Chapter 1 - The Name She Was Afraid to Say
“Victor.”
The name left Elena’s lips so softly that Roman almost convinced himself he had misunderstood.
He had not.
Victor Solerno.
The man who had taught Roman how to drive when Roman was fourteen.
The man who had stood beside his father’s coffin.
The man who had dragged Roman out of a burning restaurant during the war with the Moretti family twelve years earlier.
The man Roman’s children would have called Uncle Victor if Roman and Elena ever had children.
Roman stared at her.
“Say it again.”
Elena swallowed.
“Victor.”
Around them, the ballroom was still chaos.
Emergency lights painted the walls a dull red. Guests crouched behind tables. Roman’s security detail moved through corridors and stairwells while Matteo shouted orders into an earpiece.
But Roman heard almost none of it.
He was looking at his wife.
At her blood-covered hands.
At the fear she had tried so hard to hide.
“What did Victor do?”
Elena shook her head.
“You have to get everyone out.”
“I asked you a question.”
“And I’m telling you there are more important things happening.”
“Nothing is more important than finding out who just fired at my wife.”
“They weren’t firing at me.”
Roman’s expression changed.
Elena looked toward the upper gallery.
“They were firing at you.”
Matteo stepped closer.
“Boss.”
Roman did not turn.
“What?”
“West corridor is clear. Service door was jammed from the outside. We found one injured guard near the stairwell.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Victor?”
“Missing.”
Roman finally looked at him.
Matteo’s face had lost all color.
That frightened Roman more than anything else.
Matteo had been beside him for seventeen years. He had seen buildings burn, men betray one another, alliances collapse before breakfast.
He did not scare easily.
“What else?”
Matteo hesitated.
“Marco found someone upstairs.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Roman saw it.
“You knew.”
She whispered, “Yes.”
“Who?”
Matteo answered.
“Dr. Adrian Vale.”
Roman frowned.
The name meant nothing.
“Who the hell is Adrian Vale?”
Elena’s knees nearly gave out.
Roman caught her.
“Easy.”
She pulled away.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I said I’m fine.”
Roman lowered his voice.
“Elena.”
Something in his tone broke through her defenses.
She looked up.
“Adrian was my brother’s doctor.”
Roman stared.
Elena had one brother.
Nico Marini.
Twenty-nine.
Officially dead four years.
Drug overdose.
Roman knew because the Marini debt that eventually tied Elena’s family to the Duca organization had begun after Nico died.
Her father borrowed heavily.
Then gambled.
Then borrowed more.
Eventually Roman had absorbed the debt.
Eight months earlier, Elena had married him.
At least that was the story.
But now Roman looked at her as though seeing the edges of something much larger.
“Your brother had a doctor?”
“He was trying to get clean.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“You told me Nico died alone.”
“That’s what I believed.”
“Believed?”
Elena looked toward the stairs.
“Adrian contacted me six weeks ago.”
Roman said nothing.
“He said Nico didn’t overdose by accident.”
Matteo muttered something under his breath.
Roman ignored him.
“What did he say happened?”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“He said someone gave Nico a contaminated supply intentionally.”
Roman became still.
“Why?”
“Because Nico had seen something.”
“What?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Until tonight?”
She nodded.
Roman glanced toward the staircase.
“The blood.”
Elena looked at her hands.
“It’s Adrian’s.”
“Then he isn’t dead?”
Her expression collapsed.
“He was when I left him.”
Roman gripped her shoulders.
“What happened upstairs?”
Elena stared at him.
For eight months she had slept beside him.
Eaten at his table.
Read quietly in his study while he worked.
Argued with him about his habit of leaving coffee cups everywhere.
Yet at this moment, Roman felt as though a wall existed between them that he had never noticed.
“Elena.”
She finally spoke.
“Adrian asked me to meet him here tonight.”
“At my house?”
“This isn’t your house.”
Roman almost smiled despite the circumstances.
The ballroom belonged to the Bellavita Hotel.
A neutral location used for charity events, weddings, and the occasional meeting between people who did not officially know each other.
“Why here?”
“Because Victor would be here.”
Roman’s blood chilled again.
“What did Adrian have?”
“A drive.”
“Evidence?”
“Yes.”
“Of what?”
Elena shook her head.
“I never saw it.”
“Why?”
“Because someone reached him first.”
She described the scene.
She had slipped upstairs during dinner.
Adrian was waiting in a private office.
Terrified.
He barely had time to say Nico’s death had been connected to a shipment Victor arranged four years earlier.
Then the door opened.
A masked man entered.
There was a struggle.
Adrian was stabbed.
Elena tried to stop the bleeding.
That was the blood.
Not murder.
Not revenge.
An attempt to save a dying man.
Roman’s shoulders loosened by one fraction.
“Did Adrian say anything before he died?”
Elena nodded.
“Two words.”
“What?”
“Blue ledger.”
Roman’s face changed.
Matteo saw it.
“Boss?”
Roman ignored him.
Elena noticed.
“You know what that means.”
Roman released her.
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“I said no.”
She stepped closer.
“You asked me to trust you.”
“This isn’t the time.”
“It became the time when somebody murdered a man ten yards above your party.”
Roman looked around.
People were being evacuated through a side entrance now.
His men had regained control.
