Chương 11
“With whoever is in the SUV?”
Vincent looked at the tinted passenger window.
“Yes.”
“Who is it?”
“Open the gate.”
“Name.”
A long pause.
Then Vincent said, “Daniel Cross.”
Roman’s hand went cold.
Behind him, the office phone started ringing.
He ignored it.
“You’re telling me Daniel is alive.”
“I’m telling you to open the gate before somebody panics.”
“Who?”
Vincent gave a small laugh without humor.
“Everybody.”
Roman looked at the SUV.
“Why did Sabrina tell me he was dead?”
“That’s a longer conversation.”
“Make it shorter.”
“She needed him dead.”
“Why?”
“Because your father did.”
Roman stared at Vincent through the monitor.
The office phone stopped ringing.
Then started again.
“What does my father have to do with this?”
“Everything.”
Vincent looked over his shoulder.
“Roman, open the gate.”
“No.”
“Then come outside.”
“No.”
“You think I brought him here to hurt you?”
“I don’t know what you brought.”
Vincent’s voice sharpened.
“I’ve worked for your family for twenty-six years.”
“That argument stopped being useful tonight.”
Vincent went quiet.
Roman continued.
“Elena found transfers you approved.”
“I know.”
“Sabrina’s name was attached.”
“I know.”
“My credentials were used.”
“I know.”
The ease of those answers was worse than denial.
Roman gripped the phone.
“How much have you known?”
“Enough to know Elena was in trouble before you threw her out.”
Roman’s face hardened.
“Choose your words carefully.”
“No.”
Vincent turned toward the gate camera again.
“You want careful now?”
Roman heard his own breathing.
Vincent continued.
“I tried careful with your father.”
“I’m not him.”
“You keep saying that with his house around you and his people on your payroll.”
Roman said nothing.
Vincent’s voice lowered.
“Elena found something Anthony spent fifteen years burying.”
“The ledger pages.”
“Yes.”
“What’s on them?”
“Proof that your father used one of his freight companies to move money for people who were not supposed to exist in his legitimate books.”
“That’s not exactly shocking.”
“Not just money.”
Roman looked at the black SUV.
“What else?”
Vincent glanced toward it.
“Payments.”
“To whom?”
“Judges.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“Cops.”
Vincent paused.
“Witnesses.”
Roman’s grip on the phone changed.
“For Gabriel’s case?”
“One of them.”
Roman turned away from the monitor.
His younger brother had died seven years earlier after spending most of his adult life believing he had escaped their father’s shadow.
Now even Gabriel’s vanished arrest had become another piece of it.
“What did Daniel see?”
“He caught the wrong invoice.”
“What invoice?”
“A settlement payment that wasn’t a settlement.”
Roman walked back to his desk.
“Who received it?”
“I don’t know the real name.”
“Bullshit.”
“I knew the account, not the person.”
Vincent’s voice tightened.
“Anthony compartmentalized everything.”
“Daniel copied the ledger.”
“Some of it.”
“Then what?”
“Your father accused him of theft.”
“That part was real.”
“Yes.”
“How convenient.”
“It wasn’t invented.”
“Was the lawsuit?”
“No.”
Roman looked at Elena’s letter.
“Why wasn’t there a criminal case?”
Vincent exhaled.
“Because Daniel threatened to go public with the ledger copies.”
Roman sat down slowly.
“So my father bought him off.”
“No.”
Vincent’s answer came too quickly.
“He tried.”
“What happened?”
“Daniel disappeared.”
Roman looked at the SUV again.
“He didn’t disappear.”
“He did from everyone who mattered.”
“Except Sabrina.”
Vincent did not answer.
Roman’s pulse slowed.
Not because he was calmer.
Because another shape was emerging.
“She helped him.”
“Yes.”
“She told people he died.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if Anthony believed Daniel was dead, he stopped looking.”
Roman leaned back.
“And four years ago?”
“That story was for you.”
Roman stared at the ceiling for a second.
Sabrina had introduced Daniel’s supposed death four years ago because Roman had asked why she suddenly needed money and time away.
He had sent flowers.
He had held her while she cried.
The humiliation was almost secondary to the realization that the tears might have been real.
Not grief.
Fear.
“Why is Daniel here now?”
Vincent looked toward the SUV.
“Because Elena found the remaining pages.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“You knew she was looking.”
“Not at first.”
“When did you find out?”
“When she asked me about the Baltimore reconciliation.”
Roman’s voice dropped.
“And you told her Sabrina approved it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was scared.”
“Of Sabrina?”
“Of what Elena had already found.”
Roman stood.
“You could have come to me.”
Vincent laughed.
“You?”
The single word carried years.
Roman said nothing.
Vincent continued.
“You were sleeping with Sabrina.”
“I wasn’t sleeping with her.”
“Do you think that distinction mattered to Elena?”
Roman’s mouth tightened.
“Do you think it mattered to anyone who needed access to you?”
The words landed harder.
Vincent looked through the gate.
“Sabrina didn’t have to own your bed.”
“She only had to own your attention.”
Roman stared at him.
“Why the fake transfers?”
“To test access.”
“To what?”
“Your credentials.”
“Why?”
“To see whether Anthony’s old network still had pathways into the companies.”
Roman frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if you know someone else was using them first.”
Roman went still.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because sometimes people genuinely don’t know things, Roman.”
Vincent’s frustration cracked through.
“Your father left systems inside systems.”
“People thought they were dead.”
“They weren’t.”
“The transfers were bait?”
“Yes.”
“Elena saw the bait.”
“Yes.”
“And Sabrina’s initials?”
“She used them deliberately.”
Roman stared at the monitor.
“So Sabrina was investigating.”
“Yes.”
“And lying to me.”
“Yes.”
“Both can be true.”
Vincent gave him a tired look through the camera.
“Welcome to adulthood.”
Roman almost hung up.
Instead he said, “Why was she looking for the Baltic contracts?”
“Because one appendix contains names connected to the old freight consortium.”
“I know.”
“One of them matches an alias from the ledger.”
Roman’s hand tightened.
“Whose alias?”
“That’s why Daniel came.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No.”
Vincent looked toward the SUV.
“He needs to.”
Roman glanced at the locked gate controls.
He did not trust Vincent.
May you like
He did not trust Sabrina.
He did not trust Daniel Cross, a dead man sitting in a rental SUV outside his house.
