Chương 8
Ethan did not react with anger.
That surprised Roman.
“I was at home.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
Ethan smiled faintly.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The part where you stop being my brother.”
Roman looked away.
Because he knew exactly what Ethan meant.
Trust had become impossible between them.
Not because there was no history.
Because there was too much.
“I need facts,” Roman said.
Ethan nodded.
“I know.”
He stood.
Roman watched him carefully.
“Why?”
Ethan looked toward the window.
“Because if I lose you, I lose the last person who remembers who I was before all of this.”
Then he left.
Nobody spoke after the door closed.
Elena looked at Roman.
“You believe him?”
Roman took a long time to answer.
“I believe he believes what he said.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
He looked at the empty doorway.
“But it is more than I had yesterday.”
The investigation became harder after the driver disappeared.
The police focused more attention on Roman.
Questions arrived from reporters.
Rumors spread online.
People who had never met Roman suddenly had opinions about him.
Some believed he was a victim.
Others believed the entire attack was a performance.
The internet did what it always did.
It turned a complicated human disaster into two simple sides.
Hero.
Villain.
Nobody wanted uncertainty.
Nobody wanted the uncomfortable middle where people could be damaged and responsible at the same time.
Roman experienced something he had rarely faced.
Being powerless in public.
He could control warehouses.
He could negotiate contracts.
He could intimidate competitors.
But he could not control strangers deciding what kind of person he was.
One afternoon, I found him watching a news report in the library.
He turned it off before the segment finished.
“You should not watch that.”
“I needed to know what people were saying.”
“You already know.”
He looked at me.
“No.”
He looked tired.
“I know what they say about me when they are afraid.”
He pointed toward the television.
“I do not know what they say when they think they understand me.”
I sat in the chair across from him.
“That bothers you?”
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised me.
“Why?”
Roman looked at the dark screen.
“Because maybe they are right about some things.”
I did not answer immediately.
It was the first time I had seen him question himself without someone forcing him to.
“That does not mean they are right about everything.”
He looked at me.
“No.”
A quiet moment passed.
Then Lily ran into the room holding a stuffed rabbit with one ear missing.
“Roman.”
He looked up.
“Yes?”
“My rabbit is broken.”
Roman accepted the rabbit seriously.
Like it was a business problem requiring his full attention.
“What happened?”
“He fell.”
“From where?”
“The bed.”
Roman examined the damaged ear.
“I think he needs surgery.”
Lily’s eyes widened.
“Can you fix him?”
“I can try.”
“You fix everything.”
The words stopped him.
Because they were not true.
Not anymore.
He could not fix everything.
Maybe he never could.
But he took the rabbit anyway.
He found a sewing kit.
He sat at the table.
And for twenty minutes, Roman Hail repaired a stuffed rabbit while the world outside accused him of crimes he did not commit.
That small moment stayed with me.
Not because it proved he was a good man.
Good people could make terrible choices.
Bad people could do kind things.
It stayed with me because it showed the part of him that nobody else saw.
A man who knew how to destroy things better than he knew how to repair them.
Two days later, Elena found the first real lead.
The deleted security footage had not been completely erased.
Someone had copied it before removing the original.
The copy was hidden in an old company backup system.
The file was damaged.
Most of the footage was useless.
But one section remained.
The gate.
The morning of the crash.
Everyone gathered around the computer.
The video played.
The image was grainy.
The truck entered.
The driver looked nervous.
Marcus appeared.
Then Adrian.
Then something unexpected happened.
A fourth person arrived.
Not Ethan.
Not one of the guards.
Someone Roman recognized.
Someone who should not have been there.
“Victor Hale,” Roman said.
Elena looked at him.
“Who is that?”
Roman did not answer immediately.
Because Victor was not an enemy.
Not exactly.
He was one of the people who had helped build Roman’s companies years earlier.
A former partner.
A man who had disappeared after a public disagreement with Roman.
A man everyone believed hated him.
“When did he come back?” Elena asked.
“He did not.”
The video showed Victor handing Marcus an envelope.
Then leaving.
Roman watched the screen.
“What was in that envelope?”
Nobody knew.
But now the story had changed again.
The betrayal was larger than Marcus.
Larger than Adrian.
Larger than Ethan.
Someone else had been moving pieces.
Someone who understood Roman’s past.
Someone who knew exactly which wounds to press.
That night, Roman received a message from an unknown number.
One sentence.
No explanation.
No threat.
Just a warning.
Stop looking for the driver.
Roman stared at the screen.
Then another message arrived.
This one contained a photograph.
A photograph of Lily leaving the estate with me earlier that day.
Roman’s face changed.
The person behind this was no longer trying to destroy him.
They were trying to remind him what he could lose.
He walked immediately to the security office.
The remaining guards stood when he entered.
Nobody spoke.
Roman held up the phone.
“I want every camera checked.”
A guard looked nervous.
“Mr. Hail, we already—”
“Every camera.”
The room went quiet.
His voice was not loud.
It did not need to be.
But something had changed.
Not the old fear.
Something different.
A warning.
Roman was no longer fighting to protect his empire.
May you like
He was fighting to protect the one part of his life that had nothing to do with power.
And whoever was behind this had just made the mistake of showing him exactly where to look.