Police would eventually arrive.
Official explanations would be required.
The underworld had one version of events.
Law enforcement another.
But Roman was beginning to realize he might not understand either.
“Roman.”
He looked at Elena.
“What is the blue ledger?”
He had heard the phrase once.
Twenty years earlier.
From his father.
Giovanni Duca had kept a private set of records separate from the organization’s ordinary accounts.
Not merely financial transactions.
Names.
Payments.
Politicians.
Judges.
Police.
Businessmen.
Men who owed favors.
Men who had taken money.
Men who had ordered violence while keeping their own hands clean.
Giovanni called it insurance.
After his murder, the ledger disappeared.
Victor told Roman it had been destroyed.
Roman had believed him.
Until now.
Matteo’s radio crackled.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We found the roof access open.”
Roman looked toward the ceiling.
Victor was gone.
Maybe.
Then another guard approached carrying something in a transparent evidence pouch.
A small silver flash drive.
“Found beneath the dead man’s hand.”
Elena gasped.
Roman looked at her.
“Is that Adrian’s?”
“I think so.”
Matteo reached for it.
Roman stopped him.
“No.”
Matteo looked surprised.
Roman took the drive himself.
Then a voice came from the other side of the ballroom.
“Roman.”
Everyone turned.
An elderly man stood near the service entrance.
Dominic Fazio.
Victor’s driver.
For thirty-two years.
Roman had known him since childhood.
Dominic’s shirt was soaked with blood near the ribs.
He stumbled.
Roman rushed forward and caught him before he fell.
“Dominic.”
The old man grabbed Roman’s lapel.
“Victor…”
“I know.”
“No.”
Dominic shook his head violently.
“You don’t.”
“What?”
“He didn’t leave.”
Roman froze.
“Where is he?”
Dominic pointed downward.
Not toward the doors.
Toward the floor.
“The old wine tunnels.”
The Bellavita had been built over a Prohibition-era network connecting several buildings beneath the block.
Roman knew about them.
Victor knew them better.
Dominic coughed.
“He brought men in before dinner.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why?”
Dominic looked toward Elena.
Then back at Roman.
“He wasn’t trying to kill you tonight.”
Roman frowned.
“What?”
“He wanted everyone to think he was.”
Elena whispered, “Then who was the target?”
Dominic stared directly at her.
“You.”
Roman’s entire body changed.
The room seemed to feel it.
Matteo stepped back.
Dominic continued.
“Victor knew Adrian contacted her.”
Roman looked at Elena.
She went pale.
“He knew?”
“Yes.”
“He wanted the drive?”
“No.”
Dominic’s grip tightened.
“He wanted her dead before she could tell you why Nico really died.”
Roman’s voice became almost inaudible.
“Tell me.”
Dominic looked afraid.
Not of Roman.
Of the answer.
“Nico didn’t stumble onto Victor’s secret.”
He coughed again.
“He stumbled onto yours.”
Roman froze.
Elena stared at him.
“My husband’s?”
Dominic shook his head.
“No.”
Then he looked at Roman.
“Your father’s.”
Before Roman could ask another question, Dominic’s eyes rolled back.
His body went limp.
Matteo called for a medic.
Roman stood slowly.
Elena looked at him.
“What did your father do?”
Roman had no answer.
Because suddenly he remembered something he had spent twenty years forcing himself to forget.
The night Giovanni Duca died, Victor arrived at Roman’s house before the police.
Before the ambulance.
Before anyone should have known.
Victor had been carrying Giovanni’s blue leather notebook.
Roman had asked what it was.
Victor told him:
“Nothing you ever need to worry about.”
At twenty-two, Roman trusted him.
At forty-two, standing in a ballroom stained with Adrian Vale’s blood, Roman finally understood how expensive that trust might have been.
He turned to Matteo.
“Get Elena out.”
She stepped back.
“No.”
“This isn’t a discussion.”
“It is when Victor wants me dead.”
“That is exactly why you’re leaving.”
“With who?”
Roman opened his mouth.
Then stopped.
Someone he trusted had allowed armed men into the building.
Someone had tampered with exits.
Someone had known Elena’s movements.
Maybe Victor.
Maybe not only Victor.
Elena saw the uncertainty.
She said quietly:
“You don’t know who you can trust.”
Roman looked around at men who had served him for years.
Then at his wife.
Blood still covered her hands.
And for the first time since inheriting the Duca empire, Roman realized the safest person in the room might be the woman everyone believed he had married as collateral.
He took off his jacket and wrapped it around Elena’s shoulders.
“You stay with me.”
Matteo nodded.
Then the ballroom floor shook.
A dull explosion sounded beneath them.
Not large.
But close.
Roman looked toward the cellar entrance.
Victor was destroying something.
Evidence.
The tunnels.
Or a way out.
Roman took Elena’s hand.
“We’re going downstairs.”
Her eyes widened.
“You just told me—”
“I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
Roman looked at the blood on her fingers.
“Because everyone in this family has been deciding what you’re allowed to know.”
His grip tightened.
“That ends tonight.”
May you like
Together, they walked toward the darkness beneath the ballroom.
And somewhere below them, Victor Solerno was waiting with twenty years of secrets and one truth powerful enough to destroy the Duca family from the inside.
