Chapter 3 - The Wife He Never Bought
Sister Teresa refused to let anyone discuss murder in the chapel.
“The Lord already has enough complaints,” she said.
So they gathered in a small dining room instead.
Roman sat opposite Elena.
Distance between them.
Not because he doubted she had saved him.
Because he now knew she had entered his marriage carrying a secret motive.
Elena seemed to understand.
Teresa brought coffee.
Then stared at Elena's hands.
“Wash.”
Elena looked down as if noticing the dried blood for the first time.
She went to the sink.
Roman watched red disappear into clear water.
Adrian Vale's blood.
A man Roman had never met had died trying to expose a truth Roman should have discovered decades earlier.
Elena returned.
No blood now.
Yet Roman could still see it.
Teresa looked at him.
“Open the drive.”
Matteo had brought an offline laptop.
He inserted it.
Password request.
Elena said:
“Nico's birthday.”
It failed.
“Adrian's?”
Failed.
Roman stared.
“Your wedding date.”
Elena looked at him.
“What?”
“Try it.”
She did.
The drive opened.
Roman's expression hardened.
Adrian expected Elena to be married to Roman when she accessed it.
Inside were scans.
Audio.
Old photographs.
Financial records.
And one video.
Adrian's face appeared.
Recorded two days earlier.
“If Elena is watching this, I am either dead or too frightened to deliver it personally.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Adrian continued.
“Nico Marini did not die because he was using again.”
A laboratory report appeared.
“Nico had been clean. The substance that killed him was introduced into a drink after he witnessed a meeting at Pier 44.”
Elena cried silently.
Roman looked away.
Adrian:
“The meeting involved Victor Solerno and members of the late Giovanni Duca's organization. Nico recorded part of it accidentally because he'd been using his phone to film a shipment dispute for his employer.”
Audio played.
Victor's voice.
Then another man's.
Roman recognized both.
Victor.
And Detective Anthony Russo.
A retired NYPD detective who had testified years earlier about Giovanni's murder investigation.
Victor said:
Moretti takes the blame. Roman will do the rest.
Roman froze.
The second voice laughed.
Kid worships you.
Victor:
The kid worships his father. I'm simply telling him who to hate.
Roman stood so quickly the chair crashed backward.
Elena flinched.
Matteo stared at the screen.
Teresa closed her eyes.
Roman turned away.
He felt twenty-two again.
Standing over his father's body.
Victor's hand on his shoulder.
Carlo Moretti did this.
Roman had believed.
Then killed.
Not Carlo personally.
But Roman had ordered retaliation against Moretti businesses.
Men were hurt.
Some died.
Families were destroyed.
Victor had pointed.
Roman had fired the machinery.
Elena approached.
“Roman.”
“Don't.”
She stopped.
He breathed hard.
“How long did you know?”
“About this recording? Tonight.”
“About Nico?”
“Six weeks.”
“About the possibility Victor betrayed my father?”
“Adrian suggested it. He didn't have proof.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I didn't know if you'd believe me.”
“You married me.”
“I know.”
“You lived in my house.”
“I know.”
“You could have told me.”
“And if Victor was sitting beside you when I did?”
Roman turned.
That shut him up.
Elena continued.
“He came to dinner twice a week.”
“I trusted him.”
“Exactly.”
“If you'd told me—”
“You might have confronted him.”
Roman knew she was right.
“And then Adrian would have died sooner. Maybe I would have too.”
Her voice shook.
“I didn't know who around you belonged to Victor.”
Roman looked toward Matteo.
Elena noticed.
“I wasn't accusing Matteo.”
“But you wondered.”
“I wondered about everyone.”
Matteo nodded once.
“Reasonable.”
Roman looked at him.
“You're not offended?”
“I am deeply offended.”
Elena almost smiled.
Matteo continued.
“Still reasonable.”
Teresa interrupted.
“Before the two of you destroy your marriage while an actual traitor is trying to kill you, perhaps finish watching.”
Roman sat.
The video continued.
Adrian explained Nico had copied part of the recording before Victor's people took his phone.
Nico told Adrian.
Adrian urged him to go to police.
Nico refused.
He believed some officers were compromised.
Three days later, he died.
Adrian spent years gathering proof.
Why wait four years?
Fear.
He had a wife.
A child.
Career.
People always ask why witnesses wait as if courage exists outside consequences.
Then came something worse.
A spreadsheet.
Payments from Victor-controlled companies to people inside Roman's organization.
Names.
Several current.
One was Roman's security coordinator.
Another accountant.
Another driver.
Not Matteo.
Matteo exhaled.
“I'm touched.”
Roman ignored him.
Then the final file.
A scan of Giovanni Duca's handwritten letter.
Addressed to Roman.
Never delivered.
Roman, if anything happens to me, do not retaliate until you know who benefited. Victor will tell you anger is strength. It is not. Anger without truth is simply another man's weapon.
