riona.
“You tried to tell me.”
“Yes.”
“And I…”
He stopped.
Riona knew what came next.
He didn't need to say it.
He had looked at her across his office and asked why he should believe her.
Not what happened?
Not help me understand.
Why should I believe you?
Riona had heard the answer inside the question.
He didn't.
Aldrich looked devastated.
“Why didn't you contact me when you discovered you were pregnant?”
The question escaped before he could stop it.
Riona's expression hardened immediately.
Roland quietly left the archive.
For once, he understood a conversation was not his to witness.
Aldrich and Riona remained.
“You want that answer now?”
“Yes.”
“You really want it?”
“Yes.”
She stepped toward him.
“I found out twenty-three days after I left.”
Aldrich closed his eyes briefly.
“I was living in a motel outside Ottawa under a name I had never used before. I bought three pregnancy tests because I thought the first was defective.”
He looked at her.
“They weren't.”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“I cried.”
Her voice broke slightly.
“Then I laughed. Then I cried again.”
Aldrich's jaw tightened.
“I was terrified, Aldrich.”
“You could have called.”
She shook her head.
“I picked up the phone.”
He stopped breathing.
“I dialed your number.”
“What happened?”
“I remembered your face.”
That hurt more than anything.
“You looked at me like I was something dirty you couldn't believe you'd touched.”
“I was angry.”
“You were certain.”
“I was wrong.”
“I know.”
Her calmness cut deeper.
“I sat in that motel bathroom with three pregnancy tests beside me and thought, If he can stop loving me because somebody put documents on a desk, what happens when our child disappoints him?”
Aldrich looked away.
“That isn't fair.”
“No.”
She nodded.
“It wasn't.”
He looked back.
“But it was what I believed.”
She continued.
“Then two days later I noticed a car following me.”
Aldrich froze.
“Serafina.”
“I didn't know who.”
“And you ran.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Months.”
“Pregnant?”
“Yes.”
He looked physically ill.
“I changed hotels. Used cash. Quit my job. Moved west. I kept thinking whoever was following me wanted to force me back here.”
Aldrich rubbed his jaw.
“And my grandfather stopped them.”
“Apparently.”
Aldrich sat.
The enormity of it settled on him.
While he had spent eight years angry at Riona for disappearing, she had been pregnant and running from people connected to his family.
“What was his birth like?”
Riona didn't answer immediately.
“Aldrich.”
“Please.”
Something in his voice changed her.
She sat across from him.
“Long.”
“Were you alone?”
“A nurse named Angela stayed past her shift.”
His eyes lowered.
“No family?”
“No.”
“What time?”
“4:18 in the morning.”
“What day?”
“May twelfth.”
Aldrich repeated it silently.
May twelfth.
A date he had lived seven times without knowing it mattered.
“Was he healthy?”
“Yes.”
“What did he weigh?”
Riona almost smiled.
“Seven pounds, nine ounces.”
“What was his first word?”
Her expression softened.
“Light.”
Aldrich looked surprised.
“He pointed at the kitchen fixture.”
“When did he walk?”
“Fourteen months.”
“Favorite food?”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“Anything containing cheese.”
Aldrich laughed.
One short sound.
Unexpected.
Riona stared.
“What?”
“I was the same.”
Her smile disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
That resemblance was not evidence she wanted.
Footsteps sounded.
Marc entered.
His expression serious.
“You both need to come upstairs.”
“What happened?” Aldrich asked.
“Serafina left.”
“So?”
“She didn't leave alone.”
Aldrich stood.
“Who?”
Marc hesitated.
“Roland.”
Riona's stomach tightened.
“When?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
Aldrich swore quietly.
Marc held up his phone.
“And security just found something.”
On the screen was camera footage.
Serafina and Roland walking toward a car.
Before getting inside, Serafina turned directly toward one of the security cameras.
Almost as if she knew Aldrich would eventually watch.
Then she held up a piece of paper.
Marc enlarged the image.
Three handwritten words.
ASK RIONA ABOUT LUCAS.
Aldrich frowned.
“Who's Lucas?”
Riona had gone completely pale.
Aldrich looked at her.
“Riona?”
She stepped backward.
“No.”
“Who's Lucas?”
Her eyes filled with something he had never seen before.
Not fear.
Guilt.
“Aldrich…”
“Who is he?”
Riona looked toward the ceiling.
Toward the room where Anel was waiting.
Then back at Aldrich.
“Lucas was your brother.”
Aldrich stopped.
“My brother died when I was twelve.”
“I know.”
“How do you know anything about Lucas?”
Riona whispered the answer.
“Because Cosmo told me what really happened to him.”
May you like
And for the second time that day, Aldrich learned that the history of his family had been built on a lie.
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