Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Sadie left the Costa estate.
Roman didn't stop her.
That hurt more than she expected.
For three years he'd secretly protected her. Then, during one impossible week, he'd become the center of every mystery surrounding her life.
Sadie needed answers from the one person who could provide them.
Her mother.
The clue inside the carnation led to an abandoned flower shop outside Manhattan.
Sadie arrived alone.
Evelyn Bennett was waiting.
Their reunion wasn't beautiful.
It was painful.
Twenty years of anger couldn't disappear with one embrace.
Evelyn explained that she had vanished because men were searching for the ledger. Staying near Sadie would have placed her daughter in danger.
Roman's father had helped fake Evelyn's death.
But before Evelyn could explain why she'd warned Sadie against Roman, headlights appeared outside.
Roman entered.
Sadie immediately confronted him.
“Did you follow me?”
“Yes.”
“I told you not to.”
“You also walked alone into an abandoned building after receiving a secret message from a woman declared dead twenty years ago.”
Sadie glared at him.
“That doesn't make following me acceptable.”
“No. It makes it necessary.”
Evelyn unexpectedly laughed.
“You haven't changed, Roman.”
Sadie looked between them.
They knew each other.
Evelyn revealed she'd returned secretly years earlier and met Roman after discovering Marcus's conspiracy.
Roman had been protecting Sadie under Evelyn's instructions.
Then why the warning?
Evelyn looked embarrassed.
“That message wasn't from me.”
The flowers had been intercepted.
Someone else had inserted the warning.
Toby had unknowingly delivered it.
Roman suddenly understood.
The ledger wasn't the target.
Sadie was.
Someone wanted her separated from Roman's protection.
And Marcus wasn't the mastermind.
The real enemy was someone Roman had trusted even more deeply.
His uncle.
Vincent Costa.
Vincent had engineered the original conspiracy twenty-five years earlier.
Now he wanted the ledger destroyed.
But Evelyn revealed one final secret.
The ledger wasn't merely evidence of crimes.
It contained proof that Vincent had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the Costa family.
Roman could expose him.
But doing so would destroy much of the empire Roman had inherited.
Roman looked at Sadie.
For years, power had been everything.
Now he had a choice.
Protect the empire.
Or protect the woman he'd spent three years pretending not to notice.
Roman burned the ledger.
Sadie screamed.
Then Roman calmly held up his phone.
“I copied every page.”
For the first time, Sadie laughed.
Roman smiled.
But the moment disappeared when Evelyn looked through the window.
A black sedan had stopped outside.
Vincent had found them.
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And he wasn't alone.
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