Roman stopped reading.
His father had known.
Maybe suspected.
And Victor had hidden the letter.
Teresa said:
“I had a copy.”
Roman stared.
“What?”
“I found it after Giovanni died.”
“Why didn't you give it to me?”
“I tried.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
She looked him directly in the eyes.
“You were twenty-two, surrounded by Victor's men, drunk on grief, and already ordering retaliation.”
Roman remembered Teresa coming to his house.
He remembered shouting at her.
Telling her she never understood family.
She had left.
“I told you Victor was lying.”
Roman's throat tightened.
“You didn't show me this.”
“I couldn't.”
“Why?”
“Victor searched my apartment two days later.”
Roman stared.
“I sent the copy to a priest in Montreal.”
“Why didn't you tell me later?”
“Because by then you had become what Victor needed.”
The words cut.
“What?”
“A man powerful enough to protect his empire and angry enough not to question its foundation.”
Roman looked away.
Teresa softened.
“I am sorry.”
“For what?”
“For giving up on you too soon.”
Silence.
Elena reached toward Roman.
This time he let her touch his hand.
Barely.
Then she whispered:
“I didn't marry you only because of Nico.”
Roman looked at her.
“Then why?”
“My father did owe you money.”
“Yes.”
“When you came to our house, I expected a threat.”
Roman remembered.
Elena standing in her father's kitchen.
Back straight.
No fear visible.
Roman had told her father the debt would be frozen while they worked out repayment.
Then Elena unexpectedly offered marriage.
Roman had thought it ridiculous.
Then useful.
A public alliance between families.
Protection for her father.
Respectability for Roman.
But he had never forced her.
“What changed?” he asked.
“You said no.”
Roman frowned.
“To marrying you.”
“Yes.”
She smiled sadly.
“You said, ‘I don't collect women as payment.’”
Roman remembered.
She continued.
“That was the first reason I thought Adrian might be wrong about you.”
Roman stared.
“You proposed again.”
“Three weeks later.”
“Why?”
“Because I'd learned Victor visited your house constantly.”
“So you used me.”
“At first.”
He looked away.
Elena tightened her fingers around his.
“But then you never touched me without asking.”
Roman's eyes returned to hers.
“You gave me my own account.”
“Yes.”
“You paid my father's debt but never told me I owed you.”
“You didn't.”
“You let me keep working at the gallery.”
“Why wouldn't I?”
“Do you understand how low the bar was?”
Roman almost laughed.
She continued.
“I kept waiting for the monster everybody described.”
“Did you find him?”
Elena's eyes filled.
“Parts.”
He deserved that.
“And?”
“Parts of a man who didn't know how tired he was.”
Roman said nothing.
Then she finally answered the question he asked in the taxi.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“I love you.”
It was the first time she had said it.
Eight months of marriage.
First time.
Roman stared.
“Terrible timing.”
“I've noticed.”
He almost smiled.
Then:
“Do you expect me to say it back?”
“No.”
Good answer.
Because love offered as debt wasn't love.
Roman lifted her hand.
Kissed her knuckles.
Not forgiveness.
Not complete trust.
Something smaller.
A beginning.
Then Matteo's phone rang.
He listened.
His face changed.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Victor just sent a message to every captain.”
Roman's stomach tightened.
“What does it say?”
Matteo turned the phone.
ROMAN DUCA HAS LOST CONTROL. HIS WIFE MURDERED ADRIAN VALE. ROMAN IS HIDING HER AND PREPARING TO BLAME LOYAL MEN FOR HIS FAILURE.
Below it:
A photograph of Elena beside Adrian's body.
Blood on her hands.
Perfect angle.
No context.
Victor had transformed rescue into murder.
And in Roman's world, perception could become truth faster than evidence.
Matteo said:
“He's calling a council meeting at sunrise.”
Roman looked at the clock.
4:38 a.m.
Less than two hours.
“If you don't appear,” Matteo continued, “he'll claim leadership.”
Elena said:
“And if you do?”
Matteo answered:
“Victor may have enough men inside the organization to kill him in the room.”
Roman stood.
Teresa said:
“Don't.”
He looked at his aunt.
“I'm going.”
Elena rose.
“So am I.”
“No.”
“Roman.”
“No.”
She stared at him.
Then smiled faintly.
“You're doing it again.”
“What?”
“Protecting me by deciding.”
Roman closed his eyes.
Damn her.
He opened them.
“Fine.”
Matteo blinked.
“That was fast.”
Roman looked at his wife.
“If you come, you stay beside me.”
Elena nodded.
“Not behind?”
Roman almost smiled.
“Beside.”
At sunrise, Roman Duca would walk into a room full of men who no longer knew whether to trust him.
May you like
Beside him would be the wife Victor had framed as a murderer.
And in Roman's pocket would be the voice of a dead man proving that the empire had been built on a lie.
